Teen Wolf, Twilight, and Teenage Angst: Side-lined She-Wolves and Autonomy in Early 2010’s YA Media Texts

In the late 2000s, there was a surge of YA fantasy adaptations; films and TV shows broke into the mainstream, gaining enough traction to land a heavy presence in pop culture. After the revolutionary impact of the 2000 film Ginger Snaps, female lycanthropy has been reconsidered as a contemporary 'symbol of empowerment rather than monstrosity.' (Short 2006:188), inspiring an increase in representation in mainstream and horror cinema. Dark retellings of fairy tales and popular YA fantasy adaptations like The Vampire Diaries (2009), The Mortal Instruments (2013) and True Blood (2008) have been influenced in the aftermath. However, by championing the revision of the female teenage werewolf, it also invited a mainstream re-coding of femininity and monstrosity. Understanding Sue Shorts' analysis of feminine morality, fairy-tale narratives, and patriarchal revision, this work aims to understand the link between autonomy, isolation, and revision in the teen orientated media of the early 2010s. Looking at Leah Clearwater from Twilight (2008), Erica Reyes from Teen Wolf (2011) and their undeniable connection to the ancient work of Ovid, we recognise that 'today's female hero is domesticated but not tame. She is killed, but not dead' (Schubart 2007:11). Referencing work by Hannah Priest, Glyn Davis, and Kay Dickinson, this analysis hopes to uncover the patriarchal resonance in the werewolves' rebrand. Considering the 'history of the werewolf can be read as a revealing reflection of the development of prevailing cultural values' (Priest 2015:3), to understand the traditional folkloric she-wolf, we must begin with recognising her first manifestation.

The first introduction to werewolves in Western culture is found in Book 1 of Ovid's epic, The Metamorphoses (2014). The story follows Lycaon, a man punished for trying to trick Jupiter into eating human flesh from a man that was under the Gods protection. Titled an 'infamous savage' (Ovid 1.117) Lycaon's depravity inspired the Gods to send down a flood to cleanse humanity, the wolf-man grotesquely suspended between man and animal. In the same epic, thirteen books later, we come across the story of Hecuba in a chapter titled The Sufferings of Hecuba. Queen of Troy, 'the mirror of Asia's glory' (Ovid, 13.484), and mother to figures like Paris, Hector, and Cassandra the prophet, Hecuba's story starts directly after the sack of Troy. After surviving the initial assault on the city Hecuba and her daughter Polyxena are captured by King Polymestor and sailed to Thrace with a group of Trojan women. Landing on Greek soil, the ghost of Achilles calls for Polyxena's sacrifice, and, after witnessing the act, Hecuba catches sight of one of her son's mangled bodies further up the beach. In her anguish, she tricks the Thracian King Polymestor into meeting her face to face. Hecuba proceeded to dig 'her fingers into his treacherous eyes, to gouge the balls from their sockets- the power lent to her by anger.' (13.661). She was clawing at his face even as the Thracian soldiers began to pelt her with rocks and weapons, and 'as she opened her jaws in a vain attempt to give tongue, she barked.' (13.568) Whilst not further described, the narrative confirms her transformation into a dog, claiming the location (Cynossema) to be still named the Dogs Tomb. 

Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf; engraving by Hendrik Goltzius.

Whilst not as prominent as the punishment Lycaon suffered, Hecuba's transformation still influences how we see women and lycanthropy in contemporary media. Understanding the critical differences between the two allows us, as an audience, to understand the origins of contemporary representations, the most significant difference being Lycaon's wolf and Hecuba's dog. Although both are canines, there is an apparent divide between the domesticated animal and the wild one, dismissing Hecuba from werewolf history entirely. While the differences between a wolf and a dog are rather extreme, there is also an understanding that Hecuba transformed through her anger, aiding her to a complete loss of control, a reference commonly used in werewolf media. The animalistic clawing actions she mutilated Polymestor with far more physically severe than Lycaon's flesh-eating trickery. The reader understands that 'even companion animals hold traces of the savagery of their kin' (Priest 2015:1), and Hecuba, who cannot express her grief in her human body, becomes an animal that allows for her violence without degrading her character as Lycaon's transformation did. Another noteworthy comparison between the two transformations is the cause behind them. Where Lycaon is punished by the gods, who were disgusted with his actions and behaviour, Hecuba was a tragic figure, her story finishing with the gods lamenting their pity. 'Even Jupiter's sister and consort declared that Hecuba had not deserved such an ending as that' (13.575). 

