- Compare and contrast Kelsey in “Boobs” to Ginger in Ginger Snaps. How does each girl as a werewolf embody negative cultural stereotypes about women? How might the trope of the werewolf in each narrative be used to represent female freedom and power?
It’s clear that gender roles and stereotypes are engrained in children’s lives from a young age, but it’s also clear that young people are struggling to fit in with society’s expectations of them.
Women are culturally viewed as weak and powerless. Adolescence is treated differently between boys and girls. While the male protagonists emerge from adolescence with adult senses of self that are grounded in the expectation that they will eventually have a great deal of autonomy, the female protagonists face a more complicated situation. Females must fight against cultural and institutional expectations, which deprive them of the agency.
Ginger Snaps mirrors the status quo of contemporary culture where the patriarchal notion of the female monster who is a threat and who must be destroyed is reinforced. “Boobs” (1989) works to subvert the traditional paradigm. Unlike Ginger, Kelsey, the protagonist of “Boobs,” survives and celebrates her monstrosity. In “Boobs,” female sexuality is not punished as truly monstrous deviance, but instead, monstrosity is portrayed as a reward. Monstrosity is seen as a liberating removal from the constrictions of the society, and becoming a monster is a valuable strategy to someone who might otherwise be powerless. Blood and monstrosity become positive signifiers of power. Based on Unlike Ginger, who is transformed into a werewolf against her will, Kelsey controls her transformations. Kelsey, the first girl in her class to get “Female curves,” is harassed by her classmate Billy, who taunts her with the title epithet and with a hit that breaks her nose. Kelsey’s stepmother Hilda gives her daughter the following advice: “I’m sorry about this, honey, but really, you have to learn it sometime. You’re all growing up, and the boys are getting stronger than you will ever be. If you fight with boys, you are bound to get hurt. You have to find other ways to handle them” (19). Hilda’s advice demonstrates society’s perception of women as inferior. Kelsey, as a werewolf, represents an empowered woman. As in Ginger Snap, the cliched association “full moon/menstruation/femininity” is transformed into the association “full moon/the curse/werewolf.” However, Kelsey’s first menstruation puts an end to her victimhood right away. Therefore, being a werewolf is a blessing that initiates Kelsey’s resistance to the structures that equate female sexuality with monstrous ugliness. Unlike Ginger, who is taken by surprise not only by the curse of menstruation but also by the curse of the werewolf, Kelsey’s becoming a werewolf is a positive, almost voluntary process: “It felt – interesting. Like something I was doing, instead of just another dumb body-mess happening to me because some brainless hormones said so” (24). Kelsey’s act of defense is thus not merely monstrous but is an act of self-empowerment, suggesting a positive association with female power.
- art of the werewolf’s otherness is in how it is connected to the natural world. How is lycanthropy connected to the natural world in The Wolf Man, Ginger Snaps, and “Boobs”? How is the natural world represented in this text as a horrible antithesis to civilization?
Werewolves are shape-shifting creatures with unusual speed, strength, reflexes, and senses. Traditionally, there were several ways that a person could become a werewolf. Popularly, the full moon was originally only one of many possible causes of lycanthropy.
In the Wolf Man film, the protagonist Larry Talbot returns to his ancestral home after learning of his brother’s death to make peace with his father, Sir John. Talbot buys a silver cane decorated with a wolf in a local antique shop, and he later uses that walking stick to fend off an attack by a wolf. Though the animal is killed, it bites Talbot during the struggle. The beast turns out to be a werewolf who was a local gypsy named Bela. Through his bite, he passes on to Talbot, the curse of lycanthropy, and Talbot later transforms into a werewolf and kills an innocent man. After attempting to confide in his father, Talbot persuades Sir John to tie him up for the night, so he does not harm anyone else. However, Talbot, as the Wolf Man, breaks free, and he is finally killed—beaten with his cane by his father, who watches in horror as the Wolf Man’s body transforms back into human form.
Ginger Snaps uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for female puberty. The story revolves around the sullen and morbid Fitzgerald sisters, Brigitte and Ginger, outcasts at their high school, with no friends besides each other. The close bond between the sisters is put in danger after Ginger gets attacked and bitten by a strange beast in the woods. Soon following the incident, radical changes start happening in her body and behavior. Her parents and teachers brush it off as her finally starting her journey into adulthood, but Brigitte knows something far more sinister is going on.
