Frankenstein\u2019s female creature, also known as \u201cthe Bride\u201d, was the first female monster to appear on screen, in the 1935 Frankenstein sequel: The Bride of Frankenstein. An unruly and rebellious figure, she has inspired dozens of adaptations since.<\/p>\n
Most recently, the Bride<\/a>, as a dramatic character, has been part of a series of creative reimaginings through an explicitly feminist lens. For instance, the dark coming of age comedy, Lisa Frankenstein (2024). It imagined the Bride (Kathryn Newton) in the role of the scientist, who accidentally brings to life a young Victorian man (Cole Sprouse). <\/p>\n Released just a year earlier, Poor Things<\/a> (2023) brought an even more complex exploration of power, agency and consent, set in a retro-futuristic Victorian era. In it, the female creature Bella (Emma Stone) negotiates what it means to be both a scientific object and creator (being created out of the pregnant body of a woman and the brain of the mother\u2019s unborn baby). Bella does not abide by the rules and conventions of polite society, using her body against the purpose of her creator and causing several mental breakdowns for the male characters in the process.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The trailer for The Bride!<\/p>\n Now, a new movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride!, brings the character to life in moody 1930s Chicago. Jessie Buckley plays the female creature brought back from the dead to be Frankenstein\u2019s mate. But she is not the sort of creature that is inclined to serve someone else\u2019s purpose. When Frankenstein (now the monster, not the scientist, and played by Christian Bale) calls her \u201cthe Bride of Frankenstein\u201d, she replies: \u201cNo, just the Bride.\u201d <\/p>\n Although the film promises a \u201cBonnie and Clyde\u201d story \u2013 two lovers and rebels on the run from the law \u2013 this Bride refuses to belong to any man. Instead, gun in hand, she demands to be seen and heard on her own terms. <\/p>\n Reanimating the Bride from novel to screen<\/p>\n Since her inception, the Bride\u2019s struggle has been for autonomy. She first appeared in Mary Shelley\u2019s novel Frankenstein<\/a> (1818), named after an egomaniac scientist who creates a creature from cadavers. In the novel, Dr Frankenstein begrudgingly agrees to make his male creature a companion, but destroys her before she can live. He is afraid she might reproduce or become even more powerful than the male creature. <\/p>\n Her destruction is the most violent episode in the novel and makes apparent the anxiety that her unruly female body causes to the mad scientist. The erasure of Shelley\u2019s original female creation set the scene for the way she continues to be written out of most adaptations of the novel. This includes, most recently, Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Frankenstein (2025).<\/p>\n