The Exorcist

The disgusting bodily fluids Regan’s body spews when possessed illustrate the terrible power of the demon’s corruption. They are also an effective allegory for contemporary society’s response to emerging adolescent sexuality and the messy effects of puberty on the female teenage body. At first, Regan’s bedroom has a bad smell and Regan urinates on the floor the middle of a dinner party. Later, Regan frequently urinates in her bed, vomits bile on those who come near her, and defecates in front of others. The culmination of body fluid horror comes from Regan’s bloody masturbation scenes.

Regan’s changing body profoundly embarrasses and horrifies Chris, and the doctors brought in to help immediately want to sedate Regan and render her almost comatose. Removed from the demonic possession, the specifics of Regan’s transformation mimic and parody puberty. The smell and incontinence satirize increased body odor and the need for better personal hygiene, while the grotesque masturbation bleeding corresponds to menstruation and the loss of virginity.

Everyone around Regan is disgusted by her, and the demon uses her increasingly cloying and vile bodily fluids to repel those who come close. This culminates in the final exorcism scenes, in which the demon vomits bile over Merrin, a symbolic rejection of his religious authority—and the church’s stance on female sexuality in general. Merrin’s ignores this bile and eventually he and Karras overcome the demon, shutting down Regan’s nascent adolescence and suppressing her anti-authoritarian impulses until only her small, weak voice remains.