Stereotypes of Women In Horror Films

A2 Media: Horror Genre Representation of Women Essay

I am going to discuss the roles and representations of female characters within the horror genre. I believe there are many sets of conventions that apply to the role of women in horror movies which have become established in the modern day to such an extent that any horror movie breaking these conventions is deemed controversial.

In media many women are looked at with a ‘male gaze’ this suggests the camera has a gender which is in fact male. This is a theory publicised by Laura Mulvey who had feminist views and felt that the objectification of women in the media is wrong. The example I am going to speak about that exemplifies this theory is the movie ‘House of Wax’ starring Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton was made famous by her sexualised appearance and became an iconic sex icon. Paris Hilton was used along with other attractive females in House of Wax to draws in a predominantly male audience whom enjoy watching females in compromising situations. Psychologically many males feel dominant if a woman is helpless or vulnerable in a movie therefore watching scenes of women in slashers’ strokes their ego and gives them a certain pleasure. There are many other examples of objectification of women in horrors as this in the media marketplace is what sells. This is however a very negative stereotype of ‘all women are dumb and need looking after by men’ which could put of females from viewing the film. The male camera represents women in this way using various camera techniques for example looking down on the women victims which connotes inferiority within the character, shots to enhance the appearance of the female characters body/figure can also be used, for example women may be skimpily dressed to excite the male viewer further.

Another theory that is a convention in horror films is the final girl theory. This is that the virtuous girl will always survive at the end of the film. This is used in many horror films such as Halloween. Girls shown engaging in sexual activity are often killed. At the beginning of Halloween the women is having sexual relations with her boyfriend and they are then both killed. This suggests a Christian ideology that if you have sex before marriage you’re not virtuous and therefore punished by being murdered. However Laurie, the girl who is she and not really to interested in boys survives to the very end of the film. All of her friends who were persuading her to ask out a boy all get killed due to their behaviour. The final girl is not only used in Halloween it is a theory widely used by many other horror films such as scream, the Texas chainsaw massacre, nightmare on elm street and Friday 13^th.

Other horror films including Alfred Hitchcock films such as Psycho include very blatant stereotypes of women. The actress that played the pretty blonde women in Psycho was called Janet Leigh. Alfred Hitchcock was well known for having a preference in blonde women, this means the main female roles in his film where quite frequently blonde. Alfred states that the audience would be more suspicious of a brunette. This derived from his very first black and white films which Alfred felt blondes look better on a black and white film. In general blondes are represented to be much more desirable than other women with other hair colours. Blonde hair often connotes purity, or being angelic. This is because of the contrast between dark and light meaning brown and black haired women are more associated with mystery and a darkness. However in the media today women in general are sexualised to great measures as a marketing tool to get people to watch a movie.

Blonde women are also desired because of the stereotype of the ‘dumb blonde’ men like blondes when they act dumb because it makes them feel clever and inferior, this puts them a notch above the women and satisfies there desire to look after a women. This is because the old fashioned man does not like women in power and would much rather them be a house wife looked after by the male. Men feel empowered by women acting in this way, meaning watching damsels in distress in horror films makes the audience film sorry for them and want them to survive. Having this connection to a character makes the whole viewing experience more upsetting if the character where to die.