The Representation of Women in Horror Films

Women are traditionally portrayed in horror films as the damsel in distress, due to the sinful acts, for example sex before marriage. These females will usually be killed off one-by-one; some of these deaths being quite sexual due to the objectivity of women in the horror genre.

A great example of how women are represented in horror is Halloween (1978). This consisted of a masked killer who escapes from a psychiatric centre to cause havoc in Haddonfield during Halloween. Slowly killing off the teenagers due to sinful acts, for example Bob and Linda whilst having sex. For instance, Carol Clover (publisher of ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws: gender in the Modern Horror Film’) would say Myers kills in response to his sister having sex. Therefore, he uses a phallic weapon (knife) to deal with his repressed sexuality. Clover would also mention the final girl theory, saying that Laurie fought back, and stabs her attacker with a knitting needle and again with a coat hanger. Clover’s final girl theory suggests the girl that’s a virgin with a masculine presence would be the woman to escape or fight the attacker back. Another film that backs up Clover’s final girl theory is Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Sally doesn’t fight back as much as Laurie but manages to sustain injuries and escapes the killer and is rescued on the highway.

Another important film critic to be applied is Laura Mulvey due to her famous essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. She and many other theorists suggested that commercial cinema puts the spectator into the position of a heterosexual male, because of the technical camera strategies objectifying women. This is called the male gaze, the idea that certain camera shots, angles and movements are used purposely to subject males to look upon women as objects.  For instance in ‘Friday the 13^th’ (2009) we are introduced with a group of teens that go camping in Crystal Lake. Within the first quarter of the film we are shown a half naked women being promiscuous to seduce her boyfriend. But, the camera is shown through the boyfriend’s eyes (point of view shot), immediately putting the male audience in the position of the boyfriend so they can relate to the situation. Furthermore, another example of the male gaze is when the teen girl is dancing sexually in front of the males whilst drinking wine. There are multiple angles, close ups and movements used in this scene to reinforce the objectivity of women in films. After these series of shots it cuts to the males reaction to encourage the identification of the males as the subjects.

These feminist horror theorists are very important to film and are still being replicated today. Clover concentrates on the contents/plot of the film where as, Mulvey has a focus on the camera work in order to pleasure certain audiences. A theorist that backs up Mulvey is Jeremy Tunstall. Tunstall analysed existing research on gender representation in the media. His results showed four different key roles for women; being domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. From Tunstall’s research, we can say the media exploit women as sex objects, therefore reinforcing Mulvey’s views. A film which fits Tunstall’s meta-analysis is ‘The Shining’ (1980). This supports the portrayal of women being domestic, because Shelly Duvall isn’t shown to have an occupation making her only duty, the housework. ‘The Shining’ also neatly fits into Clover’s final girl theory. Shelly Duvall manages to escape her monstrous husband; whom happens to be trying to kill her with an axe.   

I particularly agree with Mulvey, as it is easy to understand and identify in any film or media text. It is also relatable, because I feel that prominently females are shown as sexually objects compared to males.