'Everyone Deserves a Family': The Triple Bind of Family in Ari Aster's Horror

This paper reviews Ari Aster’s two full-length feature films, Hereditary and Midsommar, by examining its use of its representations of “the family” in its narrative relationship with neoliberal ideology. While Hereditary fits with recent trends in gender and anti/oedipal relations within the horror genre, Midsommar reimagines an “otherwise” to neoliberal family relations. However, this new family still adheres to neoliberalism’s “triple bind” (melancholy for the Good family, hetero-futurity, and familial language), evidencing once again neoliberalism’s power in limiting our collective imagination of a possible otherwise.