Karin Beeler ---- Visions of the Paranormal: Representations of Psychic Women and Ghosts in Television and Film

Visions of the Paranormal: 

Representations of Psychic Women and Ghosts in Television and Film

Karin Beeler (University of Northern British Columbia, Canada)

 A number of films and television shows from 1990 to the present reflect a keen interest in representing female psychics and their encounters with ghosts. This period coincides with what some scholars would call third wave feminism and what others have called postfeminism. The shift away from second wave feminism to third wave feminism has found expression in diverse depictions of psychic women – a trend that shows no signs of stopping. The psychic woman/medium/seer/witch has thus become a new kind of hero figure who challenges established ways of knowing and who embodies contradictions, individuality and the ability to negotiate spaces – ideas that that have also been discussed in third wave feminist criticism.

 The psychic /ghost relationship serves as a way of reflecting anxieties associated with women in specific roles or situations:  women who face certain challenges as mothers and/or working women, women who negotiate social situations in a patriarchal world, and women who experience a traumatic event.  Television series such as Stephen Volk’s UK drama  Afterlife, the  long running American series Medium (2005 – 2011)and Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010), the shortlived Josh Whedon series Firefly (2002) and the American production Wonderfalls (2004), along with American films such as Ghost (1990),  The Gift (2000) and Serenity are just some of the works that engage with these issues.  While there are reality or “factual” television programs with psychic content (e.g.  Rescue Mediums), drama series have proven to be a key genre for experimenting with notions of female heroism in a paranormal context.  This chapter examines how women in film, television drama and reality television are positioned as unlikely heroes and how their interaction with ghosts reveals the importance of questioning boundaries in a postfeminist context. The dismantling of boundaries also manifests itself in the representation of the psychic who functions as a ghostlike presence (e.g. the character River in Firefly), and in the representation of the ghost child (Afterlife; Marchlands) as a mediating force that engages with the psychic individual in order to transgress gendered, social and physical spaces. The psychic/ghost relationship thus serves as a metaphor for new ways of seeing and may inspire viewers, especially female viewers to venture into their own versions of the unknown.

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Paranormal chapter and relevant links

“Visions of the Paranormal: Representations of Psychic Women and Ghosts in Television and Film”

 (Dr. Karin Beeler, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada)

1. Interview with Dr. Karin Beeler, author of Seers, Witches and Psychics on Screenhttp://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/19/karin-beeler-seers-witches-and-psychics-on-screen/
2. Interview with Stephen Volk, creator of Afterlifehttp://badpsychics.co.uk/badghosts/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8
3. Afterlife: Behind the Scenes  (Lesley Sharpe and Andrew Lincoln speak about their roles)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiRRKKt1EQk
4. Medium trailer and the real medium Allison Duboishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyfFVY_E9Sg
5. Firefly “Objects in Space”  (River (Summer Glau) the psychic warrior)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv94ghEEzVA
6. Ghost. Whoopi Goldberg as Oda Mae, the medium who hears Sam (Patrick Swayze) a ghost http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwuH07qIAUk
7. Ghost Whisperer   See trailer for the DVD.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460644/

8. Angel    Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and her visions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/angel/interviews/carpenter/page1.shtml

9. Charmed

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A100f0/BareEssentialsJanFeb/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F28075%2FBare-Essentials-Jan-Feb-2009-Issue   (search for Karin Beeler article, “The Power of a Woman: Investigating Charmed” )

10.  Hex (interview with Jemima Rooper (Thelma)

http://www.tvsa.co.za/default.asp?blogname=interviews&ArticleID=7622

11. The Secret Circle

http://www.cwtv.com/shows/the-secret-circle

12. Marchlands U.K. Television series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2iiO92AKYM

13. Rescue Mediums  Canadian reality  television series about two psychic investigators

http://www.rescuemediums.com/

14. The Gift  trailer for the film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxy8aNNvVZQ

15. Wonderfalls   part of the “Totem Mole” episode

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHVjQjQel0Q