Major Project Research: Gender in Film

Narrative Research: Females in Horror

It can be argued in a majority of these old fairytales that the protagonists tend to be female, either as a object to be victimised or a heroine whose femininity is threatened, vanity, jealousy, sexuality etc. This was very much explored in a previous essay I did on Little Red Riding Hood, a tale of a girl who on a passive journey to her grandmothers is sexually threatened by a domineeringly male wolf.

So with that said, I thought I would investigate a little more into how feminine characters/protagonists are portrayed in the world of horror cinema as it has had a long history of antagonistic male against female dynamics.

Another factor I think plays into this subject is that the protagonist of my project is one of the only females who actively rescues herself in the fairytale. Which is an aspect I would like to visually expand on as well as giving nods to horror cinema.

So with that said, this is an ebook article I have decided to look at.

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Film

Edited by Samantha Holland, Robert Shail and Steven Gerrard

And here are some excerpts I picked up.

“In the New French Extremity, severe acts of violence are commonly inflicted upon women. In some cases, these are even performed by the female characters themselves. As a result, the New French Extremity often provokes fierce responses, leading some to claim that they are just spectacles of sexism. For instance, in an online review of Martyrs R.J. Sayer posted a comment claiming, ‘MARTYRS is a FASCIST film. A MISOGYNIST, FASCIST film’ (Hall, 2008). Inside and Martyrs both push the limits of obscenity and present dizzying images of violence performed upon the female body. What is specific to these two films are their particular representations of victimhood, which explicitly centre upon the wounded and suffering female body. Through a close textual analysis of Inside and Martyrs, my discussion will demonstrate that while collectively these films are preoccupied with female suffering, their narratives also offer internal criticisms of the misogynistic portals of victimhood that are prevalent in the genre. The violence performed on or by the women of these films is not pleasurable nor is it designed to excite the spectator. Rather, these works can be understood as pushing the limit of what the female body can tolerate in order to situate the female protagonists in a position of power to overwhelm and consume patriarchy.”

Taken from Article 1 ‘It’s So Easy to Create a Victim’: Subverting Gender Stereotypes in the New French Extremity.

https://www-emerald-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/insight/content/doi/10.1108/978-1-78769-897-020191002/full/html

On the Perils of Living Dangerously in the Slasher Horror Film: Gender Differences in the Association Between Sexual Activity and Survival

"In slasher films the message appears to be that sexual women get killed and only the pure women survive. This message that the good woman is asexual and that the bad (and therefore dead) woman is sexual may be almost as pernicious as the message conveyed in pornography that violence can be fun for women. (pp. 194194)

In her analysis of gender in the slasher film, Clover (1992) distinguished the sexual or bad women from the asexual female character she coined the Final Girl. According to Clover, the Final Girl is the lone surviving character, left to discover the mutilated bodies of her friends, and confront the central villain of the film. Virginal or, at the very least, sexually unavailable, the Final Girl survives, overcoming the central antagonist by virtue of her purity. Similar to this distinction between the Final Girl and sexual girls in the slasher film, media constructions of female victims typically classify women into two broad frameworks based on the extent to which they conform to schemas concerning traditional gender rolesthe good girl and the bad girl (Benedict 1992; Finn 1989/1990; Eschholz and Bufkin 2001; Hirsch 1994; Meyers 1997). Women whose behaviors fall within the boundaries of traditional or stereotypical gender roles, such as the domesticated mother and wife or the virginal young girl, are constructed in the media as good girls, virgins,, or Madonnas (Cavender et al. 1999; Eschholz and Bufkin 2001). Comparatively, female victims who challenge traditional gender roles sexually assertive or promiscuous women are constructed in the media as bad girls, vamps, or whores." https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/docview/646314920?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:summon&accountid=9727