the abject in ringu

I found many connections between Creed’s theory of the abject and the menace in Ringu. Creed describes the abject as “the place where meaning collapses...deposited on the other side of an imaginary border which separates the self from that which threatens the self” (9).
    Ringu subverts the idea of a screen as shield or boundary, casting it rather as the Athenian shield bearing the decapitated head of Medusa. The screen itself may not kill, but it can be manipulated to act as a conduit for evil and the deadly gaze. In other words, the screen as conduit can kill. This is a complete reversal of the viewer-tv relationship. We think of it as a harmless one-sided relationship in which we are unharmed as we absorb information and pleasure from its screen. Then suddenly the images can manifest themselves corporeally and enact harm upon us. It is important that this is done not through physical violence, but through a reversal of the gaze, so the filmic image now gazes upon the viewer-now-victim. In Ringu this act is prefaced by the screen turning on seemingly of its own accord. Ringu’s horror comes from the deconstruction of the safe boundary between the viewer and screen image.
    Ringu continues J-horror’s proud tradition of casting the evil presence of the film as a dirty, damp, pale girl in tattered white clothes with a sheet of disheveled black hair obscuring her face. I couldn’t tell you the cultural reasons for this specific symbology being repeated so thoroughly throughout the genre, but I do know it scares me every time. I think there is the basic level of the terror of the unknown. It’s a horror film staple that the danger is somewhat non-specific and never fully visualized. This is accomplished in Ringu by keeping Sadako’s face obscured by her hair. It scares us for the same reason we blanch at the creaks and moans of a house at night: we do not know what it is, therefore we cannot understand it. Everything about Sadako’s appearance aligns with Creed’s definition of abject. Her white dress should signify innocence, but it is dirty and wet, a symbol of her pollution. She is corpse-like, pale and lacking fingernails. I did not think Creed’s association of the female form with so-called menstrual pollution was applicable to Ringu. While it may be applied to the psychic Yamamura, I doubt that it could so easily be applied to a young girl. She is too young to be defined by her maternal functions, and I think the idea behind her terror is the corruption of innocence and youth, not what biological capabilities she could have once puberty kicks in. I do not think she is frightening because her killings contrast the assumed life-giving nature of women or pay homage to the “debt to nature” of women (11). Rather it is because she is dead when, as a young child, she should be most alive, and that she is murderous when she should be most innocent. And then there is the intimation that her father is not of this world, bringing into further doubt her ability to owe a debt to nature.
    I found this uncertainty to be one of the more disturbing parts of Ringu. Is this a clash between good and evil, or is this a revenge film? Is Sadako punishing the viewer for voyeuristic masochism? Is she punishing the desire to look, or is she relying on it to satisfy her evil desire to kill? And what would happen if everyone just stayed away from the tv for a week?