The Woman in American Horror Story TV Series: the Peculiarities of the Image Construction

The given paper is intended to cover the representation of women's images in modern horror, namely the television series “American Horror Story”. The problem of the research is based on the assumption of the television show combining in its depictions of females two narratives which in horror are considered as opposite - the patriarchal and the feminist narratives. The objective of the study is to analyze the images of women and the methods of their construction in the chosen TV show, to define their narratives and compare them among selected heroines. To achieve the goal, the analysis of content, comparative and semiotic analysis have been used. The appearances, attributes and arcs of characters, key dialogues and scenes have been investigated and compared to each other. Multiple theories developed by researchers in gender and film studies, including the ideas of the "monstrous feminine" by Barbara Creed, the “Final girl” by Carol J Clover, the male gaze by Laura Mulvey and the theory of abjection by Julia Kristeva, have been applied to the analysis to highlight the stereotypical images of women in horror movies. The results anticipated will demonstrate the ambiguity of the characterization in “AHS”. It could provide a broader theoretical basis to the research of a variety of other popular media products.