Like a monstrous jigsaw: Genetics, evolution and the body in the horror films of the 1950s

In the model of embodiment articulated by genetics and evolutionary biology in the 1950s, the body---or more so, the white, male, straight, American body---becomes a stranger that may rebel without warning. Scientific discourse presents genes as determining identity itself, creating what I call the "somatic unconscious," the sense of an interior dimension within the body that controls visible form. Hidden within the somatic unconscious are negative genes---often called "black genes" by the popular press of the time---that may strike an individual, even if the individual appears healthy. Evolutionary science is implicated with genetics in this corporeal model, but the ideologically charged dichotomy of the "healthy" and the "defective" is replaced with the equally problematic pairing of the "civilized" and the "primitive." In this dissertation, I explore how 1950s geno-evolutionary discourse shapes the construction of corporeal identity, and how tensions inherent in this formation find expression in the essentially unsettled and potentially transgressive corporeality of the monsters featured in the horror films of the decade. Through close readings of key films, I examine the effect of geno-evolutionary white male body and the manner in which hybridity functions to simultaneously challenge and reinforce dominant power structures. Chapter One focuses on the continued influence of eugenic philosophy on genetic theory and how the horror films of the 1950s attempt to reassert the purity of the white, male body. Chapter Two shifts the focus to evolution to explore the interconnection between gender and race within evolutionary discourse. Chapter Three continues this discussion but includes issues of sexual orientation, particularly the vexed position of the lesbian within the evolutionary scheme. Chapter Four looks at the role of genetics in defining the "American" body and the interplay between the individual and the larger gene pool within the context of the Cold War and early forms of globalization. In the afterword, I discuss the dangers of genetic determinism and argue that the horror films of the 1950s complicate the corporeal norm and ontological certainty necessary to maintain hierarchies based on bodily difference.