Gendered monstrosity: the female body/corpse of forensic investigation drama in contemporary American television

This paper explores some aspects of the representation of the female body in contemporary Anglophone culture as it is displayed in a specific television genre “Forensic Investigation Drama”, which fictionalizes forensic medical investigation into violent deaths. Tracing this popular genre back to the tradition of horror in cinematic history, the study interrogates the reasons behind its popularity and specifically targets the role attributed to the female body/corpse. The study assumes the position that gender relations are central to the social and cultural order, that the female body has always been the place of the re-conceptualization of those relations, and that how the female body is conceptualized is central to cultural representation and textualization. By erecting the eroticized female corpse to main protagonist and by evoking pleasure in viewing it, the forensic investigation genre presents violence towards women as commonplace and acceptable. The study advances a feminist viewpoint which holds that representations of the female body become a political tool for a hegemonic male narrative which risks rationalizing and justifying gender violence.