Philosophy
Picture credits: Gemini AI
The consistent turn to supernatural female power across these narratives suggests something profound about perceived limits on living women’s agency. Death becomes liberation- literally. Only by transcending earthly constraints can female characters achieve the power to confront their oppressors directly.
This pattern reflects what feminist theorist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui calls the “politics of the impossible”- marginalised groups imagining power through supernatural or mythical means because realistic paths to empowerment seem blocked. When Stree forces men to experience spatial restrictions typically imposed on women, or when Roohi chooses “her own ghostly female alter ego as her companion” rather than submitting to forced marriage, these films articulate desires for agency that feel impossible within existing social structures.
Cultural Specificity and Universal Patterns
Chakraborty’s global survey reveals how different cultural contexts shape these supernatural feminist fantasies. Indian horror-comedies like Stree draw on goddess traditions where feminine divine power is both protective and destructive. American films like Jennifer’s Body emerge from different cultural anxieties around female sexuality and high school hierarchies.
Yet the underlying pattern remains consistent: supernatural female power as a response to systemic male violence. This suggests that we are witnessing not just entertainment trends, but a global cultural unconscious processing the inadequacy of existing justice mechanisms for gendered violence.
The Containment Question
However, we must ask: Does celebrating supernatural female empowerment actually constrain our political imagination? By locating effective female agency in the realm of fantasy, do these films inadvertently suggest that such power is impossible in reality?
Chakraborty quotes Ginger Snaps: “No one ever thinks chicks do sh*t like this… We’ll just coast on how the world works.” The werewolf heroine recognises that female violence is unthinkable within existing categories. But rather than challenging those categories, horror-comedy might reinforce them by making female power literally monstrous.
🎬 Film Challenge: Think of a recent film where a woman gains power through entirely realistic means- no supernatural elements. How does her path to empowerment compare to the ghost/monster narratives? What does this comparison reveal about our understanding of female agency?