{"id":1954,"date":"2018-09-13T22:34:37","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T02:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2018-09-13T22:34:37","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T02:34:37","slug":"twisted-sisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/13\/twisted-sisters\/","title":{"rendered":"Twisted Sisters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sex sells, particularly when it comes with a side order of subversion. It’s no surprise, then, to find that recently released The Nun<\/em> (2018) has attracted a little more press attention than is the norm for a schlocky horror film. The movie bids fair to tick off a lot of boxes in the “nunsploitation” sub-genre of horror: beautiful young nuns, a remote and gloomily Gothic convent, blood spitting, demonic possession. You know, the usual.<\/p>\n

Syfy took a look at the history of evil nuns on film<\/a> from the silent movie period onwards, and touched on the involvement of female religious with some real life atrocities like\u00a0those committed over the course of many decades at the home for unmarried mothers run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam<\/a>, Ireland. The New York Times<\/em> broke down the techniques the director<\/a> used to scare the audience in one particular scene. Even NPR got in on the fun<\/a>, exploring how the evil nun is “one of the scariest and blood-chilling [sic<\/em>] of horror tropes that has tormented moviegoers, television viewers and even readers of literary fiction for centuries.”<\/p>\n

But what most of these takes omitted (or even in the case of NPR, bungled just a bit) is the long history of how the trope of the evil or immoral nun has been used as a cudgel with which to beat religious women. People feared, lampooned, and slandered nuns long before the thirteenth century\u2014and long after\u2014in part because of a engrained misogyny which continues to shape how we view the past. Other historians noted the same thing.<\/p>\n

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Uh, NPR? “Scholars trace the trope to the 13th century. Geoffrey Chaucer’s CT shocked & titillated readers with Madame Eglantine, a fat, hypocritical & corrupt nun…she was the first nun \u2014 supposedly pure, innocent and holy \u2014 to be turned on her head.” https:\/\/t.co\/N0decRyjwh<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Kathleen E. Kennedy (@TheMedievalDrK) September 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n