The Devil Made Her Do It: Subgenre of Exorcism Horror & the History Female Hysteria | Minisode w/ Maegan & Blair

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Join Maegan and Blair in this minisode as they explore the exorcism subgenre, religious horror, some history of hysteria, and how exorcisms are largely rooted in misogyny. Take a sip of water every time Maegan calls Freud a soggy pinecone of a man and watch how hydrated you are by the end of the episode! 

Is this minisode long enough to barely be considered a minisode? Yes. But is it hilarious, educational, AND on an important topic? Also yes.

For some quick content warnings, while we’re not getting into anything TOO heavy this episode,  we will be talking about the history of hysteria and exorcisms, so the topics of not listening to women about their bodies, female oppression, the (made up) gender binary, reproductive systems, and faulty at best medical practices will certainly be a central theme. As well as a lot of discussions about religious trauma and purity culture.

We also want to point out that we understand that biological sex and gender are not the same and gender is a social construct. For the sake of brevity when discussing religion and misogyny in this context, we’re really just discussing people with uteruses. In this episode we frequently refer to genders as “male” and “female” but we’d like to acknowledge the existence of people outside of that binary and to remind our listeners that assigned sex at birth and gender are not the same thing.

Other episodes referenced in this minisode:

• "That Thing You Do" minisode about vibrators
• "Mommy Dearest" minisode about motherhood & mothers in horror
• "The Body Never Forgets" minisode about generational trauma & epigenetics

References:

•  https://medium.com/@peacelovetrig/on-the-sexist-etimology-of-hysteria-and-what-academia-did-about-it-ef98815ddb6c
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3690315/#:~:text=The%20direction%20of%20sex%20differences,it%20does%20across%20published%20studies.
•  https://takenol.weebly.com/traditionalism-vs-modernism.html
•  https://www.ravenfoundation.org/1946-how-a-mistranslation-in-the-bible-harmed-our-lgbtqia-siblings/
• http://religiousinstitute.org/denom_statements/homosexuality-not-a-sin-not-a-sickness-part-ii-what-the-bible-does-and-does-not-say/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3125296/

The Clever Ghouls podcast, hosted by Maegan and Blair, is a show dedicated to watching, analyzing, and discussing the movies that make us think about them long after we’ve left the theater or turned off the TV. We bring quick wit and unique perspectives from backgrounds like art history, cinematography, psychology, analysis, public education, mysticism, mythos, and more to create a curated, inclusive conversation around the spooky movies we love. Tune in on your favorite podcast hosting platform to listen along, join the conversation, and chime in with your own observations!

Our intro and outro music was created for us by Josh Marshall. For more episodes and other spooky content, find us on your favorite social media platform through our handle: @CleverGhouls. Don’t forget to subscribe and share, and if you really like our content, please leave us a review. Or we’ll haunt you forever. Thanks for listening!