Friday, November 14, 2014

Castration Anxiety in The Thing

Blog Post #4: Theory
The Thing
Maureen O’Donnell

When describing the phenomenon of castration anxiety, many film critics would state that it is the fear of the destruction of a male character’s masculinity by stripping him of his phallic power, usually with a phallic object. This fear from the male character(s) is usually shown towards a female character(s) who threaten the male masculinity and superiority. In the film The Thing, John Carpenter breaks from the norm and shows that in an isolated and military setting men can demonstrate the castration anxiety towards other men when it threatens their own masculinity and power. Even though the movie incorporates several instances of vaginal imagery for the thing, most of the castration anxiety is directed towards the other male crewmembers rather than the creature itself. The imagery of female genitalia that appears during the creature's transformations onsets the notion of potential castration within the men as it invokes thoughts of "woman" and "female." This instigates the fear that "woman could castrate him both physically and in a sense physically" (Creed, 6). And since there is no direct "woman" to castrate the men in either sense, they envision each other as potential sources of castration. The tension in the film relies on the suspicion of the other human males rather than the somewhat female gendered alien creature.

The images of castration are quite clear as the crewmembers man different phallic weapons in order to protect themselves from each other. MacReady utilizes a flamethrower in order to protect himself as the others turn against him, Windows looses his senses for a while and arms himself with a gun, and it is shown that one of the crewmembers grabs a sharp scalpel that he was ready to strike MacReady down with. The men use phallic weaponry in order to dominate over the other men and ensure the safety of their masculinity. The weapons play dual roles in the movie as potential castration instruments and protection from the castration.  

One important instance that shows the link between phallic weaponry, masculinity, power, and the castration anxiety is with Garry. In the very beginning of the film, Garry is portrayed as a man with great masculine power within the group as he is the one who is introduced into the story by shooting and killing a man with his own gun. This establishes him as an authority figure with superiority. But as the movie progresses, there is a shift in Garry’s role. As the men begin to suspect each other, they see Garry as a threat to themselves as Garry is the only one who owns his own personal gun. Garry relinquishes his weapon for the sake of the others, and from then on out he loses his status as an authority figure and as a source of potential castration for the other men. MacReady gains dominance through his flamethrower and shows just how much power Garry has lost by tying him to a couch and leaving him completely defenseless as a character. Garry is no longer seen as a potential enemy to MacReady like the other human men and can play the roll as an “underling” to MacReady when there are only three of them left by the end of the movie.

The alien as simply the alien itself in its true form does not become the main source of castration anxiety up until the end of the movie. The male crew members are the main source of the fear throughout the majority of the film. The paranoia that the suspense of the film relies on comes from the fear of other men, whether they are human or not, rather than the alien or a female.


Work Cited
Creed, Barbara. "The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis." (1993): 1-15. Print. 

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