Using the three films I have studied I will give my opinion on how how both sexes are portrayed in horror films. The films I will be using are “Halloween”, the 1978 classic John Carpenter horror film. The second film will be Stanley Kubrick's 1982 psychological horror “The Shining” and finally the 2008 British horror film “Eden Lake”.
According to the author of “Men, Women and Chainsaws” Carol Clover their are four main audience groups that watch horror films in cinema. They are, in order of size, young men, male-female couples of various ages; solo “rogue males”(older men) and adolescent girls in groups. These are the main groups but differ subgenre to subgenre. This means that the target audience of horror films is predominately male.
To determine any differences between how horror represents gender we must first understand how the majority of films represents each genre. In films males and females are often shown as stereotypes, males are generally shown as strong, dominant, active, independent, intellectual and authoritative where as females are usually shown as submissive, passive, with a focus on physical beauty, sexuality, emotionally and are often defined through there relationships with men. Jeremy Tunstall argued that overall in the 1990s, there were four main representations of women in media, these are: domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. These will be born in mind for each film.
Halloween is about a killer (Mike Myers) killing his sister and years later, after escaping a mental facility going back to his home town and killing teenagers. The “final girl” is Laurie, she is represented as androgynous, intelligent and virginal. Other females in the film, such as Judith Myers, was killed soon after having sex by a young Mike Myers whilst completely naked represent an idea of people being punished for having sex by the killer. Laurie's friend Lynda and Annie are both killed, one in underwear and the other also soon after having sex. In the film the females Lynda and Annie are sex objects to some extent along with Judith. But it is not just the females who die after sex, Lynda's boyfriend also dies afterwards. Many of the females do domestic work such as doing the laundry and also are seen as familial by babysitting. Laura Mulvey suggested that a lot of cinema puts the audience in the eyes of the male who voyeuristic-ally looks at objectified women. This is done by CU, point of views and reaction shots. Horror films defy this idea and usually have a female main protagonist. But often we take the POV of the antagonist allowing us to objectify women. One big question is how are women or homosexuals supposed to interpret these moments. Also the main target audience are males yet in this instance they are forced to live through a female character in most horrors. This shows that males must relate to female in some way. Stephen King in response to Carrie said
“Carrie's revenge is something that any student who has had his gym shorts pulled down in Phys Ed or had his glasses thumb-rubbed in study hall could approve of.”
Carrie is a film about a teenagers revenge and transformation into the “bad guy” Stephen King says that most boys have been in a situation where they have been wronged but not been able to put it right. This memories allow the males to put them selves in the final girls POV. Overall the film punishes women more than men as three main female characters die compared to one male. The film starts off by being very progressive by having female main character as the strong one but is very conservative with how they come across as marital, domestic and sexual.
In “The shining”, once again the male is the antagonist and there is a final girl in a way, depending on your interpretation on who is the hero, Wendy or Tony. Wendy is shown as very marital, very passive and submissive when Jack is rude to her but also take on the man's role by doing all the handy work and Jacks job through out the film. Wendy is also defined by her relationship with Jack and Danny, a mother and wife. The only other notable female is the woman form the bath which is very sexualised and the audience is somewhat punished in this view as she changes into a old dead woman with a rotting body. In this film Wendy is not objectified, similar to Laurie in Halloween. Although Wendy survives it is the men in the film, no matter how useless, that save her. Halloran, comes to help and we expect him to be a strong, clever, hero to what were used to but is swiftly taken out but allowing Wendy to escape. It is Danny who outsmarts Jack to cause his death saving himself and Wendy. Wendy at one point takes control and manages to knock Jack out and lock him up, showing she is very capable but later in the bathroom Is saved even though she managed to cut Jack through the door. This is a more conservative film than Halloween with a less objectified female cast but the female stereotype of being weak, marital and defined by there relationships with men.
Eden Lake has only two main females, Jenny a primary school teacher and Paige one of the gang members. Jenny is very familial by accepting her engagement ring and looking after kids, she's is objectified by the gang characters in the film and somewhat by the audience but editing helps show how Jenny feels about this rather than objectifying her. Once again she is the classic final girl. Paige is a very aggressive and breaks the overall idea of how females are shown in film buy not being familial, sexual, domestic, consumer but she is not treated as a guy or given the privileges of the male members. She is told what to do and isn't made to going in like all the boys and eventually stands up to gang leader and leaves. Throughout of lot of the film she takes care of the male, but he has saved her in a way. In a different ending it shows her transformation into a monster and killing to of the gang members.
Overall all this films follow most of the stereotypes of women in the media. From being sexual and domestic to being defined by men and objectified. Horror comes across as helping change these stereotypes by have a strong surviving final but in other ways just reinforces them more.
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