Despite its dismissal in werewolf legacy, Hecuba's dog transformation can be traced through female narratives in genre films and popular cinema, revisiting Rikke Schubart’s claim that 'today's female hero is domesticated but not tame. She is killed, but not dead' (2007:11), understanding the shackled nature of feminine characterisation without dismissing its presence or influence. Interestingly, Hecuba is not the only woman in the Metamorphoses to be changed into an animal, nor is she the only one to break feminine boundaries of physical violence and rage. In book 9, Galanthis is punished by the goddess Juno, taking the form of a weasel. Medea also features in the epic and is closely compared to both a dragon and a Tuscan Scylla. Many of these women of myth are not known in popular culture or even discussed in the typical study of shapeshifting, werewolves, and lycanthropy. Acknowledging this segregation is understanding that 'mainstream culture has tended to focus on its male rights and initiations at the exclusion of women.' (Short 2006:5). This is partial to the study of werewolves as it tends to develop around a 'focus on hunting, savagery, and aggression [which are stereotypical] masculine identity positions' (Priest 2015:3). Doing this creates a traditional gendering of the wolf that often bleeds into the media texts it discusses.

This seclusion can be readily exampled in both Teen Wolf and Twilight, with Leah and Erica both exampling Priest's observation that in '21st-century texts, the teenage werewolf exists as the lone female in an otherwise exclusively male lycanthropic pack.' (2015:9) The isolation Others them within an already marginalised group; the 'monsters' are no longer the minority. Rachel Mosley quotes that 'many fantasy texts created for teenagers' deal with questions of difference, Otherness, and increased power… many shows give the sense that to be a teenager is not quite human.' (Mosley in Davis and Dickinson 2004:7) In many narratives catered towards teenagers, this Othering is meant to be a universal ungendered feeling. Even in films like Carrie (1976) where Stephen King claims her revenge is something that 'any student' can relate to (1981:12) before proceeding to gender that 'any' as a 'he'. Carries frustration and desperation is easy to sympathise with. Yet, whilst examining Priests observation and taking this 21st century leaning into account we understand that if the teenage boy is a werewolf, then the teenage girl is her own singular entity, 'a freak. The girlie wolf.' (Meyer 2008:291). Despite neither of these characters being in a horror film or franchise, the parallels between readings of the young adult fantasy and readings of horror films are too alike to deny. As explained in both Misfit Sisters and Teen TV, the rites of passage they subliminally push are deliberately placed by adults for a teen audience. Davis and Dickinson claim that teen media texts set 'certain agendas at this delicate time just prior to the onset of more prominent citizenship; and/ or to raise crucial issues (of adult choosing) in a responsible manner that is entirely hegemonically negotiated.' (2004:3) whereas Sue Short claims that 'the narrative's evaluated [in teen horror] are best understood as updated fairy tales, sharing mutual interests in both imaginatively exploring, and often subverting, what is deemed to be culturally permissible.' (2006:6). Arguing between guidance and hegemonic society, both books reference patriarchal idealism as the goal, suggesting that despite the handholding these genres aim to complete they are still bound to follow a particular code to lead youth culture comfortably into a capitalist, patriarchal society. We can reference this idea back to Ovid and Hecuba, understanding the idea that her actions were 'not a threat to individual humans or a competitor for prey, but rather a threat to domesticated animals.' (Priest 2015:4), in this instance the 'domesticated animals' were the posse of women who accompanied Hecuba. By encouraging the Queen, they sealed her fate, for there could be no other narrative for the Queen of Troy once she gave in to her violent desires. Her transformation and subsequent death were as much of a warning as it was a liberation. 

