While women’s rage has been used as a theme in cinema for decades, it still packs a punch when done right. And that’s the case in Your Monster starring Mexican Melissa Barrera.
From Sissy Spacek exacting revenge in the 1976 supernatural horror classic Carrie to Carey Mulligan seeking vengeance against toxic men in the Oscar-winning 2020 thriller Promising Young Woman, the centuries-old adage still rings true: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” And in the horror-comedy romance Your Monster, which is currently playing at theaters, Barrera (Scream VI) believes that much of the anger that makes her character’s blood boil is rooted in the oppression that society imposes on women.
“[Society tells us] what we’re allowed to do and say [and] how we’re allowed to act,” Barrera, 34, told Remezcla during a recent interview. “What’s ladylike [and] un-ladylike and all of those things that keep us in line and, honestly, really mess us up because we keep a lot inside.”
In Your Monster, Barrera plays Laura Franco, an actress whose boyfriend breaks up with her while she is undergoing cancer treatment. Once out of the hospital, Laura returns to her childhood home where she discovers that a monster she has known since she was a kid is still living in one of the closets.
Although initially unhappy with their living situation, their relationship becomes deeper, and Laura discovers a strength she didn’t know she possessed. This leads her to audition for a role in a musical directed by her ex-boyfriend, and gives her the opportunity to confront him about his bad behavior.
“If you put your boot on the neck of someone for long enough, then they will explode; I think it’s just a matter of time,” Barrera said on the connective tissue between women and their rage. “I think it’s really nice to see female characters empowering themselves and allowing themselves to be messy and use their voices loud and clear and say what they want and what they feel.”
As a woman in Hollywood, Barrera has felt men in the film industry attempt to suppress her emotions. She admits that sometimes when she is called out for being assertive, she feels “embarrassment” and “shame,” which she knows is a form of social conditioning.
“I feel like I’m being rude, [but] I’m not being rude,” Barrera said. “I’m not a rude person. I’m just telling you exactly what I need. [Women are] made to feel like that’s wrong. It’s like ‘Un mal del mundo.’ It’s like a disease of the times where we’re not allowed to express ourselves because we’re immediately labeled as hysterical or a bitch or whatever.”
Barrera was able to use her voice late last year when she was unceremoniously fired from the Scream movie franchise after she spoke out on social media in support of Palestine and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I think I kind of understood in the last year what social media is supposed to be for. It’s not supposed to be like…[to] pretend like your life is perfect and only post the pictures where you look the most beautiful and the vacations you take to make everyone believe that your life is amazing,” Barrera said. And that through the experience of everything that has happened since Scream, she said she has learned that it’s important to her to connect to people, to inform, and use her platform “for the greater good of the world.”
“My perspective on a lot of things has changed in the last year,” she said. “Now, I feel like my purpose in life is different. I’m on this earth for something bigger than what I thought.”
Your Monster starring Melissa Barrera is now in theaters.
