representation of women

This essay will be exploring the representation in which women are given within the horror genre. To begin with I will focus partially upon the historical representation through to the current depictions of women within the horror genre. I will furthermore attempt to examine these representations and express upon any changes within that representation that may have occurred. Additionally, I will discuss what the representations I have discovered say about women in society itself. Lastly to aid this investigation I will be analysing observations that have been created by theorists such as Carol Clover, Laura Mulvey and Jeremy Tunstall.

The first thing we can see about these women is that they are all relatively young, also it can be seen that all these women are either in underwear or very revealing clothing. The women are all wearing black undergarment and one with a red dress, the black symbolising darkness and sin whereas the red connotes desire and the devil, it could also be displaying the blood shed within the film, this is there for the pleasure of voyeuristic men to watch the young, almost naked women suffer, this is sometimes known as gorenography or torture porn. Feminist film critic Laura Mulvey labelled this 'Male Gaze' in her 1975 essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', and is the concept that women are used in films to be looked at as objects of desire. In her essay Mulvey says "Much commercial cinema puts the spectator into the position of an 'appraising heterosexual male' by adopting techincal camera techniques which present women as objects to be looked at. The audience is literally put into the eyes of the male - usually the protagonist - who then looks voyeuristically at an objectified female." and so under Jeremy Turnstall (The Media in Britain 1983)'s observations of gender representation and four character roles (sexual, domestic, marital and consumer) male gaze theory is sexual, as women are portrayed as sexual objects.

The 'final girl' theory is a theory first devised by Carol Clover in her 1992 book 'Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film' and is the theory of there being only one surviving female at the end of the film. In her book Carol Clover listed three key traits for a final girl, she is virginal and retains purity and innocence, she is androgynous in her name, appearance and clothing, and she fights back, either by escaping the killer or actually physically fighting back. In terms of Jeremy Turnstall's four character roles for women the final girl usually fits under all four roles. The final girl is usually of a middle class background, well educated and hard working, all domestic and consumer roles that forms the marital role. Examples of final girls in horror films include Dana in Cabin in the Woods and Laurie in Halloween, although Laurie challenges this by smoking a joint in the car with her friend Annie (who gets killed by Michael) but ultimately outsmarts Michael and survives at the end.