Dook Dook Dook (Uncanny and Abjection in the Dook)

The most disturbing part of The Babadook, to me, were the scenes in which the mother was distressed about the violent and terrifying nature of her child. While she wanted to comfort and scold him, she was scared and clearly thought he was repulsive and dangerous once seeing his capabilities. There is a skin-crawling feeling that this disgust and hatred brings. Based on the definition of abjection by Julia Kristeva, the child is the abject for the majority of the film. This unsettling cycle of attachment, repulsion, and rejection confirms this. This is true until the ending when the family makes peace with the Babadook and he lives in the basement. The mother and son enjoying a snack outside, freed from the terror but now living peacefully with it, is a perfect example of people becoming at peace with the abject terror in their lives. Abjection is no longer disturbing the order and their identities, but has become a part of this family's ritual. The question is, since the abject is all that is discarded from one's identity, is the Babadook really the abject in this arrangement anymore? Unless it attacks again, I don't think it is. The Babadook is certainly also the uncanny, with similarities to the dead father of the family such as appearing in an apparition/dream/nightmare to the members of the family, dressing in men's' clothes, and suggesting violence and inadequacy will always haunt the household, just as the father's death continually does. The memory of the father haunted the basement before, and now the Babadook haunting it is quite familiar to the family. The mother experiences great fear when venturing down there to see the Babadook just as she did when she went to clean up the scattered belongings reminding her of her husband. The clothes of the babadook flat on the wall are intentionally similar to her husband's clothes pinned up in the same way by her son during this same scene. As well as the visual, the suspense and haunting feeling that occur in scenes about both the father and the Babadook are due to numerous formal elements being done in similar ways to provoke this feeling that the Babadook is not a surprising villain for the story. The perfect monster for this family is one that reminds them of what they have lost and the best ending is one that removes the child of the burden of being the abject.

(I realize I did not touch on the monstrous feminine, that was not an accident and is because I have not finished that reading yet. I think the idea of this mother as the most monstrous subject in this movie to be fascinating and quite dense of a topic to delve into. One of the first things my friends and I noticed about this film was how scary this actress was, and I am excited to learn more about that in relation to that reading.)