In “Boobs,” the transformation to werewolf is located in the heroines starting her periods. From the story, it is evident that the lycanthropic transformation follows a lunar cycle like the menstrual cycle. Rather than bleed, Kelsey becomes a wolf, and she does not see it as a curse. Instead, it is an opportunity to exact revenge on the boy at school who has been teasing her about her breasts. McKee Charnas contrasts the heroine’s distaste at her ‘boobs’ of the title with her pleasure at becoming a wolf. She prefers her strong, fast wolfish body to her human body, which seems to be betraying her and forcing her to be an object of male desire and female reprobation.
- Explain how in The Wolf Man, Ginger Snaps, and “Boobs,” the trope of the werewolf emphasizes the dangers of denying certain desires. What are Larry, Ginger, and Kelsey expected to deny, and why is repressing this desire ultimately so dangerous?
In The Wolf Man, Larry is a big, Americanized engineer who is being groomed by his short and controlling father, Sir John, to take over Talbot castle and the role of village Baron. Larry meets Gwen and desires her to be his partner despite her being engaged to his father’s gamekeeper. His attraction to Gwen results in him meeting Gwen’s friend Jenny. Larry gets bitten by the wolf, trying to save Jenny. After a gypsy werewolf bites him, Larry splits into a wolf and a man. The man experiences pain and anxiety at the prospect of acting out his unconscious desires. Towards the end, the wolf attacks Gwen and then abandons her for Sir John. Although Larry has given Gwen his protective medallion, he has given his father the silver-headed wolf can that is eventually used to kill him.
In the film Ginger Snap Ginger and Brigitte Dread normalcy. Inexplicably, at sixteen and fifteen, respectively, neither Ginger nor Brigitte has had their periods. Brigitte wishes the pair of them could wait out their adolescence in the dark minimalist basement lair, which refers to their unique bedroom, instead of being forced to endure the awful cesspool that is high school. Their suicide pact emphasizes the intensity of the sister’s bond: in an early scene, Ginger spells out their childhood promise, “Out by sixteen or dead on the scene, but together forever.” Yet all these changes on the night of Ginger’s first period, when a werewolf consequently mauls her. The “curse” maintains a double meaning throughout the film. The first is the normal biological changes of adolescence, but the second, more frightening consequence is Ginger’s transformation into a lycanthrope. For Ginger, the initial trauma of her first menstruation is what she experiences as the betrayal of her body. As it so happens, her period reveals that she is not different after all—she is fate of all fates, just like everyone else. The physical and mental changes Ginger goes through, leading up to a Halloween party called “The Greenhouse Bash,” blur the lines between the normal and the monstrous. Despite her desire not to care about what others think of her, her first sexual encounter with Jason shows otherwise. While Jason is celebrated as the dude who got laid, Ginger is relegated to the role of “freak mutant lay”—the weird slut. Not only is Ginger pointing to the archaic double standards imposed on female sexuality, but her anxiety reveals a more personal confession that she cares what others think of her. Her fear of this inevitable high school vitriol is about the collapse of the tough facade she has carefully built for herself. Her reason for suicide is not to be with Brigitte forever but to express to society the control she has over her body and image. Ginger desires to express her identity through her body and sexuality.
In “Boobs” by Suzy Mckee Charnas, the protagonist Kelsey represents the modern American teenager who comes-to-age. Kelsey thinks that ‘becoming a woman’ means that her body becomes unreliable and that developing breasts and having periods is simply disgusting. Until one night, her body changes, into that of a sleek, powerful, absolutely gorgeous wolf. Being a werewolf, once a month, she goes out at night and prowl, and hunt, and kill. She desires and embarks on taking revenge on those who give her girl-self a hard time during the day—starting with the horrible boy who used to grab her breasts and called her ‘Boobs.’ Kelsey’s transformation to an animal is empowering since it is a physical expression of the anger, which is allowed no outlet from her human, daytime self.
- In the Lesson Introduction, I discussed how Gypsies are affiliated with the natural world and with the supernatural in The Wolf Man. Compare the Gypsies to Sam the drug-horticulturalist in Ginger Snaps? What about Sam similarly gives him knowledge of both the natural and the supernatural that is superior to what Ginger and Bea could learn from representatives of civilization and rational thought such as the sisters’ parents or their teachers at school?
