The Blair Witch Project: Metatextual Layers of Subverting the Female Gaze

Authors

  • Emily Moeck University of Tennessee, Knoxville

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2023.471

Keywords:

found footage horror, film studies, feminist studies, narratology, documentary theory, metatexts

Abstract

While recent scholarship has discussed the gendered subject/object relations within The Blair Witch Project and Heather’s victimization by the male gaze of the horror-genre’s camera, my work rebuts and clarifies the level through which this victimization is occurring. I argue we must understand how BWP functions on three different metatextual layers—Heather’s documentary, the implied documentary of The Blair Witch Project, and the Myrick and Sánchez mockumentary—to see the ways in which Myrick and Sánchez have exploited spectator expectations of the horror genre to underwrite a critique of the genre’s reliance on the villainization and objectification of women, both through the cinematic absence of the Blair Witch herself and the use of Heather as ‘vanished’ female filmmaker. 

Author Biography

Emily Moeck, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Emily Moeck is a PhD candidate in English/Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She specializes in narrative theory across film and literature with an emphasis on race, gender, and the archive.

References

Beckman, R. K. (2003). Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism. Duke University Press Books.

Chatman, S. B. (1978). Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film.

Hart, A. (2019). “The Searching Camera: First-Person Shooters, Found-Footage Horror Films, and the Documentary Tradition.” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 58.4. 73–91.

Heller-Nicholas, A. (2014). Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality. McFarland & Company.

Jackson, K. (2013). “The Image as Voracious Eye in The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and the Paranormal Activity Series.” Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror, Palgrave Macmillan. 55–84.

Marthe, E. (2016, September 14). 'They Wished I Was Dead': How 'The Blair Witch Project' Still Haunts Its Cast. www.vice.com/en/article/gyxxg3/they-wished-i-was-dead-how-the-blair-witch-project-still-haunts-its-cast.

Meslow, S. (2016, September 6). “The Blair Witch Project's Heather Donahue Is Alive and Well.” GQ. www.gq.com/story/the-blair-witch-projects-heather-donahue-is-alive-and-well.

Mulvey, L. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen (London), Vol 16.3. 6–18.

Myrick, D. & Sanchez, E. (1999). The Blair Witch Project.

Nichols, B. (2009). “What Types of Documentary Are There?” Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 99-117.

Reyes, X. A. (2016). “The [REC] Films: Affective Possibilities and Stylistic Limitations of Found Footage Horror.” Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon. 149–160.

Spence, L. & Navarro, V. (2011). Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning. Rutgers U.P.

Walker, J. S. (2004). “Mom and the Blair Witch: Narrative, Form, and the Feminine.” Nothing That Is: Millennial Cinema and the Blair Witch Controversies, by Sarah Lynn. Higley and Jeffrey Andrew. Weinstock, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI. 163–180.

Williams, L. (2002). “When the Woman Looks.” Horror, The Film Reader. Routledge. 69–74.

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Published

2023-10-20

How to Cite

Moeck, E. (2023). The Blair Witch Project: Metatextual Layers of Subverting the Female Gaze. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 11(1), 240–257. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2023.471

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2023): Fall 2023

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Emily Moeck

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