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When I first wrote House of Psychotic Women I was always asking myself what right I had to publish a memoir when I was relatively unknown — but in retrospect, there was safety in my obscurity. Which is why it’s especially remarkable to see such an intimate book of horror criticism come from someone who is already recognized as one of the leading lights in our field. Alexandra West’s Gore-Geous: Personal Essays on Beauty and Horror (Astrophil Press) sees the Faculty of Horror scholar tackle the topic of carefully-manicured outer appearances and what they mean, through a discussion of ten thematically linked films, including Carrie, Under the Skin, Audition and more.
Given that we had both approached horror through this autobiographical lens, I wanted to talk to West about her writing process, deciding how much to share, navigating the privacy of people in our lives who inevitably become a part of our own stories, and how to find personal value in beauty rituals without getting sucked into the capitalistic cycle of shame they often feed.
Kier-La Janisse: You have an academic background. And I feel like you and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in particular, in your writing about horror, you both try to parlay that rigor and experience into much more accessible modes of writing — obvious signifiers being colloquialisms and profanity in your writing. I wanted to have you speak about that a little bit. Why do you feel it’s important to make the work accessible like this? Your book is also done by an academic publisher, and I was impressed with the fact that it is actually a regularly-priced book that people could afford!
Alexandra West: That was something I was always really passionate about before I even understood that I was going to focus on horror writing. My two degrees are in theater — directing, dramaturgy writing, all of that stuff. And I had a really positive undergraduate experience. I took a lot of electives, did a lot of film studies classes, and I always struggled with the academic writing and always having to cite sources; like, I couldn’t just have an opinion. I always had to have it backed up. And that felt really unnatural to me, because art is so subjective and you’re always coming to it from your personal history. And I think that’s something a book like House of Psychotic Women does so clearly and so well.
I went to do my master’s at University of Toronto, and I really understood at that moment that there is an element of academia where it was just a circle jerk. Everyone was talking to each other in the same ways and citing the same stuff, but picking it apart in different ways. And some of the conversations were really interesting, but I was like, if we’re all just talking to the same people in our seminars and at these conferences, what good is it doing? Even your point about having a book that’s affordable — with academic texts there’s a huge barrier to access.
And I wanted to keep being rigorous with my thinking, but I actually went back and reread my master’s thesis, which was on horror films that purport to be true. And it didn’t make any sense to me. It was just all jargon. I was like, who did I write this for? I certainly didn’t write it for me. I certainly didn’t write it for anyone to just pick up and enjoy, and think about something in a different way. And that’s where I was like, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. That’s the kind of writing I really love to read, and how can I find my own voice within that?
KJ: It’s interesting because Heidi Honeycutt has a book coming out this summer called I Spit On Your Celluloid, which is about women horror directors. And I was just looking at her intro, and she starts it off basically by saying that when you write academic books, you’re writing for yourself and for other academics, you’re not writing for actual horror fans.
But I find an interesting thing has happened over the last decade. When I started the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in 2010, part of why I did that was because I knew a lot of horror academics who were never able to actually teach the thing that they had expertise in. Because at the time it was not taken seriously enough for there to be a course in what they were passionate about. And so having Miskatonic was a way for a lot of those people to present a class in a totally different environment from an academic conference, where they’re sharing their work with this really hungry horror audience who know the films, who know the references. And a lot of them said they found it really reinvigorating for their practice. But I think in that time we’ve actually seen a shift, partially because a lot of academics are now coming from within the realm of pop culture and horror. It’s not this arm’s-length thing, like, ‘oh, look at this weird, curious thing that people are interested in.’
And you are an important part of that shift, I think, especially with the popularity of the Faculty of Horror podcast. When I first wrote House of Psychotic Women, I was known as a film programmer by a small community of film programmers. I had written for FANGORIA but I wasn’t known outside of a handful of hardcore horror fans. And so when I chose to write my book from a personal perspective, I just thought, nobody’s gonna read this book, you know? And so that helped me to share the things that I did. But you have now written several books. You have a popular podcast. You’ve been out there for a while as a personality in the horror world. So you are starting from a totally different point — when you choose to be personal and vulnerable, there’s a lot more at stake than when I did it. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, about the pressures and the negotiation of your public persona and your public visibility with what you wanted to say in this book.
