Genre Representaion Essay

Discuss the roles and representation of three female characters within the horror genre.

Within horror films particularly, women are traditionally represented as the victims and men represented as the monster and hero. Traditionally women are represented in horror films as the damsel in distress and are usually being attacked by the killer because they have committed a sinful act. This sinful act is usually sex/drugs, and so they get punished by being killed. This is particularly clear to see in the ‘slasher’ subgenre of horror, such films as ‘Scream’, ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13^th’.

There are many theories surrounding the representation of women within the horror genre. Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze theory’ suggests that the camera is male, and so the audience see things as a typical heterosexual male would see them. This means that women are seen as ‘sex objects’ rather than people, which could link back to them being killed in horror films after having sex or doing drugs. The way in which they are killed could also be because of the ‘male gaze theory’. Men are usually killed quickly and sometimes off-camera. This is because the audience don’t want to see random males being killed. However, when a woman is killed, it is often long and almost torturous. Adding to this, the women are usually in their underwear. An example of this is Tina’s death in ‘Friday the 13^th’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDSsxnIDNDU). She is dressed in just a shirt, which is provocative in the way that her legs are exposed to the audience. Adding to this, the camera from 1:29 to 1:41 is a handheld one, as if someone is chasing her. It focuses again mainly on her legs and the idea of her being helpless. When it cuts to the bedroom and Tina is cut, the producers of the film took advantage of this and poured blood all over her body, which again provokes the audience. She writhes around in pain (with much of the camera focusing on her legs) getting thrown around the room before eventually dying. This also supports Laura Mulvey’s idea of the camera being from a heterosexual male’s perspective.

Another theory on the representation of women within the horror genre is Carol Clover’s ‘final girl theory’. The final girl is a feature in horror films (particular slasher, as with Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze theory’) that focuses around the ‘final girl’ alive to stop the killer, and tell the story of what happened. Pre 90s feminist theorists saw the final girls as ‘damsels in distress’, women who need rescuing, victims of masculine rage- essentially underpowered women. Arguably, the final girl is in dozens of films, including ‘Halloween’, ‘Friday the 13th’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Scream’. Carol Clover first mentioned the ‘final girl theory’ in her 1992 book ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film’. She suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but has a shift in relation to the final girl throughout the film. Clover argues that they are not victims of patriarchy and so fight back. An example of a ‘final girl’ is Laurie in ‘Halloween’ (played by Jamie Lee Curtis), who is the girl to fight back. She does this by stabbing her attacker with a knitting needle. Clover would argue that a knitting needle was chosen to stab the killer because it is stereotypically a woman’s object, which supports the idea that the ‘final girl’ is fighting against masculine rage. When the killer comes after her again, she stabs him again, this time with a coat hanger. This ending combines ideas of her being saved and her fighting back.

The idea of Horror and Homogeneity is where those who dare to go against conservatism in horror films are the first to be murdered. The ‘slutty’ female; those who get drunk do drugs and have sex are usually always killed. However, the final girl escapes because she doesn’t partake in these symbols of adult life. Clover also questioned who the audience identifies with. Rather than the previous view which was an assumption that the largely mal author identified with the male killer. However Clover argued that the audience identifies with the final girl instead.

However some films go against this structure. This could be where the producers decide deliberately to change the structure in order to lull the audience into a false sense of stability within character types, specifically the ‘final girl’ in ‘Scream’. The opening scene in ‘Scream’ stars Drew Barrymore having a ‘scary movie’ night in on her own (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3lSvJ5RXKA). As she is an educated, upper class girl in a big house, the audience assumes that she may be the ‘final girl’. When she dies after ten minutes, the audience are not only shocked that the possible ‘final girl’ has died, but also because at the time, Drew Barrymore was such a huge star that it was totally unexpected for her to die almost instantly. This scene totally flipped the conventions of not only the ‘final girl theory’, but also that big stars can’t die, on its head.

Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory could also be applied to the representation of women in horror movies. He looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Claude Levi-Strauss was more interested for deeper arrangements of themes. In a horror film there are obvious binary oppositions. Using ‘Scream’ as an example again, there is the obvious one of good vs. evil, or killer vs. victim. However there are also less obvious ones which can be seen, such as the inner turmoil of the lead character Sydney which is grief vs. carrying on as normal. Another major binary opposition is truth vs. lies, which runs throughout the whole film, in the form of the suspects and the actual killers. Finally, a binary opposition which is present in almost all horror films is known vs. unknown, in the case of Scream, the unknown is who the killer is and who they will attack next, and the known is that there is a serial killer who is killing helpless people.

Propp’s theory is another theory which can be applied to the representation of women in horror films. Propp’s theory of character types suggests that there are 8 character roles within films. He looked at 100s of old folk tales to establish this. He argues that in a film there is always: The villain(s)(usually female), the hero (usually male), the donor (person who provides an object with magic property), the helper (who aids the hero), the princess (reward of the hero), her father (who rewards the hero), the dispatcher (who sends the hero on their task), and finally the false hero. The fact that Propp assumed that most villains were female shows the view that people had on women in the time of Old Russian folk-tales was not a good one. As horror films have progressed, the villain has tended to change to male, with the victims usually being female, due to the stereotypical ‘helplessness’ of women and ‘toughness’ of men.

Todorov’s theory of narrative structure suggests that the story begins with equilibrium where everything is in balance. This is then disrupted by an event, causing disequilibrium. Problems are then resolved into a new equilibrium by the end of a story. In horror films, this structure is usually followed in terms of the final girl, as they start of living a normal life. They then go through turmoil throughout the film until they usually kill the killer, which then starts there normal life again (restoring equilibrium again).

In conclusion, it is clear to see that all of these theories are partly present within horror movies. In my opinion, the ‘final girl theory’ by Carol Clover makes more logical sense and can be seen more than Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze theory’, and so is a stronger theory all in all.