Women in Horror Films

[augustus155]

I'm trying to gather some information about how people think women are presented in horror films- I'd love to know what you all think.

Are you happy with the way women are represented in horror? Should it be different? How to you think they are represented- With respect? Patronisingly? As objects?

Looking forward to your thoughts. x

You should read men, women and chainsaws by carol clover (if you haven't already)which is the seminal text on gender and horror. It's very old now (1992)but it's great from what I remember.

Reading it atm! Its great for a academic perspective, but I'm interested in what normal people like you and me think about it :)

Women are very often the protagonists in horror, although the cliche is the terrified woman screaming and running away it's very often the woman who defeats the bad guy and saves the day, which is unusual for any genre.

I recall some years back reading an article about this, and the reasons for it. If memory serves the gist of it was that women are big consumers of horror and it goes down better with audiences showing a frightened (although ultimately strong) woman than the same situation with man.

Two words: Ellen Ripley, I must admit whenever I think of horror by far and away she is head and shoulders the best protagonist male or female.

I can think of tonnes of men when it comes to horror: Freddy Krueger, Jason, Dracula, etc but the problem there is that they are usually the monsters...

Thinking in more depth there is probably an unconscious correlation of violent monster = male, victim/heroine who (sometimes) overcomes the evil = female.

It way well speak to gendered violence in some way.

Additionally the woman who survives is always left traumatised in a way male heroes who overcome adversity often aren't.

the woman who likes sex dies first, then some blokes, then a couple more girls, in order of most to least sexual and then the horrible bloke that you've actually begun to hope gets an axe to the head finally gets one.

the good girl is the sole survivor of the axe wielding maniac.

It's not subtle.