AW: A lot of this book came from the invitation from Astrophil Press: ‘Do you wanna do something with us?’ And while I took time to think about it, it was at the height of the pandemic. I was going through the darkest period of my personal life, which involved the dissolution of my marriage. And I basically had emotional whiplash, and I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t see my friends, I couldn’t go party. So I kind of had to white-knuckle through this period of my life.
And in having to sit with that and just get through it with very few distractions at a time when the world itself felt very precarious, I had to come to terms with a lot of things about myself. I returned to a lot of writers that I loved or admired and was re-reading them. And — I’m gonna butcher the quote — but it’s essentially a Virginia Woolf quote, that you can’t tell the truth about other people until you tell the truth about yourself. And that, along with the realization of how much energy I’d put into my marriage and how badly I wanted it to work, and trying to figure out why it didn’t work, it was like… I have to talk about some things. And I needed to talk about it in therapy, with my friends, with my family — but I also thought maybe this is something that could help people.
And then to your point about the bit of platform that I have, it was very much about how can I be emotionally honest for myself and not speak for other people. I really try to keep a lot of stuff private. I really try not to go into details. Because all the different relationships I talk about are give-and-take. They involve two people. I can only tell my side of the story. And so that was something that I felt very passionately about. Even if I wasn’t in the best place with these people, I wanted to give them a bit of grace.
And I was very fortunate that our colleague Alison Lang — who wrote Women with Guts and has been on the scene for a long time herself — was someone who I could give the chapters to for a first read and a gut check. Because I really wanted to be very honest, but also very respectful. And then on top of that, it was just like, how do I make this fun? How do I make it interesting? How do I make this readable? And that’s what also makes me very excited for people to read it. And also very, very nervous.
KJ: When Alison was giving you feedback, was there anything she pulled out where she was like, are you sure you wanna share this?
AW: No — I was very obviously sensitive about the chapter with my marriage, because that’s the one that has remained the most intact. That’s where I was like, I think I found the voice of this book. And she actually pushed me to go further. Like with that academic instinct to cite something and to support the evidence — one of the great pieces of feedback she gave me was, ‘you know, you don’t have to use a quote for all of this stuff. You’re already making the point in a way that’s better for this than citing something else.’ And so I pulled those quotes out, and suddenly had more space to tell my story. I was writing drafts of these chapters and then putting them down for a month and rewriting them. And each time I went back to it, it was like, ‘You’re trying to hide something. What are you trying to hide?’ And so that was a really interesting process with myself.
KJ: When I wrote my book, I changed everybody’s name, but I had left in all kinds of other identifying things that I hadn’t thought about. Like I had a little business card in there that I had made when I was maybe ten. I was a pretty ambitious kid, I guess. I made a business card for myself that had my address and phone number on it. And when the book came out, my sister flipped out because she was like, ‘that’s still our address and phone number!’
But as you say, writing specifically that chapter about your marriage — obviously every chapter has some sort of personal story or anecdote that you are relating to the thematic subject matter. But the chapter about ’marriage material’ is definitely the one where you’re laying it on the line the most clearly, the most autobiographically. But when you tell your own story, you’re always telling the other person’s story — so it’s like trying to just not make them a casualty of your story. I thought you handled that really well compared to how I handled it.
AW: Well, that means the world to me, coming from you. And it’s something I was very cognizant of, because I was literally going through the process of separation, and then divorce, while I was working on these first drafts and trying to figure it all out. But I always felt like if he ever read the book, I stand behind everything I wrote. When it comes to us, you know, good, bad. And I just wanted to be really clear that we did love each other really deeply. And it just didn’t work out. And that’s okay. Things don’t work out.
And when I was going back through it, you realize all these unintentional things. And one of them for me was that I started with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is all about ‘happily-ever-after,’ and then ended with, you know what, sometimes that doesn’t happen.