This storytelling technique is adopted in Twilight, where Meyer consistently references a 'Beauty and The Beast' inspired story for her protagonists and love interests, quoting 'so the lion fell in love with the lamb' (2005:274) several times. As understood, 'fairy tales are not simply repeated, but revised' (Short 2007:17), indicating another dimension to the choice of reference Meyer made. In this 21st-century fairy tale, we are asked to question the identity of the monsters from their traditional roles as antagonists, a moral decision common in coming-of-age narratives surrounding young women. As a 'mass cultural artefact' (Davis and Dickinson 2004:2), Twilight’s significance in popular and teenage culture cannot be ignored, and the lone she-wolf Leah Clearwater is no exception. Her association with Hecuba's story and comparison with Erica Reyes from Teen Wolf question a complicated link with autonomy in the narrative of female werewolves. Hecuba transformed when her autonomy was stolen from her, shipped across the sea as a slave and unable to do anything but observe her children's encounters with death; her metamorphoses freed her in the same way it shackles Leah. In the Twilight universe, the wolf's transformation is triggered through anger, not phases of the moon. Leah is trapped by her anger, reflecting contemporary representations of feminine rage, which are conflicting and inconsistent. While Leah's packmates are liberated by their transformation, hers is sacrificial to her freedom. In a feminist reading of the Twilight films, Leah's werewolfism can be read as 'an apocalyptic feminine explosion of the frustrated desire to speak, a desired denied to [her], within the patriarchal symbolic.' (Sobchak in Creed 1993:78). Feminine rage is not uncommon in Greek myth, but a sympathetic death sentence frequently follows it. We can see this in Greek tragedies like Antigone, Hecuba herself, and even Dido from Virgil's Aeneid. These women present a standard of patriarchal warning and male anxiety from over a thousand years ago that remains prevalent today. 

© 2009 Summit Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.

Unintentionally one of the most significant moments in popular culture, Twilight's werewolf mythology is based very loosely on the Native American legends of the real-life Quileute tribe that lives in La Push, Washington. This creates a problematic association when the narrative initially promotes the parallels between werewolfism and 'masculine ruthlessness, physical violence and sexual aggression' (Mann 2020:155), indicating that the 'danger' that the wolves represent is defined through their masculinity. Jacob Black, the central shifter, is consistently used to remind the viewer of the wolves' 'wild' nature, using montages of him lifting increasingly heavy objects, walking around barefoot and shirtless, and being unnecessarily hotheaded, presentig a caricature of masculinity. However, Jacob is only sixteen when he 'phases' for the first time; as well as exampling this hyper-masculine imagery, he also embodies 'a typical stereotype of the teenager which is indeed the image of an inarticulate, frustrated, if not rage-fuelled, not-quite-yet adult.' (Hills in Davis and Dickinson 2004:58), which is only further extrapolated on when we meet Emily, the 'alpha' wolf, Sam's, girlfriend. Explained to have been too close to Sam when he 'phased', she has 'scar[ring] from hairline to chin by three thick, red lines… One line pulled down the corner of her right eye; another twisted the right side of her mouth into a permanent grimace.' (Meyer 2006:291). Nicknamed the 'Wolf Girl' this relationship indicates the wolves initial dynamics with women. Having previously been all-male, the introduction of a woman with permanent scarring creates its own negative connotations, promoting the idea of singular masculinity with no room for feminine influence.

First introduced in the third instalment of the Twilight franchise, Eclipse (2010), Leah's transformation and initiation into the pack is predated by this problematic introduction. As an audience, we are invited to assume Leah would be 'a feminised version of a male figure,' (Schubart 2007:24). However, her subsequent characterisation is undeniably feminine, exploiting a paradox both Meyer and the films created within the werewolf's representation. As a woman in the Twilight universe, Leah is first and foremost a caretaker, and Meyer’s original writing does not allow her to become part of the groundbreaking archetype Ginger Snaps created. Instead, Leah is created separate from the pack, the paradox preventing her from ever truly being one of them. The estranged relationship between Leah and the pack is a plot point that takes place off-screen before her introduction, the werewolfism having caused her strife before she even 'phased'. Eclipse introduces the audience to a werewolf trait called imprinting, described by Jacob as though 'everything that made [him] who [he] was disconnected from [him] in that second… a million steel cables tied [him] to one thing- her.' (Meyer 2008:330) Imprinting is equated to love at first sight, although love here heavily translates to blind devotion. Early in Leah's narrative it is explained that her cousin and her high school sweetheart Sam, the 'alpha', were a couple. As Leah is seventeen in the story the breakup is recent, and an integral part to her narrative choices and characterisation. Sam was the first werewolf to transform, and, to keep the secret, he ended his relationship with Leah. Not long after this he inadvertently created an 'imprint' bond with her cousin, and close friend, Emily. Maria Warner observed that in 'old wives tales' women would be warned about dealing with 'predatory men and female rivalries, both in our own family situations, and those they might marry into.' (Warner in Short 2006:10) While Twilight is not an old wives tale, it does hold that same element of warning when it regards relationships and romantic love. Painting Leah as an antagonist for not being mature enough to accept and move on from the situation when Sam and Emily became infatuated with each other, the threat of Leah's werewolfism on herself and her mental autonomy is only worsened when the werewolves transform. As a pack they have a telepathic connection that prevents them from hiding anything from each other, with no choice but to share their every thought and feeling. Leah is made an antagonist for not immediately following the moral code of femininity, struggling to watch her closest friend and ex-boyfriend be happy together. Her inability to escape sharing her thoughts, or viewing others, surrenders her mental and emotional autonomy. Twilight often rejects the idea of feminine autonomy in the franchise, as even after Emily's narrative mirrors 'stories of forced matrimony', she does not have the same fear of her own sexuality that often follows the trope (Short 2006:29), rather she embraces Sam despite the lack of consent in their bond. This, in itself, is a noteworthy and questionable representation of consent in the franchise directed towards young women. With neither party unable to stop the bond, the animalistic obsession becomes an almost Freudian idea of uncontrollable sexual instinct that Mann mentioned was inherently linked to werewolfism. This mandatory 'love at first sight' is heavily romanticised in the franchise, with two characters imprinting on young children. This only reminds the audience of a power imbalance that is only furthered by the women becoming objects of desire to the werewolves. However, it also introduces the idea that the wolves have no choice either, their own mental and emotional autonomy becoming compromised by their werewolfism.

