David Cronenberg is known for being one of the pioneers of the body horror genre, which typically evokes horror through the grotesque transformation and transgression of the human body. In The Fly (1986), Seth Brundle's grotesque transformation of the male body serves as a site of abjection. This essay will borrow Kristeva's conception of abjection as the threatened breakdown of meaning caused by the disintegration of boundaries between subject and object or self and other, and Creed's conception of male monstrosity, to discuss the broken boundaries in male body, and argue that male monstrosity arises from the feminization of the male body. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Fly details Seth Brundle's transformation into a human-fly hybrid, after an accidental fusion with a fly. His transformation is witnessed by his girlfriend and journalist Veronica Quaife and her ex-boyfriend Stathis Borans. Seth's transformation is marked by his increasing display of "fly-like" characteristics. At the end of the film, Brundlefly attempts to merge with Ronnie, but Stathis saves Ronnie. Brundlefly is fused with the machine and killed by Ronnie out of mercy. Barbara Creed draws inspiration from Kristeva when she talks about abjection in relation to the male body. The abject is recognized by the clear definition of borders: “The abject exists beyond a border that separates the subject from everything that threatens his existence”. (I believe 122). For Creed, the boundary clearly separates between human/beast, male/female dichotomies, or “between the body that is clean and proper and the body that is aligned with nature and abject waste” (122). The female and maternal body lies on the other side of the border, the semiotic realm; the abject body of the feminine resides in “its connection with the natural world signified in its lack of “bodily integrity”: it secretes (blood, milk); changes size, grows, swells; gives birth in 'a violent act of expulsion through which the nascent body is torn from the matter of the mother's bowels'” (Kristeva 101). The boundary of the skin, which must remain “smooth, taut and without blemish,” is violated (Creed 122). The belief therefore postulates that male monstrosity arises from the encounter with the feminine, within the male body. The border crossed here is that of the male body: the maternal feminine repudiates any possibility of distinction, of a border that separates the inside and the outside, because it is both. While Kristeva refers to "all experiences of body horror" (Creed 122) as "the child's experience with maternal identity" (Creed 122), I would argue that the basis of body horror is the abjection that comes from compromise" bodily integrity” (Williams 35) that separates the inside and outside of the body: the horror “when the inside is exposed, when difference is laid bare, and when one slips into the other.” (Williams 35). Therefore, the feminization of the male body of Seth's Brundle is terrifying as it prevents the recognition of the boundaries that separate him and define him as a pure subject with his distinct masculine, human, inside/outside, living characteristics, thus reducing him to a "permeable". membrane, the membrane here built from the very flesh of man” (Williams 37). Brundlefly's transformation begins with a gradual disintegration of her body, which is marked by growths, swelling, loss of human and male parts. Coarse fly hairs emerge from the microchip wound on his back and gradually develop on his face, although patches, sores and lumps appear on the skin of his face. Towards the end of the film, Brundlefly's complexion resembles skin burned with a white substancepus-like excreted on its surface. The surface of his skin becomes reddish, crater-like, and swollen, while his body expands to the point that he can no longer wear clothing. His fingers swelled into bulbous growths. When his teeth fall out, he licks his bloody gums and pouts his lips: his mouth now looks like a gaping reddish hole, a toothless inmate vagina. Then there is a full-length shot that centers Brundlefly in the frame, highlighting his entire grotesque body, where he puts his teeth into the bathroom cabinet, the “Brundle natural history museum”. Here, we get a close-up of organs and body parts, “a visualization of the inside out” (Williams 36) – we see the ear and penis which are “boundary organs, partly defining the boundary” ( Williams 37 ). What is presumed to be left in Seth's body are “holes” (Williams 37), signifying an exposure of his inner body. The Fly's fusion with Seth and the subsequent conception of Brundlefly is essentially Seth's appropriation of maternal reproductive capacity through telepods. and its impregnation. Returning to Brundlefly's conception, one must remember "lingering shots of [Seth's] naked fetus crouching in the transmitting pods and of his triumphant emergence naked from the receiving pod...an attempt to give birth to himself" (Robbins 137). Here, we see Seth as both parent and child of his mating, although the fly remains genderless, Brundle's successful conception has nevertheless made possible the successful appropriation of the maternal reproductive function, thus "dismantling" it (Williams 36). the film further undoes Brundle's symbolic masculinity, when Brundle experiences a moment of internal abjection, in which his body is aligned with nature and with abject waste that he is unable to fully expel. Looking at himself in the mirror, Brundle bites his nails and is shocked when he manages to pull his nails out to reveal the flesh underneath. Out of curiosity, he presses on the swollen finger and a milky white liquid squirts out, reminiscent of associations with ejaculation. In response, Brundle records curiosity, gratification of masochism but also shame and disgust. Brundle's moment of disgust is the experience of her abject and material body, “the shame of compromise” (Kristeva 2) even as it “begs, worries, and fascinates desire” (Kristeva 1). Helen Robbins reads the image as suggestive of the “two furtive adolescent rites of masturbation and pimple-squeezing” (140); while I can see the visual associations, Brundle's anxiety that arises from the experience is much deeper – he begins to question the materiality of his flesh and mortality: “What is happening to me? I am dying? Does it start like this? Am I dying?" He asks aloud after easily peeling off the second nail and his fingers continually drip with sickly white pus. This is Brundle's first experience of the disintegration of his body, the expulsion of his body. To summarize the his existential fear, is the experience of death and his abject condition: “The height of abjection is the corpse. The body expels its waste in order to continue living... The corpse is the most disgusting of waste, it is a border that has trespassed on everything. It is no longer I who expel, “I” am expelled” (Kristeva 3-4). spasms and vomiting protect” (Kristeva 2), but Brundlefly is no longer incapable of distinguishing between clean and proper food, versus abject bodily fluids, which are expelled and can no longer be consumed. Instead he now eats by vomiting a stream of corrosive enzymes onto the food,,, 1999.