KJ: I think it’s very cool that it was not even by design that you started with Snow White and ended with the marriage. ’Cause I was thinking, what a cool arc.
AW: Oh, wait, what? That’s totally intentional. [laughs]
KJ: One of the things I think you said in your intro or in the acknowledgements or something you had said you were talking to Paul Corupe about the book and he had said something like, ‘just think about what you’re adding to the conversation.’ And when I first started writing House of Psychotic Women, it took me so long to write it, because I was working a job and trying to do it at the same time. So it was taking forever. And I started to have this crisis of confidence, like, what is the point of me even writing this book? And so I decided to write it autobiographically. And one of the things that appealed to me about it was that — because it was saying right from the outset that this is a subjective book, this is my experience of something — nobody could tell me I was wrong. I mean, obviously people in my family have tried to tell me I’m wrong, but [laugh], you know, there was something very freeing about not having the anxiety about getting facts wrong. And so that enabled me to write it. But then as my book was either at the printer, or it had just come out, I was on a plane, and I had bought a book that Walter Chaw wrote about Miracle Mile, because I love that movie. And Walter’s book was autobiographical, like my book. And I was just like, thank God my book is already at the printer! Because if it hadn’t been, I’m so easily discouraged as a writer that if there’s another book that’s even close to what I wanna do, I just won’t do my book. I’ll throw it out, you know? So when I was reading about how Paul said, ‘just think about what you’re adding to the conversation,’ that struck me as a more healthy response. So what was it that you were concerned about, for him to say that?
AW: Oh, gosh. I mean, everything. Paul gave me that advice years ago, and that was something that really stuck with me. And it’s something that I’ve shared with a lot of people who are trying to get into the industry, or wanna do a big project. I always say, make sure your idea’s original. And if you are doing something that’s very similar, just make sure you understand the kind of lineage or the DNA or the airspace you’re all inhabiting. And Paul is just someone who I have always admired as a writer. And this process was taking so long, for a variety of reasons. And I was getting so frustrated with it. And I remember him just saying, ‘you know, you had the instinct to do this. Just keep going.’ And sometimes when your voices rage at you to throw it out, or to do it differently… or if I was struggling with a paragraph, struggling with a chapter, struggling with a movie, it’s like, what am I really saying about it? What is the undercurrent that I want someone to be able to take away from this?
KJ: And when you’re writing a personal book, I feel like those feelings are really magnified too, because it’s like any judgment on the book is then a judgment on you, you know?
AW: Yes, exactly. And the idea of the writer is, it’s a very solitary pursuit. And that’s why I always feel so grateful to gain more and more colleagues that I can talk to really honestly about this stuff. We need those cheerleaders along the way. Because when you sit in self-doubt, or as just being, you know, a woman on the internet, we receive a lot of feedback constantly about all aspects of ourselves that people think they know about us. So it can feel like a lot. Like, a lot. A LOT. [laughs] And one of the things I kept thinking about while I was writing this book, it was definitely like, who’s gonna care? Like, what does it mean? You know, it’s cool that you compiled all of these films, but like, what are some of the themes? What does this theme mean to you? It starts to trigger a conversation. I think it’s in the introduction of my book, that this book is a series of moments. And I want you to have your own journey and use this as a framework to think about these moments for yourself.
KJ: You talk about an eating disorder in the book, and I know someone dealing with an eating disorder at present. And this girl has gotten more compliments than they ever have in their life, where it’s just like, ‘wow, you look great, you look great, you look great.’ And I have another friend who — she’s always been gorgeous — but over the last couple years, it’s like she’s just transformed into this sultry supermodel or something. And I was just like, ‘wow, you look really terrific.’ And she said, ‘I’ve never felt worse in my life. I’m sick. There’s something wrong with me, you know? And everybody tells me how great I look.’
