Representation of woman in the horror genre

In horror films woman have been treated differently to men since the beginning of horror films. If you look back to old horror films such as Nosferatu you can see the girl in it is treated as the victim. This far back girls were traditionally the weaker sex. This is shown in Nosferatu as the girl has to be saved by a man from the monster. While we don’t know what Nosferatu is we assume that he is male by the way he acts and looks. This shows that it is a man who is powerful enough to harm the girl, and another man is powerful enough to protect the girl whereas the girl has no power at all. This trend continues of the villain being a disfigured man/monster and having the girl is the victim protected by a man. An example of this would be the original Frankenstein movie.

 The antagonist or monsters in horror films were all male until the 1930’s with the inclusion of films such as Bride of Frankenstein and Vampyr. Woman in films at this point had just started to change a little due to early feminism. A noticeable film that was due to this is Val Lewton’s “Cat People”. The main antagonist in this horror is female by the name of Irena. Irena changes in to panther when she is aroused. This suggests that the films are giving across the message that sexuality can be dangerous and can be dangerous in a conservative society. This reflects men’s fears in society of woman becoming more powerful. In the film Irena is depicted as foreign and is trying to hurt an American girl who is depicted as accepting her traditional role as a woman in 1940’s America. This shows that that the unknown and the different from the norm is be feared by society and can be dangerous. Despite this female antagonist the film still has the same premise as previous films. A man still defends a middle class white girl from Irene. In the end of the film Irene is given the choice to become the norm in society or die. She chooses to die.

in the 1950’s there were a lot more sci-fi horror films reflecting America’s fears of society as the majority of people were scared of nuclear war. In this time however woman in horror films still followed the simple concept laid out by previous horror films. An example of this would be invasion of the body snatchers where a woman is being protected by man but in this case the woman dies for not being strong enough whereas the man survives. The 60’s upped the scale as women were killed more frequently. An example of this would be the famous Pshyco shower scene where Norman bates kills a girl in the shower. The girl is suggested to be sleeping with a married man whereas Norman is oppressed by his mother. So stabbing her in the shower could be suggested to be his sexual frustration. At this point in horror films men were represented as different age race and class whereas woman fit the same simple mold which is white and middle class.

In the 70’s and 80’s the slasher genre had become the next big thing and these films were being made. In slasher films it is often the case that woman are being hunted down and brutally killed by an antagonist. This is a reaction to the feminist movement that was happening at the time. The victims in slasher films were often sexualised and the demographic was young men.

In 1992 carol clover released a book called Men Woman and Chainsaws: Gender in the modern horror film. In the book she coined the phrase “Final girl”. A final girl is as the name implies, a girl who is the survivor in horror films. She is usually depicted as being white and middle class whereas other female counterparts in horror films are shown having sex and doing drugs or other things that go against the conservative ideology. The final girl usually resembles an adolescent boy rather than a girl in the way she acts and usually has a name that is satiable for both males and females like Jesse. This done so the male audience can relate to this girl and not with the killer. A good example of this is the film “House of wax” where in the film a girl called Carly (A unisex name) she is white and middle class and is aspiring to be a fashion designer. This everything someone should be in a conservative society. Another female character in the film called Paige, she is shown performing sexual acts in the film despite not being married. She is also revealed to be pregnant in the film. All of this would be considered wrong in a conservative society and according to this theory must die(which she does). This therefore backs up the “final girl” theory.