‘We’re Going to Make You into a Proper Woman’: Postfeminist Gender Performativity and the Supernatural in Penny Dreadful (2014-2016)

Abstract

Neo-Victorian Gothic fiction exploits the supernatural to achieve social and sexual emancipation for women, shaping the narrative into what Esther Saxey defines as the ‘liberation plot’ (2010). John Logan’s Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) explores how female characters transgress heteronormative gender roles with the assistance of supernatural forces. My main aim is to show how the series fails to grant the female protagonists a sense of feminist liberation, punishing them instead for their subversion of socially imposed gender acts. In applying Saxey’s (2010) and other supplementary approaches to gender emancipation, I analyse the female characters’ failed attempt at achieving it by unleashing their supernatural doubles. In doing so, I show that—in spite of Penny Dreadful’s apparent advocacy for female emancipation—its misogynistic vilification of vindictive women can be understood as part of the show’s postfeminist context of production.