And as much as we have all these ads that are trying to show body positivity and show all different body types and everything, the reality is that people still reward you more when you’re skinny, you know? And, being a woman, I obviously have my own ups and downs with weight and stuff, but even when you shop for clothes, it’s like… size zero? Size zero is a normal size? According to the nutrition authorities, I’m obese. I don’t know if I just have a skewed perception, but when I look in the mirror, I don’t see an obese person. But according to the sort of normal BMI, body mass index, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, I am actually obese according to those things. There’s something so wrong with this whole environment that we live in. Even though people are manufacturing clothes for women, they know that women have certain body confidence issues. And the clothing industry is catering to this, to making you want to be skinnier. And I don’t even know what benefit they have in that. If you’re manufacturing clothing, what difference does it make to you if your audience is size 14 or size zero? And yet they skew things to make you feel like you’re not fitting into clothes right. To the point where people who have eating disorders are getting this superficial boost in confidence, because they’re getting all these compliments when they’re actually not healthy. And I know you talk about that at some point in your book too, like not being at your best internally, and yet externally, everybody is saying how great you look and what a weird conflict that is.
AW: Yeah. It’s been an ongoing instance for myself, and for a lot of people I know. Again, that dichotomy of, if you go through an illness or stress, or you are grappling with disordered eating or an eating disorder, and the control takes over. And there would be times when I’d just be like, I don’t look well, and catch like a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I’m quite pale. My skin was almost a gray tone. And then someone would be like, ‘Oh my God, you look great.’ And it’s like, oh no, I can feel that toxic turn happening again. Like it’s all starting to tighten again. That need for control is like, see, it’s working. It’s working. And now that I’ve started on a path to recovery, it has been understanding that it never actually protected me. It didn’t serve me. I doubt it did that much for me except boost my dark little ego in those moments. It was holding me back. It was keeping me in this cycle of control rather than just starting to let go and let me be a bit more gentle with myself.
And before I went to proofing and printing and all of that good stuff, I had conversations with a lot of people close to me in my life. Because I didn’t want them to be surprised by this. And it’s just been amazing the conversations I’ve been able to have. Everyone to some degree is struggling with this and we don’t truly know why. And it’s like, if we wanna go for a run, go for a run — but also, eat that big bowl of pasta [laugh]. You know, how do we let ourselves be happy?
And so much of this starts from the second we start consuming content; everybody we see on screen is, by and large, white, thin, cis, able-bodied, young. So if we’re gonna be the protagonist in our own life, if we’re gonna take up space, we have to adhere to that because that’s what’s acceptable. And when you look at something like Carrie, I mean, you and I have talked about that being one of our mutual favorite films. And in the book, Stephen King describes Carrie quite differently than Sissy Spacek and what she looks like. I don’t know if the Carrie in King’s novel would’ve gotten to be the lead character in the film.
KJ: Yeah. No, I don’t think so. You know, because Carrie, in the film, it’s one of those things like the secretary taking off her glasses [laugh], and now she’s like, oh my God, you’ve been gorgeous this whole time and I didn’t know it [laugh]. We can see that the transformation actually isn’t that drastic, even though the people in the film are perceiving this to be a drastic change. And I think part of that also is because there’s baggage associated with her. So I think it’s much more the baggage of her social pariah status that she’s transforming out of. But that’s actually my favorite chapter in your book, the Prom chapter. Not just because it’s about Carrie, but I just love the whole way that you talked about the Prom as having this almost religious transformational potential, that there is this expectation that people’s true selves are going to emerge, you know? And that this will be a life-defining moment where your fortune can change with this one night.
There’s that scene in Pretty in Pink where Annie Potts is talking about how she has a friend who skipped the prom, and now as an adult, she constantly gets hit with these waves of anxiety. Like something is missing. And then she realizes that it’s actually just because she skipped the prom. And I never had a prom. I graduated from an alternative school, and I have always had that feeling like I’ve missed something. So I am also susceptible to this idea about the prom! So I wanted you to talk a bit about that transformational aspect of the prom, but also what you say about the whole ritual of getting ready for the prom, because I loved that.
