Resistance, conformity, and negotiation to socio-cultural anxieties: a semiotic reading of female aswang characters in selected Philippine horror films

Abstract

The Philippines has a rich tradition of folklore, often portrayed in horror films to reflect cultural anxieties and hegemonic ideologies to circumvent political censorship. Among the most popular horror genres in the country is Aswang. This study examines the depictions of female Aswang in Aswang (2011), Corazon ang Unang Aswang (2012), and Maria Labo (2015) through Barthesian Semiology. Female aswang characters and their narrative exposition were analyzed on a micro, meso, and macro level. In the micro level, the Filipina aswang as a cultural reject tries to resist male chauvinism through her transformation towards her true nature, gaining control over her life, and divergence from the societal norms. On the other hand, she is represented in aswang films as someone who is being boxed with societal prescriptions, depicted as the weaker one, and is governed by her emotion. The meso level discusses how the female aswang is viewed in the context of her community, and how the latter affects her perception of herself and her decisions in life. The three films underscore the expectation on women to be domesticated, and the lead characters portrayed how women respond to these societal standards. Additionally, the macro level investigated how female aswang characters are discursively positioned in relation to socio-cultural struggles in the past and present to uncover their hegemonic constructs on poverty, injustices, mental health, and historical distortion.