The Representation

of Women in Horror

This essay will take a look at the representation of women throughout films of the horror genre, I will look at the presentation and characterisation of women and how it has progressed over the years. I will analyse the inclusion of women in the films ‘Halloween’ (John Carpenter - 1978), ‘House of Wax’ (Jaume Collet-Serra – 2005), ‘The Wrong Turn’ (Rob Schmidt – 2003) and ‘The Shining’ (Stanley Kubrick – 1980). I will study how the role of women in movies has changed and developed over the course of cinema’s growth through the 20th and 21st centuries; I will also look at whether the representation has become more progressive or if the idea of women in film is still very traditional.

‘Halloween’ was directed by John Carpenter in 1978, it followed the story of a psychopathic serial killer who stalks and kills a group of innocent teenagers, the film is widely regarded as the first of the slasher subgenre. ‘House of Wax,’ directed by Jaume Collet-Serra in 2005, is a horror set in rural America in which 6 teenagers are slowly abducted and turned into live waxwork models by two deranged brothers. ‘The Wrong Turn’ is a story about 6 people whose cars are sabotaged by 3 mutant cannibal mountain people, they are slowly hunted, eaten and killed; it was directed by Rob Schmidt in 2003. ‘The Shining’ is one of the best horror films of all time; directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980, it follows the tale of a hotel caretaker who becomes insane and attempts to murder his wife and son. All four of these films contain main conventions of female representation.

The feminist movement took hold throughout the 70s and 80s, they challenged many representations and story choices within films during this period, especially horror films. The most popular horror subgenre in the 70s was slasher films, these tell haunting tales of deranged psychopathic killers and focus mostly on body count rather than a credible storyline. Women were always targets in these films and feminists saw that the incentive of the killer would be a troubled or tragic relationship with a female figure in their early life; these often included a significant other, a mother or a sister. ‘Halloween’ provides evidence to this accusation, Michael (the killer) murders his sister at the beginning of the film. Some argue that he killed her for neglecting him and that she was the cause of his madness and the resultant murders, this puts the female in a very bad light both as a character and as a gender as a whole. Many feminists also argue that women are both victimised and sexualised within films of the horror genre.

Females often came to gruesome and gory ends, they challenged this saying that it represented women as weak and feeble; they despised the traditional damsel character. Furthermore, the feminist movement said that the combination of limited costume, focused camera angles and movements, lighting and sexual scenes put women in an objectified position. ‘Halloween,’ ‘House of Wax’ and ‘The Wrong Turn’ are all very guilty of using this approach, they use close-ups of the female anatomy alongside visual sex scenes to present the female character as a sexual item; this is often referred to as a ‘Male Gaze.’ This theory was first spoke of in the popular essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” by Laura Mulvey, who suggested that films used specialised camera angles and shots to present women in a way that wold please and attract males. A very good example of this theory can be found in ‘The House of Wax’ when Paris Hilton’s character slowly undresses for he boyfriend. The scene features carefully selected close-ups of certain parts of Paris’ body to create a very sexual and arousing scene.

Another theory that is often used to represent women in the horror genre is the ‘Final Girl’ theory, this was first brought to light by Carol Clover in her 1992 book ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.’ Clover suggested that not every film negatively represent women in a traditional way, she argued that many films showed a female character as strong and defiant against the killer and is often the only one to survive; the is known as the ‘Final Girl.’ Classic examples of this theory can be found within ‘Halloween,’ where Laurie is the only one of her friends to survive Michael’s killing, ‘The House of Wax,’ with Carly living until the very end with her brother Nick and ‘The Wrong Turn,’ where Jessie and Chris are the only ones to escape the clutches of the mountain men.

However, many have argued that the final girl presents and ideology as to the perfect girl; often the only ones to survive are well-behaved and sensible girls, they don’t engage in any sexual activity and are of the middle class. They are almost always presented as androgynous and gender neutral, they are given a very unisex name (such as Laurie from ‘Halloween’), dressed very plainly and very rarely acted in a stereotypical ‘girly’ manner.

Due to the increased awareness and recognition of feminism, its inclusion in the film industry has become more prominent. Modern films are much more progressive in terms of the representation of women and the equality of women is greatly improved; more women of minority groups are included as characters and hold more major and demanding roles in the film.

In the book ‘The Media in Britain’ (1983,) Jeremy Tunstall discussed the representation of gender in media based upon existing research; the results that he looked at presented the idea that women’s representation within the media could be separated into 4 points of emphasis: Domestic, Sexual, Consumer and Marital. Women are always presented as mothers who take care of the house, loyal wives to their husbands and sexual objects within the ‘Male Gaze.’

This idea can be found extensively in the film ‘The Shining,’ the female lead Wendy fits the representation perfectly. The stays at home fulfilling her marital role as a wife and mother, she looks after the son the whole way through the film while her husband works. She also follows her husband without question to live in a whole new lifestyle like a loyal and submissive wife. The sexual and domestic ideas are also recurrent in ‘Halloween,’ all of the girls (with the exception of Laurie) are sexualised and presented as actively taking part in sexual acts. Also, two of the girls fulfil their domestic roles by babysitting the children of two families.

Research carried out in 1992 presented a thesis that men outnumbered women on the screen, it claimed that the number of men was almost always double that of women in film and TV; this had a direct relation to the number of women from minority group represented, such as black women, women from the LGBT community and older women. This idea is highly supported by the films ‘The Shining’ and ‘The House of Wax,’ Wendy Torrance is the only female lead character amongst many male leads in ‘The Shining’, while the characters Carly Jones and Paige Edwards are the only two female characters in the whole cast of ‘The House of Wax.’ However, this very traditional inclusion of female characters is challenged by the progressive features in ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Wrong Turn’; they both feature an equal numbering of male and female characters all holding equally strong and dominant roles within the storyline.

To conclude, I would agree that both theories of Male Gaze and Final Girl can be found very prominently in movies in the horror genre, directors specifically choose shots that objectify and sexualise women but also create characters that are strong and defiant that can survive the wrath of the evil killer. I support the Final Girl theory, I believe that both males and females should be presented as morally strong and courageous people who can fight against the powers of evil. However, I strongly disagree with many aspects of the Male Gaze; I believe it is wrong for women to be sexualised and objectified for the pleasure of men.