“Plug it up! Plug it up!”
Many of us have at least heard about Stephen King’s Carrie (1974). From the original book release to its multiple film adaptations, Carrie White became a symbol of feminine rage and a pop-culture icon. Now, with the currently on-going Prime Video series, Carrie is once again entering our conversation topics. This adaptation, directed by Mike Flanagan, will bring King’s story into the age of social media and cyberbullying. But why are we still fascinated by Carrie White more than 50 years after the story was first published? Perhaps we should look into how the story goes deeper than supernatural horror and dives into the confusing and sometimes cruel experience of growing up.
Carrie became the archetype that many artists use as inspiration for their work, like with Jane “Eleven” Hopper, created by the Duffer Brothers for the hit Netflix TV show, Stranger Things. Her supernatural abilities were innovative in horror, and it’s definitely one of the most impactful aspects of King’s novel. Stephen King is recognized as a horror and sci-fi author, but I believe that a girl with a supernatural weapon isn’t the scariest part of Carrie White’s story.
The book is filled with violence from the start. Carrie’s classmates bully and harass her because she doesn’t fit the mold a teenage girl should. In the first chapter of King’s novel, and the very first scene in adaptations, Carrie has her first period in the gym showers at her school. Because she grows up in an extremely religious household, her lack of knowledge about menstruation leads her to believe she’s bleeding to death. Naked, bleeding, and vulnerable, Carrie is ridiculed by her classmates. She undergoes a shame ritual in which a biological change that most women experience during puberty is transformed into a nightmare. The cruelty begins before Carrie understands what is happening to her. Carrie is taught that her own body is something she should be afraid of.
Carrie was never emotionally prepared to face her body’s changes. Since puberty is a phase in life where teenagers can feel disconnected from themselves, it turned her experience into an uncontrollable mess. As girls her age show no kinship with each other, she’s forced to endure bullying, and isolates herself in order to protect the little she knows about her own body while trying to be a normal teenager. Scenes of Carrie experiencing teenage life quickly turn violent as the people around her remind her that she will never fit into the shoes a teenage girl is supposed to fill.
She will never be pretty. She will never be loved. She will never be normal.
During stressful situations, Carrie’s telekinetic powers surge and she’s portrayed as not having total control over them. It’s a defense mechanism — her shield against the adversities that are thrown into her life. Going through puberty and the changes teenagers go through is terrifying enough; add bullying and shame to the mix and you have a recipe for destruction. Carrie’s mother, Margaret, teaches the young girl that womanhood is inherently shameful, which solidifies to Carrie that she will never be normal.
Carrie’s abilities don’t protect her completely from the hurt of the real world. Her inability to properly express herself led her down a path of destruction that she was unable to control. This “lack of self-control” is experienced (though less dramatically) by everyone during the awkward adolescence stage. During the prom and after Carrie is “baptised” with pig’s blood, thick and red, she stands in front of every one of her classmates. As the blood drips down her body, she almost appears to be wounded. But when you stare at her bloodshot eyes, wide open, staring right back, you begin to wonder. She seems hurt; however, the blood running through her no longer seems like it could be from open skin but rather her broken heart, torn apart over a tall stage while everyone is watching.