Already side-lined by her identity as a she-wolf and previous relationship with her alpha, Twilight builds Leah into an aloof, unbreakable figure. By leaning into the 'crazy ex-girlfriend trope, the audience is heavily encouraged to side-line her as an unsympathetic figure. The characters isolate Leah by 'framing her merely as an unpredictable liability and a problem that has to be eliminated' (McCullough and Minoff, 2021). In Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)  the first line of dialogue directed toward her is simply 'shut up, Leah'. As a character constantly ostracised by her 'pack', who refer to each other as 'brothers', her seclusion is paramount to her narrative, and a driving force for her anger. The trope itself references back to Medea and ancient Greek literature, proving that ancient stories build the archetypes that are reused and referenced in contemporary media. Dubbed with the title of a harpy, Leah is written and presented to be an antagonist, bitter, and disliked enough to be titled with an additional monstrous identity to her werewolfism. Immediately a foil to the fun of the pack’s banter, her presence is used sparingly in Eclipse unless the narrative demands sobering. Much like Ginger in Ginger Snaps, Leah is 'troubled long before the curse' (Mann 2020:175); the transformation only prevents her from moving forward with her life. Despite the pack being known for their anger and testosterone-fueled transformations, Leah essentially subverts the expectation of taking 'pleasure in forbidden emotions such as carnality and violence' (Short 2006: 16). Her feminine rage manifests itself through her aloofness, which is directed towards her packmates and situation. By not desiring harm to the men in the pack and outwardly stating her hopes for Sam to be happy, Leah reinforces the contradictory she-wolf representation, unexpectedly creating a complex character on the side-lines of the primary narrative. 

Breaking Dawn Pt1 further invites a more sympathetic reading of her character to become canon. When the pack splits up, she follows Jacob, rebelling against Sam. She is so desperate to create space between her and her ex that she abandons her tribe, 'brothers', and personal morals. 'I'll do whatever you want, except go back to Sam's pack and be the pathetic ex-girlfriend he can't get away from.' This moment defines her character; as a constant aggressor, the audience has not been privy to a more vulnerable side of her before. The isolation she experiences is recognised, and she claims that 'being unwanted isn't exactly a new thing to [her].' The comment allows the audience to revise their opinions whilst also creating a window into Leah’s feminine expectation to forgive and forget her heartbreak. We never see Sam in an apologetic or antagonist position. The alpha werewolf does not face Leah’s extreme consequences, as sacrifice is an integral part of constructing the female teen werewolf (Priest 2020:138). A statement proved almost immediately when Leah's first shift caused her father to have a heart attack and her brother to also transform. Where Sam mutilates his girlfriend, Leah kills her father. Arguably a commentary on society and gender politics in the mid-2000s, this introduction of consequence reintroduces the ever-present feminine fight for moral justice in young adult media. As Hannah Priest observed with sacrifice, Short recognised the 'idea of approved womanhood' being 'signaled by a demonstration of moral responsibility' (2006:4). Yet, as Leah never chose to be a tribe protector and she is simply 'expected to deny self-preservation in favour of tribal duty' (Priest 2015:140), the reward her narrative should inspire is compromised; she is left suspended in moral duty and forced servitude. This relation back to teen narratives is the true divide between her similarities with Hecuba. The Queen of Troy harboured no guilt or moral dilemma, which is the recurring theme of Leah's characterisation. It also introduces the idea of consequence into Leah's narrative; as a character who has already had to sacrifice, her father's death only furthers her moral dilemmas and mental autonomy.

