Essay on How Horror Represents Gender

Carol Clover, in Men, Women and Chainsaws, argue that many horror films are interesting in their representation of gender because they provide a female point of identification for a male core target audience. To what extent do you think that horror represents gender progressively?

In “Men, Women and Chainsaws” Carol Clover refers to a film named ‘Carrie’ based on a Novel by Stephen king. Carrie is a girl who is a social outsider, and 2 ’the butt of every joke’ in the film, and she eventually gets her revenge on the bullies who have been tormenting her. However, the story itself is not important – the important thing is that the young males are the predominant viewers of horror films, but in this case – and indeed many others – they are asked to identify with a female protagonist. You wouldn’t think that being pelted with tampons and sanitary towels whilst having your first period would be something that young males are happy to relate to – Carrie also goes on to burn her school with entire high school class in it after being on the wrong end of another prank. But King argues that ‘any student who has ever had his gym shorts pulled down or his glasses thumb rubbed’ can relate to and approve of Carrie’s actions. Now of course we can assume that a very, very low percentage of horror film watchers have had that, or something equal to that happen to them, but the general principle of any sort of bullying or on the wrong end of any “boyish” behaviour (friendly or not) still stands. As Carol Clover goes on to say, it seems that male viewers are quite prepared to identify with females in the horror genre who are scared and/or in pain.

And so we move on to if horror films represent the Women we see, and gender in general, progressively or conservatively. When considering this, there are many factors we may take into account – for example the number of female characters compared to male, (The visibility of females) the roles which each gender play within the narrative and the Gaze (which I will move onto later). It of course worth remembering that by ‘conservative,’ we mean holding to ‘traditional’ values, for example a woman doing the cooking and cleaning whilst the man goes out to work, and progressive is referring a development of ideas within the horror genre – for example seeing the same amount of on screen women as men, or a women saving a man perhaps. It is considered that a film that represents genre progressively is better in the sense that it is less sexist. With that in mind, I will now talk about the “Male Gaze,” which is essentially a suggestion from theorists such as Laura Mulvey that a lot of commercial cinema puts the audience into the position of an ‘appraising heterosexual male.’ This situation arises via technical camera techniques which present women to be objects for the man to look at – so the audience is put into the eyes of a man looking at an objectified female. Mulvey argues that this is further part of a sexist regime that mainstream film undergoes which encourages society to think of women as objects to be viewed for male pleasure and denies women subjectivity.

Three films I have looked at in my Media classes are The Shining, Halloween and Eden Lake. The Shining will be where we start. After watching the Shining and thinking about how it represents gender, it certainly doesn’t sound progressive in the slightest. For a start, there are vastly more women than men, with Wendy being the only female character who is regularly on screen. Wendy it also defined through family – Jack is clearly the main character, and Wendy is just Jack’s wife. They are in fact moving from their house to look after the Hotel because it will be Jack’s job to look after the hotel – again implying that Wendy is just Jack’s wife, Jack’s housewife. The Boss of the Hotel is a man, another Key character Hallorann is also a man, and even the Child, Danny, is male. But there is one particular moment featuring Jack and a Women which will stay in people’s minds for a number of reasons – this is when he meets the ‘Bath tub Lady’ in room 237. Initially this scene may seem to drag the shining down the conservative route even further – a naked women getting out of a bath certainly seems to fit the Male Gaze theory. However, it is fair to say that when the beautiful naked woman turns into a dead, mouldy woman, the whole image of this scene changes. Wendy asked Jack to go in there to see what had strangled Danny, and Jack actually ends up kissing a naked woman, only to find out it’s a dead woman – this highly suggests that Jack – and also possibly the audience – have been punished for objectifying the woman who got out of the bath tub, which of course suggests a more progressive feel to the film. Overall though, it seems accurate to say that the Shining is a more conservative film than progressive.