AW: Yeah. I grew up being fascinated by beauty and makeup and the products and all of that. So I remembered very clearly getting ready for my prom. I was not very popular in high school. So [laugh] there were several nights when I just practiced doing makeup. ’Cause that was fun to me. And so I was like, okay, it’s all happening. This is it. This is the show. It’s all gonna go down. And that was the highlight of my night — that was the most fun I had. I was listening to the music I wanted, I was playing around with a dark lipstick, I was playing with my hair. I was trying to figure it out. And I was just in my own little world getting to control that space and how I looked, and how I wanted to project myself. Because it was the first instance of getting to truly practice who this person I wanted to become was. And then the rest of the evening is kind of like a womp-womp. You know, you’re standing around. I went to an arts high school, so we were quite a small class, so we had the prom, but we’re in a banquet hall and there’s like 50 of us. It was a weird scene.
There were so many nights where getting ready was the most fun. Because it’s putting on armor to go out into the world and be like, this is who I am tonight. And when we think of the prom, it’s, you know — who are we crowning king and queen? Why do they get crowned king and queen? Why do they get this power over us? And it’s always been a kind of confusing thing because, like you, I grew up watching so many American movies and it was like, this is it. This is when it happens. And so that was a real moment of reflection, like, it’s not always gonna work out the way you think it is. And you know, everything you’re sold, you don’t always have to buy. And I think in retrospect that was a very good lesson for me to learn.
KJ: But this moment when you’re getting ready and you have your routine and you’ve got your products and your music and everything in that moment, it’s this fun preparation for these possibilities that you don’t know if they’ll ever happen. But in that moment, it’s like anything can happen, you know? So given the joy that you obviously got out of those moments, I guess the question I’m trying to ask is about the value of the beauty ritual. Like if on the one hand if we’re saying all this beauty stuff is bad, but on the other hand there’s this incredible joy [laugh] that comes from putting on the makeup and perfecting the eyeliner — what is the middle ground? You know, between an industry that’s exploiting people and the actual moment of empowerment that you feel in front of the mirror?
AW: Yeah. That’s a great question. And it’s a really tricky one because the beauty industry hits us on multiple sides. It’s not only selling us products, it’s selling us ideals. We were talking about eating disorders; are we skinny enough? Are we this and that enough? And the beauty industry perpetuates itself on trends — what’s hot this month? And if you’re really into it in some ways, you’re always chasing that ideal. And the ideal is always changing. And I’ve seen some people really lust after that.
And I think, in many ways, if you’re curious about beauty, if you’ve got the inkling towards doing something to your face in the morning, it’s a way to play. It’s a way to refine an expression of yourself. There is joy in the play, and that’s what I always hope for. And on a good day, that’s what I get. On bad days it’s like, well look at your dark under-eyes. Did you gain weight? And so you can pick yourself apart in the process of doing it. So it is the hardest tension in the world to navigate.
And, and you know, in the eating disorder recovery I’m doing, the dietician I’m working with said something really interesting. She said there’s a thing about eating disorders; it’s a voice in your head and it’s telling you not to eat that or to do that, it’s trying to control everything you have to do with food. And she said the scariest thing is often that voice just sounds like you. And it’s not you. And you have to figure out how to separate that voice and get it out of your head. Without getting all Joan-of-Arc about it, there’s some competing interests in my head, and how do I figure out the healthy ones and the fun ones, and what are the ones that are a form of control, that are part of the anxiety that are holding me back?
And, you know, I love a routine. I thrive in routine. And so it’s like a little 15 minutes in the morning of fun for me. I’m having my coffee, I’m listening to music or a podcast. And it’s just the self-care part of it, but self-care without being overly corporatized. That actually just makes me happy.
KJ: Having now written a book that is very personal, do you feel that you need to have an emotional palette-cleanser with your next project? And was writing this book part of determining whatever that next thing would be?
AW: Yeah, I have an idea for my next book that I’m outlining and slowly gonna start writing as soon as I get over this release. In many ways it’s a research-based project, but I’m gonna work my way in. I’m gonna have some cameos. I want to continue to perfect what Gore-Geous brought out in me. I think that’s kind of where I’m happy to live now, and just be open to see what happens next.
Alexandra West’s book Gore-Geous: Personal Essays on Beauty and Horror is available now from Astrophil Press.