While Maleva, the old gypsy woman traveled with her caravan, Sam, the drug-horticulturalist in Ginger Snaps, traveled in a van. Maleva and Sam are invested in the safety of the people they care about. Maleva has a son, Bela, who worked as a fortune teller and also a werewolf. Maleva was charged with not only keeping others safe but keeping her son safe. Like Maleva in The Wolf Man, Sam is there to help immediately after a werewolf has bitten the protagonist. Maleva helps and takes Larry home after he is attacked by the werewolf trying to save Gwen’s friend. On the other hand, after the werewolf has bitten Ginger, Sam comes to the rescue when he runs over the werewolf. Both Maleva and Sam share the same solution on how to kill a werewolf. Maleva advises Larry that a werewolf can be killed only with a silver bullet, or a silver knife, or a stick with a silver handle. She suggests to Larry that the wolf he killed was not an ordinary wolf. Maleva gives Larry a charm with a pentagram on it, claiming it would help break the evil spell. Also, she tells Larry that “Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives, becomes a werewolf himself.” Larry admits to the old gypsy woman that the wolf bit him. In Ginger Snaps, Sam agrees that the Beast of Baily Downs is a lycanthrope, and like Maleva, he suggests a pure silver ring may cure Ginger. Sam demonstrates his gypsy characteristics when he suggests that a monkhood solution would heal Ginger’s illness and informs the sisters that the monkhood grows everywhere. However, he warned that the monkhood only grows during spring. In The Wolf Man, one of the gypsies is killed by the protagonists, and Ginger murders Sam.
- All three of the narratives we have considered in this lesson examine relationships between parents and children. Consider how Larry’s father, Kelsey’s mother, and Ginger’s mother (and silent father) contribute to their children becoming werewolves. What does each parent try to repress in his/her child, and how does the repression of this particular feeling lead to becoming a werewolf?
Larry and his father, Sir John Talbot, have a distant relationship as demonstrated by the exchange of formal greetings between father and son when Larry first arrives at Talbot Castle. Larry’s father even apologizes for being so distant. Larry and his father had been apart for eighteen years. Larry and his father interact and set up a telescope together, and Larry shares his experiences working for different optical companies in California. His father even encourages him to familiarize himself with the townsfolk. After the incident with the wolf, Larry tries to confide in his father, but the father dismisses him thinking that Larry has a mental disorder. Eventually, Larry persuades Sir John to tie him up for the night, so he does not harm anyone else. However, Talbot, as the Wolf Man, breaks free, and he is finally killed—beaten with his cane by his father, who watches in horror as the Wolf Man’s body transforms back into human form.
In “Boobs” by Suzy McKee Charnas, Kelsey’s stepmother seems to misunderstand her, which creates distance between them. Kelsey finds it difficult to confide in Hilda, and she says that she pretends that she is menstruating just for her stepmother to leave her alone. Hilda was always trying to understand her daughter and would often offer her advice. For instance, when Kelsey got assaulted by Billy, Hilda told her, “I’m sorry about this, honey, but really, you have to learn it sometime. You are all growing up, and the boys are getting stronger than you will ever be. If you fight with boys, you’re bound to get hurt. You have to find other ways to handle them” (Charnas, 474). The constant pressure by Hilda on Kelsey to conform to the society is the contributing factor to Kelsey becoming a werewolf. Kelsey hated having boobs and menstruation, and she hated when Hilda would insist that all she was experiencing was normal for a girl. Also, it is apparent that Kelsey was afraid of Hilda, and she only stopped being afraid after she turned into a wolf. At one moment she says “I realized all of a sudden, with this blossom of surprise, that I didn’t have to be scared of Hilda, or anybody, I was strong, my wolf-body was strong, and anyhow one clear look at me she would drop dead” (Charnas 480).
Bridget and Ginger Fitzgerald are teenaged sisters “united against life as we know it.” Life is in Bailey Downs, an Ontario suburb filled with horndog boys, slut-shaming girls, and noxious adults. The Fitzgerald sisters rebel against this suburban wasteland by rejecting all that is socially acceptable: they are obsessed with death, in the way of righteously disgusted teenaged Goths everywhere.
Mrs. Fitzgerald tells Ginger that menstruation is normal. While blasting her huge unblinking eyes at Ginger and cheering, Mrs. Fitzgerald says, “It’s the most normal thing in the world!” Ginger does not want to be a member of any club that has her mother as a member, though, and she finds it difficult to accept the change happening to her. All the adult women in Ginger Snaps, including Ginger’s mum, are terrifying in their peppy excitement over menstruation, the urgency they express for the girls to join their ranks, and their dismissal of adolescent fear and confusion. Something that Ginger and her sister find irritating.