"Women are either blonde fodder for rampant serial killers or the petrified victims of supernatural creatures."
It is true that in horror films women are often portrayed as the victim, but there is some exceptions for example the Others, A Nightmare on Elm Street or The Woman in Black where it's women's ghosts who call the shots and this can cross over to slasher movies which are usually notorious for portraying women as blonde bimbo's who are killed by 'rampant serial killers' but in these films the male's are just as likely to die as the female victims.
in the book Men, Women and Chainsaw's the author Carol J. Clover coined the term 'The Final Girl' which shows us that male and female viewers are encouraged to identify with the victim rather than the psycho, and most definitely with the women who survived the carnage. A common plot line in many horror films is to have a series of victims who are killed one by one by a serial killer to increase terror until the Final Girl vanquishes the killer or escapes, the characteristics for this final girl is to be sexually unavailable or virginal and avoids things like illegal drug use, they often have unisex names and can sometimes have a shared history with the killer. The Final Girl moves the film forward by exhibiting intelligence, curiosity and vigilance, making her very easy to identify with the viewer. The basis of this theory is that the final girl is no longer the damsel in distress, and she is masculinised through 'phallic appropriation' when she picks up a weapon for example a knife or a chainsaw. Horror films have been long debated by feminists because the surviving character needs to be purged of undesirable characteristics for example relentless pursuit of personal pleasure as sex is often punished with death and through penetrating her attacker (stabbing the psycho) she can make this her outlet for sexual frustrations an example of this is Laurie Strode from Halloween.
More examples of the Final Girl...
- Alien 3 - Ellen Ripley & Annalee Call - Both of these exhibit traits that Clover has set out for the final Girl, Call is very boyish and has a masculine style haircut and is characterised as "smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters and sexual reluctance." However Ripley is the "reassuring face of womanhood." However it can be argued that Alien follows the science fiction film genre rather than the film genre so it might lack the sexual theme in the first place.
- Halloween I, II and H20 - Laurie Strode, even though she is rescued by a male character at the end of the film Strode is still seen as a Final Girl, and her image fits directly to Clovers characteristics.
- Scream - In this film the view of the final girl was "resurrected, reshaped and mainstreamer." As the final girl stereotype of being a virgin was challenged as the final girl survives until the end despite having sex.
Women are also subject to a lot of misogyny in horror films and this can be associated with the fear of the abject, this is the fear of "something rejected from which one does not part, from which is something that disgusts us, yet comes from us or from which we come." so in short we are terrified of something of which we came, we have been brought up being taught what we should be disgusted about and conceal it in shame, horror films use the female body as a form of abject for example the bodily fluid, blood ect that relates to periods and birthing that only the female body can perform. In the article , there are two identifications of gendered modes for suffering: masochism and menstruation. Masochism is central to the identification of male monsters who initiate sadistic rampages with acts of self mutilation, but if we look at female monsters we will see that she does not commit acts of self mutilation out of pleasure but out of revenge for earlier abuse by parents, partners, rapists and other offenders for example Carrie, The Exorcist and Alien 3.
When women are seen traditionally as victims they are killed by the attacker for committing a sinful act, they are usually killed in the first 5 mins as punishment for their indiscretions, this stereotype is supported by Tim O'Sullivan who says that "the dumb blonde stereotype might include: blondness, seductive body language and strong makeup." This is then further supported in Scream by the character Tatum Riler who gets killed in the most stereotypical way as she is shown dressed provocatively in a skirt with her nipples showing through her sweater, and promiscuously flirts with her killer before her death. Women have been seen in this role as a victim as this is how women were treated before they had equal rights to men. When watching horror films it is important to put into perspective that even though women in horror films can be dumb and can play the role of a victim but this can be no more so than their male counterparts and certainly no more than non-horror films, Anne Bilson in her article Horror: The film genre where men don't have all the fun states that "horror is one of the genres that gives women the juiciest roles, ones that allow them to play multi- faceted individuals who aren't just wives, girlfriends or kidnap fodder, or role models but get to wrestle with deamons both physical and metaphorical." And sometimes they are the demon, it is no surprise that some of horrors most memorable monsters are female.
Personally I believe some of the views about women in horror are outdated, and views of women in films will of course reflect the socio economic changes of the period they were set in and women in horror is something that is ever changing with our society, women in horror now can be portrayed in anyway they want to be portrayed and this will be supported by the higher demographic of women watching horror movies.
Howell, D. (2013). Representation of Women in Horror Films.Available: https://screampsychohorror.wordpress.com/representation-of-women-in-horror-films/. Last accessed 4th April 2016.
Billson, A. (2014). Horror: the film genre where men don't have all the fun. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/halloween/11200852/Horror-the-film-genre-where-men-dont-have-all-the-fun.html. Last accessed 4th April 2016.
Briefel, A (2005). Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film. California: University of California Press.
Clover, C (1992). Men, Women and Chainsaws - Gender in the Modern Horror Film. New Jersey: Priceton University Press
Berenstein, R J. (1996). Attack of the Leading Ladies - Gender, Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press
Creed, B (1993). The Monstrous Feminine - Film. Feminism and Psychoanalysis . London: Routledge
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