Good, Mad, or "Incurably Bad": The Borders of Normalcy and Deviance in Film Representations of Sociopathic White Schoolgirls

Abstract:Through the lens of feminist cultural geography, the authors seek to understand how film and television depictions of the violent white schoolgirl across the idealized space of white suburbia temporarily disrupt, but ultimately sustain, the borders that define gender, youth, normalcy, and deviance. The authors analyze contemporary cinematic and televised dramas, including Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, the 2018 HBO series Sharp Objects, and Cory Finley's 2017 film Thoroughbreds to demonstrate how spatial dimensions of "deviant" white adolescent femininity enforce the boundaries of "normal" girlhood.