Hungry for love: monstrous female hunger as sapphic desire in "Carmilla" by Joseph Seridan Le Fanu and Jennifer's Body (2009) written by Diablo Cody

The intense social control of female sexuality that originated during the Victorian period has led to the monstrification of the Sapphic body and its desires in popular culture from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story, “Carmilla,” to the teen horror dramedy film, Jennifer’s Body (2009) written by Diablo Cody. In Jennifer’s Body, Cody reimagines LeFanu’s archetype of the Sapphic monster with an appetite for flesh through the character Jennifer Check, a popular high school girl who “eats boys” after being possessed by a succubus. Though Jennifer’s Body received overwhelmingly negative reviews upon release, the film has since been resurrected as a feminist text of empowerment after the rise of the MeToo movement. In Jennifer’s Body, Cody reimagines LeFanu’s “Carmilla” in a world where the Sapphic monster is freed from patriarchal social control to satiate her appetite as she pleases.