The focus on Leah's suffering continues to take a more feminine and arguably problematic angle in the final instalments of the franchise. Where 'miscarriage is presented as a clear and unavoidable consequence of female lycanthropy,' (Priest 2015:13), the problem of infertility is not one often discussed within female werewolf narratives. Following the release of Ginger Snaps, many female werewolves in film were teenagers whose lycanthropy is the result of puberty, creating a coming-of-age story. Ginger’s transformation occurs the same day she starts her period and, in doing so, she joins characters like Carrie, who indulge the idea that growing up is something to fear and womanhood is monstrous. Linda Ruth Williams observed the Fitzgerald sisters as 'girls on the brink of womanhood [who] would rather not take the next step.' (Williams in Short 2006:95). Leah offers a counter-narrative to this, her own werewolfism leaving her body premenopausal. Claiming to be a 'genetic dead end' Leah no longer experiences her menstrual cycle, her body static. The link between Leah's lycanthropy and the loss of autonomy over her own body is furthered by this revelation, as she becomes stuck in a moral, physical, and mental subordination. Interestingly Twilight also does this with the female vampires, Rosalie and Leah creating parallels between the supernatural creatures. This invites the undeniable link between female monstrosity and infertility, which is only furthered considering the male characters are still able to father children. By becoming Other these women do not complete their narrative, Maria Warner claims that 'metamorphosis defines the fairy-tale' (Warner in Short 2006:15), yet with both Rosalie and Leah transforming against their will it suggests that their own stories have been frozen. Whether this is a subliminal warning is debatable; as Meyer wrote these books targeting a young female audience, the films and her final published manuscript will have gone through many revisions, eventually falling into the mainstream expectation of patriarchal acceptance and encouragement. Ultimately, 'despite invoking powerful women who gain a new level of confidence as they approached puberty, clear restraints are imposed. No sooner do we get a tantalising glimpse of female agency and independence than this is abruptly curtailed.' (Short 2006:41) Leah and Rosalie are young, beautiful, and powerful, but unlike the men in the story, for this, they must sacrifice their physical autonomy. This could be a metaphor for a feminine 'death', as Meyer leans into a divided representation of gender, and both characters ultimately fall into the caregiving role associated with women.

As exampled, Leah completely disregards the notion that 'ultimately, female self-sacrifice is rewarded.' (Short 2006:29) as her narrative relies on personal sacrifices which are never outwardly acknowledged. Leah gives up her physical, mental, and moral autonomy to werewolfism. In Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012), she gives her life to save a vampire, one of her mortal enemies, ultimately following the ideal feminine narrative both Short and Donald Haase claim to 'elicit obedience and moral behaviour,' (2004:159). Yet, she gains no happy ending from the losses and no liberation in her anger. Whilst this is juxtaposed by Hecuba, Erica only reinforces this postfeminist reading, despite the heavy illusion her narrative creates. As the TV show, Teen Wolf, was directed to more of a universal audience, much like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, this adjustment of messaging can be linked back to the idea of patriarchal pressure triumphing the male audience and how 'capitalism embeds itself in the teen lifestyle' (Davis and Dickinson 2004:9). Erica evolves from the ultimate feminine warning Leah represents, yet this evolution is only found in the packaging she is presented to us in. Ultimately Erica is no different from Leah, although her story is far more tragic. 

