KONSTRUKSI MAKNA ATAS TUBUH NON-NORMATIF THE CREATURE DALAM FILM FRANKENSTEIN (2025)

Abstract

Bodies that differ from normative standards are often used in horror films to construct monstrosity and fear. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) presents The Creature through a non-normative body while also giving space to his emotions, experiences, and subjectivity. This study analyzes how the film text constructs meaning around The Creature’s non-normative body. Using a critical paradigm, a qualitative descriptive approach, and John Fiske’s semiotics through the levels of reality, representation, and ideology, the study examines 15 purposively selected scenes filtered through the dimensions of spatial misfit, technological corporeality, and kinaesthetic misfit. At the ideological level, the concepts of spectacle, aesthetic pleasure, and the paradox of horror are employed. The findings reveal three patterns: bodily difference acquires meaning through social responses, the body is objectified and defined by others, and the body gradually becomes a source of resilience and agency. The meaning of the non-normative body is therefore not inherent in physical difference but constructed through social relations, power, and filmic representation. The Creature’s body is repeatedly made a spectacle through its difference, wounds, strength, and regeneration, while the film simultaneously humanizes him, producing an ambivalent relationship between humanization and spectacularization.