https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.077
Femgore and Medico-Culture Critique: Grotesque Bodies, Experimentation, and Resistance in Contemporary North American Literature
ANJANA
Department of English, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
Amritapuri Campus, Kollam, Kerala
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3150-0472
INDU A S
Department of English, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
Amritapuri Campus, Kollam, Kerala
https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6339-6268
Abstract: Femgore is an emerging literary style in North American Fiction (2015-2024), a horror genre “written about female protagonists by female authors and often featuring disgusting, gruesome and boundary-pushing prose, with narratives covering body horror, female rage, murder, unhinged women, obsession and profanity,” (Venn). While still a popular term rather than an established scholarly category, Femgore can be seen as a cultural protest against biomedical experimentation, the cosmetic industry, and the socio-political regimes disciplining women’s bodies.
This study analyses Rory Power’s Wilder Girls (2019) and Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland (2021) as primary texts, selected for their central focus on female bodily mutations, which can be viewed as symbolic acts of resistance against social pressures and reflect broader medico-cultural anxieties. Secondary sources, including Coralie Fargeat’s film The Substance (2024), Joan Kron’s documentary Take My Nose…Please (2017), and media reports on cosmetic surgery and the anti-ageing industry published between 2018 and 2023 together demonstrate how fictional mutations combine with medico-cultural fears of body alteration in contemporary North American fiction and media. The paper argues that grotesque female bodies in these narratives serve as sites of knowledge, critique, and resistance, making visible the ethical, political, and cultural dimensions of contemporary North American women’s corporeality.
Keywords: Femgore, Medico-Cultural Critique, Grotesque, Experimentation, Resistance, North American Literature, Medical Humanities, Body Horror
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