Gender Representation Essay

 Carol Clover, in Men, Women and Chainsaws argues that horror’s representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males an identification with a female character, unlike any other mainstream genre. To what extent do you think horror’s representation of gender challenges dominant representations?

Research of a wide range of media texts has traditionally reached similar conclusions about how gender is represented in the media which has come to represent a ‘classic’ approach to gender in the media. Generally men and women are categorised into their stereotypes that society has put them in so males in the media are shown to be dominant, strong, active, independent and authoritative whereas females in the media are shown as submissive, passive, with a focus on physical beauty, sexuality and emotionally, all of which are defined through relationships with men. Jeremy Tunstall looked at existing research and argued that the representation of women in the media is broken down to four categories of: domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. Women are depicted as busy housewives, as contented mothers, as eager consumers and as sex objects.

In the three horror films we have studied in class, Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980) and Eden Lake (2008) we have analysed both women’s visibility and their roles within the films to see whether they challenge or represent the research on gender in the media. According to the 1992 research, men on screen outnumber women by two to one therefore already visibility itself is an issue when looking at dominant gender representations. In two out of the three films we looked at, men outnumber women in both The Shining and even more so in Eden Lake, so from this you can already see that the majority of films in the horror genre continue to reflect the 1992 research and have the visibility of men outnumber the visibility of women showing a sexist approach towards females in the media. Also, by looking at the roles of the female characters within the three horror films it was apparent to see that women’s roles within the three films all seemed to confine women into one or more of the four categories that Jeremy Tunstall suggested women in the media emphasised.

Clip from 'Halloween' - Mike Myers kills his sister

In Halloween, the characters Annie, Linda and Judith Myers are all shown in states of undress so therefore are placed as sexualised characters within the film and as sexual characters, they all appear to be killed due to the sexual behaviour. This then portrays these characters in the film as women who do not follow the rules that men and society have laid out for them and therefore appear to be punished in the film for their sexual actions, however Carpenter apologises and explains that the only reason why the teenagers in Halloween die is because they were simply not paying attention and were distracted by typical teenage things whereas Laurie had less on her mind and therefore noticed the strange things that were happening. There are also elements within the film that portray the domestic and familial side of certain female characters for example both Laurie and Annie have jobs as babysitters however because Laurie is the main protagonist in the film it pulls her out of being defined simply as a woman  . A similar role is seen in the film The Shining where we see the character Wendy doing both familial and domestic work which appears to confine her again to one or more of the four categories however again Wendy becomes the protagonist and also takes over some of Jack’s jobs, making her the superior character. In the film Eden Lake the main character Jenny again falls into the familial/domestic category due to her occupation of a primary school teacher. The same character roles are also seen within the mothers of the gang members and one in particular who also works as a waitress. The only female gang member also appears to be discriminated because of gender as she has a very passive role within the gang and at some stages is called certain names which instantly discriminate her as a woman.

 

The Male Gaze

In addition to the roles of women in the media, another important area is to do with how the camera “looks” at women. It has been argued by many critics that in mainstream visual media the camera routinely objectify women which denies them any subjectivity/identity and instead treats them like objects to be looked at by the subject, who is almost always male. Many theorists including Laura Mulvey have suggested that much commercial cinema puts the spectator into the position of an ‘appraising heterosexual male’ by adopting technical camera strategies which objectify women. By the use of close ups, point of view shots and reaction shots of the male, it encourages him to be identified as the subject whereas the use of long shots and tilts up the body of a woman often from a male point of view, encourages the audience to look at her as an object rather than a subject. In the film ‘Halloween’ at the start, a point of view shot is used to put the audience into the killers eyes, however this could also be an example of the male gaze in action as the audience is made to look at Judith Myers with no clothes on from a males point of view which instantly objectifies her. A similar scenario is also shown further on in the film which could again be an example of the male gaze where again it appears to be a point of view shot from the killer looking in through a window at Annie who is also in a state of undress. This is an example of Laura Mulvey’s theory as it encourages the audience to look at the woman as an object rather than a subject. There is also an example of this shown in both the films ‘The Shining’ and ‘Eden Lake’. In The Shining, we see the main protagonist Jack looking at a naked woman in the bathtub, however this is then challenged when the attratcive women turns into an old corpse, therefore challenging the male gaze. In Eden Lake, we see the leader of the gang Brett looking at Jenny in a bikini through a pair of binoculars, both of which portray the idea of the male gaze as again the audience is lead to objectify women and deny them of any subjectivity however this is slightly contradicted in the Eden Lake scene as after the make gaze is shown the camera then goes straight back to Jenny making her the subject more than an object.

Despite the horror genre portraying elements of a sexist ‘regime’ of viewing women, it does however tend to portray a different regime of viewing when it comes to looking at the figure of the “final girl”. By having the figure of a final girl within horror films it exchanges the sadistic objectification of women seen in the male gaze and instead invites a masochistic identification of women. In the film ‘Halloween’ the main protagonist and also the final girl is the character Laurie. Her character in particular is an example of a female character that isn’t objectified by the camera and instead shows androgynous features such as a gender-free name and less feminised clothing. This is an example of horror’s representation of gender challenging dominant representations as Laurie is not a character affected by ‘the male gaze’ and is also not confined to a particular stereotyped gender category and although she is not a strong character, she does however overcome the monster and ultimately survives in the film. A similar situation is also shown in The Shining as Wendy is also the main protagonist and not only defends herself from the monster Jack, but also manages to escape with Danny.

Overall I believe that because there are a majority of horror films that do contain the figure of a "final girl" it doesn't particularly follow the most dominant representations of gender and instead challenges them in many ways, therefore putting across a more positive attitude towards gender in the media. However, I believe there are still many horror films that will still tend to follow the most dominant representations of gender in the media however looking at the three films we have studied in class I believe there are elements which show that this is starting to level out.