“My heart’s fine as long as my stomach’s not empty”: patriarchal horror, women’s excess, and fat liberation in Criminally Insane

Slasher film Criminally Insane might be understood as one that capitalizes upon and perhaps even further entrenches existing societal anti-fatness in mid-century America. Its fat protagonist, Ethel, wields a butcher knife against those who constrain her access to food or endanger her freedom, killing and even eating her victims. Audiences and film reviewers have thus far described Ethel’s behavior as violent resistance to “treatment” for her fatness at her own and others’ peril. However, this paper reveals that the film is far from straightforward in its approach to fatness. Using the work of Laura Mulvey and Susan Greenhalgh, I consider how Criminally Insane deploys and critiques the male and medical gazes, revealing their intertwined and co-constitutive work against Ethel’s body and autonomy. I contend that while it certainly deploys anti-fat tropes, Miller’s gory film also offers a robust analysis of patriarchal control and even briefly attempts to envision a world in which fat people, like Ethel, can truly be free.

Duke Scholars

Author Kendall Dinniene