However, there is one point which I have made against the Shining that perhaps isn’t as ‘sexist’ as it may seem at first. When we look at real life situations, it’s not at all inaccurate to say, that for couples which are together, the man goes out to work whilst the women is the housewife that does the cooking, cleaning etcetera. Whilst this isn’t as true as it used to be, as more women go out to work, it’s not at all sexist to say that – it is the truth. The point is that if a film portrays this, should it really be classed as sexist, and looked down upon for it? Most children’s mums cook their food rather than their Dad. So if we see a woman cooking whilst watching a film, should our immediate thoughts be that ‘this film is sexist?’ In my opinion, no. I don’t think we should get carried away and over think situations like these, because we all know that if we saw a film where the women was a butch, un-attractive plumber, and the Man was a house husband who done all the cooking and cleaning, it would probably be comical even if it was trying to be serious because it’s just not a realistic situation. The main reason that The Shining is conservative and potentially sexist is due to the screen time and amount of male characters compared to female characters – not just that Wendy is Jack’s husband.

Halloween on the other hand is a little different. In terms of on screen characters, it is most definitely progressive in the way that there are just as many female main characters as there are male – if not more. Obviously in real life we see an equal amount of males and females so this is not only more progressive, but more realistic – since realism was something I mentioned in the previous paragraph. But on the other hand, their roles in the film tend to be sexual – this is particularly the case for Linda and Annie – but also Domestic, as we find Laurie looking after children. There is also a strong argument that the women in the film are punished for being sexually independent and doing what they want, as they always seem to be killed when they are about to have sex.  However, the director has since argued that they were only killed because they were distracted, not specifically being punished for having sex. Again, I would have to put it to question here what exactly is making the film conservative. It is seem as conservative that these women’s role in the film is sexual, but then also conservative and sexist when they are punished for having sex, which seems very contradictory. Perhaps the more conservative thing is not that they are having sex and have a sexual role in the film, but more the fact we see several shots of Annie and Linda when they are barely clothed which objectifies them. On the other hand, Laurie is not objectified at all, and goes on to also survive – although she is somewhat saved by a man after she essentially gives the killer back his knife a couple of times in what is a poor bit of storyline. Overall, Halloween does certainly seem to be a more progressive film in terms on gender than The Shining, and this is mainly to do with the screen time given to the female characters, and the amount of female characters there is.

Then there is Eden Lake, which I do find to be somewhat more progressive than both The Shining and Halloween. However, one thing that could be conservative is that there are far more main male characters than female – but in this instance I don’t think it is fair to suggest that it is a bad thing for this film, as the main reason there is more screen time for male characters is because of the gang of youths. I think it is just (once again) more realistic to have a group of (mainly) boys rather than girls, as I don’t think anyone can seriously imagine a group of girls doing such things. Perhaps even that is a conservative way of thinking, but I think the film is more credible by having a group of boys. If this does make the film more ‘conservative’ by definition, I don’t think it is anything worth worrying about.

Jenny and Page are the main female characters in the film, and neither of them are ever really objectified. Page is a tomboy, and she does seem to try to objectify herself at one point when she says ‘Are you looking at my tits,’ but this isn’t really relevant and she (and the audience) know that this isn’t true, and she is just trying to annoy Steve like the rest of the gang. There is also a short seen where the boys are looking and Jenny through their binoculars whilst she is in a bikini, but she covers herself up – and as I said, it is a very short scene. The roles of the women don’t seem to be very conservative either – Jenny is very much her own woman rather than just “Steve’s Wife” and seems very capable of looking after herself, as evident by the fact she survives longer than Steve. Of course, when Jenny finds herself in the house at the end, it is the women looking after her rather than the men, which of course implies the ‘domestic’ role, another stereotypical role for women. Apart from this though, the film in general does seem to be rather progressive. The narrative finds that more men actually die than women, Jenny survives longer than Steve, and at no point are any of the women supposedly ‘punished’ like in Halloween for being independent, making this certainly the most progressive film out of the 3.

Overall, I think trying to find an ‘extent’ that the horror genre as a whole represents gender progressively is very difficult, mainly because it varies so much, and in so many different ways film to film. In some cases which I have mentioned, when a part of a film is more conservative it is sometimes just being more realistic and credible than ‘bad’ or ‘sexist.’ I think the Horror genre probably leans towards being more conservative then progressive – perhaps the best way to express my thoughts may be something like a Sixty-Forty percentage towards conservative – the only reason I wouldn’t say anymore than that is due to Final Girls often outlasting Men, and also the realism factor which I have mentioned several times.