Like Leah, Erica is introduced as a secondary character later into the narrative; in the second season of Teen Wolf after the initial introduction of the werewolves. Erica Reyes immediately creates a juxtaposition to the static nature of Leah's character, having chosen to become a werewolf, Erica almost immediately becomes a cautionary tale. Perhaps more interlinked with traditional patriarchal retellings of fairy tales than Twilight, her introduction to werewolfism is painted as secretive and forbidden. Seduced by the alpha werewolf, Derek, Erica was targeted in a scene that evokes the same energy as Thomasin dealing with the devil in The Witch. He asks her, 'what if it all went away… and everything got better.' Although the choice was hers, Erica's autonomy remains uncertain throughout her narrative, promoting this 'clash of abuse and female agency.' (Schubart 2007:2). Unlike Leah, Erica is encouraged by Derek to rebel against the moral code of femininity; her insurgency manifests through her sexuality. Erica is not the only werewolf turned in the episode, but seduction is singular only to her character. Perhaps more of a connecting bridge between the savagery of Ginger Snaps and the melancholy of Twilight, Teen Wolf initiates a post-feminist reading into the teenage werewolf. 

MTV Entertainment - © MTVE. All Rights Reserved.

Erica's narrative is punctuated through her physical appearance; first presented with frizzy hair, acne, baggy clothes, and a tendency to avoid eye contact, Erica is the typical teen outcast. Instead of creating a love triangle as Twilight does, Teen Wolf relies on the 'teen' aspect of its genre, already leaning into known archetypes to isolate Erica. The narrative blames Erica's identity as an outsider on her epilepsy, blaming her acne and anxiety on her medication. This deliberate segregation emphasises her lack of autonomy over her own body. After suffering from a seizure in front of her gym class, Erica's humiliation and ostracization is bought to its height. The singular spectacle like event of her suffering reminiscent, once again, to characters like Carrie. Unlike Leah, Erica has already suffered from this loss of control over her physical self and bodily functions, her epilepsy Othering her within her school and within her personal ideology. Werewolfism allows Erica the autonomy she has never been able to grasp over her own body, the transformation offering her liberation. After being bitten, she has a reintroduction scene that parallels Jennifer's Body (2009), The Craft (1996), and Ginger Snaps, as Erica reenters the school in a slow-motion shot that pans up her body voyeuristically presenting her 'new' self. The reference point is a tragic foreshadowing, for the women in these films were all punished in the finale, their sexuality not sustainable in the patriarchal observation. Swapping out the trainers for leopard print heels, she is redressed in a miniskirt, tight top, and leather jacket as part of her new werewolf 'uniform'. The scene itself is a visualisation of her awakened sexuality, even having her biting into an apple is a reference to fertility and the 'forbidden fruit' of sexual desire, once again solidifying her fate as a cautionary tale.

Unlike Leah, Erica embraces the changes of her werewolfism, having gained the autonomy she desperately desired through the change. Yet, this desire for autonomy and freedom inspires female rivalry within her narrative, as Teen Wolf embraces 'the commodification and fetishisation of youth culture,' (Davis and Dickinson 2004:5) to place her into a world of 'bitchy girls and sexually manipulative boys.' (Short 2006:89) Understanding that 'it is a woman's sexuality that renders them desirable, but also threatening,' (Neale in Creed 1993:5) Erica's seduction and consequent introduction to werewolfism is laced with sexual imagery and feminine sexuality. Her immediate change from sympathetic character to antagonist is never questioned. Transforming from a 'petulant misfit to dangerous beast once bitten,' (Short 2006:96) Erica becomes a direct adversary to the two female protagonists; Allison and Lydia. Lydia herself reacting to Erica's physical transformation by saying 'What, in the holy hell, is that?' promoting an unease within the female relationships. Whilst both the original Teen Wolf and the TV show are known for 'making light of the hostile heteronormative construction of masculinity,' (Mann 2020:155), their treatment of women is uneven in its meta overtures. This lack of kinship inspires a different kind of isolation for Erica, as she surrounds herself with the men in her 'pack' and the male protagonists. Despite lamenting her 'invisibility', Erica is 'keen to avoid the limitations that conventional femininity offers and chooses to stand out from the crowd rather than seeking to fit in.' (Short 2006:2) Erica becomes a werewolf because of her desire not to be an outcast, yet, by doing so, she removes herself from the collective, embracing the isolation she chooses. Similarly, Leah also does this in the final Twilight film when she follows Jacob instead of staying with the main pack, embracing her outcast nature as it was something she actually chose.

