Musical Aesthetics in Alex North's Score for The Bad Seed

Abstract

The Bad Seed is an American, female-centered psychological thriller that aestheticizes attitudes toward 1950s gender roles. Director, Meryn Leroy, and composer, Alex North, tap into a fear of the young character, Rhoda as a threat, but more so, a fear for the character, Christine as a person and a mother. My work demonstrates how North contributes to female-centered film aesthetics by offering sympathetic consideration for female characters through his original music. Through critical analysis of genre-specific film and its music in the example of Mervyn Leroy’s The Bad Seed, I demonstrate aesthetic connections between Alex North’s The Bad Seed score and the psychological thriller genre.