Hello everybody i am a Media studies student and am currently gathering primary and secondary research for my critical research exam. I was wondering if i could ask for your opinion of this question;
"To what extent has the representation of women in horror movies changed since the 60's"
I am using the movies King kong, Halloween,Misery,Alien, and Psycho as my key examples.
If you could give me opinions or replies i would be so greatful
thank you!
I dont think characters in Horror movie's have changed much at all. There is more of a prevalent focus towards realistic horror movie's today than there was in the 60's-80's but even then there were both, realistic and formulaic horror movie's. We may see more female heroine's and antagonists today but again, this is nothing new. You can not change the horror movie formula to much. If you do, you will have a completely different type of movie. One of the main ingredient for a horror movie is victims. Our society is still struggling with a few sexist issues and by no means do i mean to sound sexist but woman are much more sexual, in presence, than men. Woman also appear weaker in the physical structure than of a man. Woman used to be perceived weaker in every way, which along with their natural sensuality may explain why they were more prominently chosen to be the victim and hero in many older, horror movies.
This type of thought may still be bleeding through in the horror industry but i believe, why woman are often chosen to be the victim, antagonist and heroin is because of tradition and spoofing of older ways but their natural sensuality is the main reason. Sex and horror go together like peanut butter and jelly. I may be getting a bit off topic though because i don't believe woman's portrayal has changed much at all. The only thing you can change about a victim is circumstances. Horror movie's require specific types of victims and antagonists. These arc-types are rarely different just because of the characters sex. The interest in raw violence has been the biggest change in the horror industry.
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Last edited by jinXed by JaNx on Oct 5th, 2008 at 12:43 PM
I recommend you read the book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Glover. Mostly concentrates on Women in the slasher subgenre but it goes into other stuff too.
Excellent book to read. Especially goes into all the sexual violence stuff and how mostly after all that it's always nearly a woman(final girl) who is the last one alive and has destroyed the male element and so on.
I also recommend the book The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis by Barbara Creed. It goes into Psycho from what I can remember(read it years ago), and that is one of your films, as well as going into Alien.
Gender: Female Location: When in Doubt, Go to the Library.
I've only seen a couple of those movies - but the first version of King Kong with Fay Wray as the actress, in my opinion, treated her like she had no brains. Come on, the woman didn't even start to get worried that the natives were tying her to a SACRIFCIAL ALTAR until Kong was about fifteen feet away. Excuse me? I also thought it was a bit... condescending? that the woman was the one who "defeated Kong," or was the bait... the whole "'twas beauty that killed the beast" bit was almost reminiscent of old Disney movies were heroine could communicate with animals by just singing a pretty soprano trill. Because the ninth wonder of the world killed everybody except this attractive actress? Uh. Huh.
But Psycho... what a change! First, we have the woman as a villain, stealing money from her company, having an affair outside of marriage [le gasp], being generally seductive to Norman Bates. [Of course, there's the fact that she gets killed less than halfway into the movie, which is one of the first times that the protagonist gets killed off that early, but that's a different thread.] Then you have Mrs. Bates, again, having an affair outside of marriage [le gasp], and the whole thing about Norman being in love with her and keeping her body preserved, going so far as talking in her voice to keep up his delusion. "Her" ending soliloquy about Norman trying to place the blame on her... and that last shot of the overlay of the preserved mother over Anthony Perkins's face is brilliant.
The main difference that I see between King Kong [and movies like it] and Psycho [and movies like it] is that people were willing to stretch the roles of women in horror movies. Of course, that speaks to the time period that the films were made in, the Production Code and such. So yes. Hope that helps.
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Speaking of women in horror, I know this is horror movies but there's this comic from Devil's Due Publishing which uses the "Strong female protagonist"
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Oct 5th, 2008 11:06 AM