While it can be argued that Erica's transformation into a werewolf is 'presented as paralleling a girls pubescent metamorphosis' as it awakens her burgeoning sexuality; it also suggests an 'escape from adolescence,' (Priest 2015:131) as she desired a removal from her situation as a high school exhibition of teenage oddity. As she repeatedly laments how much she suffered at the hands of her classmates before, Erica's repossession of her bodily autonomy is the first real dialogue she offers to the audience, 'you know I never knew what I looked like having a seizure until someone took a video of me and put it online…look at me now'. Offering a sympathetic lens to her character, the narrative constantly references how bad her previous life was, championing the werewolfism that has caused Scott, the protagonist, strife. However, as Erica begins to have more narrative influence over the plot, helping the other characters solve the identity of the season's central antagonist, she has a seizure as a werewolf. Interestingly Erica only has a seizure once she refocuses from being the temptress causing strife between Scott and Allison. By having a regular conversation with Stiles, the first time we see her do so with a man that is not a member of her pack, she lapses to everything the werewolfism helped her escape. This, arguably, could suggest that her transformation was a one-way path towards violent sexuality like Ginger in Ginger Snaps; as soon as Erica becomes more than a 'object of male desire' (Schubart 2007:14), she loses her bodily autonomy again, visually regaining the frizziness of her hair and losing her makeup. Erica is, once again, the misfit. Ginger Snaps promotes the idea that 'to go through adolescence, then become a woman, was like becoming a monster.' (Mann 2020:174) but in Teen Wolf, we see this monstrosity lie on both sides of the transformation. Erica proposes the suggestion that whilst womanhood 'unleashes a thirst for sex and violence,' (Mann 2020:175) rejecting this will render you incapacitated with the Otherness of youth. It is only when we see Erica in a relationship with Boyd that her physical appearance regain equilibrium between the 'new' version of her. The one we were first introduced to, once again inviting a misogynistic interpretation of independence and femininity into the female werewolf narrative.

Jeffrey Weinstock argues that ‘the same monster resonates differently in different times and places’ (2020:2). Nevertheless, Hecuba’s struggle with autonomy and consequent death is mirrored in both Erica and Leah’s stories. The promotion of feminine sacrifice has been recurrent throughout media directed towards young women, hegemonic messaging not allowing Hecuba, Erica, or Leah to live after they transform. Recognizing that lycanthropy in these media texts is a manifestation of feminine autonomy, the isolation of these characters suggests that these women no longer belong in a patriarchal society. In early 2010s media, the female teen outcast isn’t allowed to fight for her own autonomy, for doing so will end in punishment. The teen audiences who consume this media and messaging are young and impressionable, so by Othering and further ostracizing young women who access their feminine rage, it champions the direct journey to moral responsibility, killing those who fail. While Hecuba escaped the suffering of her transformation, becoming a tragic hero, the women of contemporary media must suffer first before earning the same liberation. This agency is a promotion of older feminist stories that championed female resourcefulness. However, by imbuing this message into side characters, these media texts have been able to create extreme examples of warning and punishment without fulfilling the rewards they inspire. There is no space in early 2010s media for the female teenage werewolf to live long and happy, her Otherness inescapable. The monster does not necessarily resonate differently over time and place; rather she is remoulded to reflect the capitalist, patriarchal expectation of mainstream society.

Filmography

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 1997- 2003 [TV Programme] United States: 20th Century Fox

• Breaking Dawn Part 1. 2011 [Film] Directed by Bill Condon. United States: Summit Entertainment

• Breaking Dawn Part 2. 2012 [Film] Directed by Bill Condon. United States: Summit Entertainment

• Carrie. 1976. [Film] Directed by Brian De Palma. United States: Red Bank Films

• Eclipse. 2010 [Film] Directed by David Slade. United States: Summit Entertainment

• Ginger Snaps. 2000. [Film] Directed by Jon Fawcett. Canada: Motion International

• Jennifer’s Body. 2009. [Film] Directed by Karyn Kusama. United states: Fox Atomic, Dune Entertainment 

• Teen Wolf. 2011-2017 [TV Programme] United States: MTV Production

• The Craft. 1996. [Film] Directed by Andrew Flemming. United States: Columbia Pictures

• The Mortal Instruments.2013 [Film] Directed by Harald Zwart. United States: Entertainment One

• The Vampire Diaries. 2009-2017 [TV Programme] United States: CBS Television

• The Witch. 2015. [Film] Directed by Robert Eggers. United States: A24.

• True Blood. 2008- 2014 [TV Programme] United Sates: HBO Entertainment

• Twilight. 2008. [Film] Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. United States: Summit Entertainment

Bibliography

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• King, S (1981) Danse Macabre. New York: Everest House 

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