Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Major Professor

Amy Rust, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Olivia Cosentino, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sara Dykins Callahan, Ph.D.

Keywords

Aster, cruel optimism, film, Garza Cervera, melodrama

Abstract

This thesis examines the implications of affect and identification in post-horror and the consequences they present for motherhood. Specifically, I argue Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018) and Huesera (Michelle Garza Cervera, 2023) make use of their maternal protagonists to complicate spectatorial identification and critique the cruel attachments of neoliberalism which idealize a heteronormative, homogenous vision of mothering. Following David Church’s postulation of affect, neoliberalism, and the maternal melodrama as central to “post-horror,” I look towards Linda Williams’s and Lauren Berlant’s paradigms of pathos and sentimental politics. While Williams addresses the complicated pains and pleasures of pathetic identification in the maternal melodrama, I move past the felt limits of identifying with suffering mothers to look at the attachment structures that characterize contemporary motherhood inside and outside the cinema. In this, I examine relationships between structures of identification and affect in Hereditary and Huesera, which I trace through the neoliberal concepts of maternal sacrifice and austerity. I analyze Aster’s film through a melodramatic paradigm that places its spectators within structures of feeling that compel identification. Specifically, Hereditary implements formal techniques like the point-of-view shot and selective focus to forge such identifications with Annie’s character that present the social limits of motherhood in the neoliberal age. Affect only temporarily destabilizes the oppressive normativities that Aster’s film sets forth before identification is rerouted towards neoliberal individuation. Huesera similarly encourages identification with Valeria, its maternal protagonist, but sustains affects that move characters and viewers toward folkloric resistance and queer alternatives that open up these structures of identification. Formally, these moments of struggle are visualized through sonic release in moments of our protagonist cracking her fingers and repetitious circular imagery. This reading of the film’s politically progressive narrative alongside its formal display reveals the ability of affect and identification to both reinforce and subvert the global systems of neoliberal oppression. Post-horror, which I read through Hereditary and Huesera, expresses neoliberal conceptions of motherhood and family that propagate normative structures as well as challenge the social implications of austerity and self-sacrifice.

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