Did 'SFX' Magazine leave out women?

On Saturday Feb 21, 2010, author Maura McHugh, aka 'Splinister', wrote a blog post entitled 'SFX forgets women in horror', and the result has been nothing short of huge.

McHugh's article noted that out of 34 horror industry professionals interviewed for an important article in the U.K. SFX Magazine Issue # 192 about their favorite horror movies and books, not one was a woman. Of all their answers, she further points out, only one recommended the work of a woman...

SFX Magazine may not have immediately heeded one woman's intelligent argument that they either deliberately, or negligently, underrepresented women in the magazine, but the UK Guardian and feminist blog The F Word both picked up on it and made the discrepency a news topic that SFX editor Ian Berriman couldn't possibly ignore.

In addition to her blog post, McHugh wrote a direct letter to the editor expressing her disappointment at not seeing more women's opinions and work in the magazine.

"I was surprised at the lack of representation of women in the articles in the magazine," she wrote. "In particular I was stunned by the 'Horror's Hidden Treasures' piece. You found the time to query 34 men for their opinions, but neglected to ask even one woman to recommend an under-rated gem in the horror field. Can you explain how this occurred? I'm sure female horror novelists, directors and screenwriters are equally curious, after all there are plenty of them in the genre, and I'm sure they would have been delighted to offer their suggestions."

Berriman's response is posted in its entirety on McHugh's website.

He first points out that he tried to reach horror author Sarah Pinborough for her input, as well as include a large spread on actress Barbara Steele for inclusion in the issue, but that these women were unavailable.

"Now, I’m not about to claim that one feature on a female actor and one 'hidden treasure' from a female writer adds up to sufficient gender representation," he acknowledges, "but I did want to counter your suggestion of total and utter ignorance/indifference."

He then goes on to describe how he came to find the 34 people for the 'hidden treasures' article, and why they all happened to be male.

"My ideal criteria were that the interviewees should be: a. a director, screenwriter or novelist; b. strongly identified with horror (ie not a director who has dipped their toe into horror just the once); c. reasonably well known. I don’t believe I turned down any offers of interviews with women connected to horror cinema. What you can conclude from that, I don’t know. Perhaps that there aren’t that many prominent female horror directors/screenwriters. Perhaps that my freelancers don’t have many female industry contacts."

Berriman goes on to differentiate between what he covers, 'horror', and what women like, which he believes is 'paranormal romance'.

"I made an editorial decision not to cover this literary subgenre in SFX Collection: Horror for three reasons, none of which were anything to do with gender. Firstly, to create some clear blue water between the Horror and Vampire specials (and any future, similarly-themed specials). Secondly, because urban fantasy is getting plenty of coverage at the moment, and I wanted to shine a light on some other areas. Thirdly, because I don't believe these books to be "horror" in the strictest sense - and I know that a great many horror fans, regardless of gender, share this view. They may employ the tropes of vampires, werewolves etc, but their primary aim is not to terrify (or chill)."

He suggests that Kathryn Bigelow, a female director, would have been a good choice to get a quote for this article, but he didn't believe she'd be reachable since she's dealing with her Oscar buzz right now.

He was concerned enough to ask a few female fans about their opinions on the situation, and he gives these in his response as well:

"The instant response of my partner (who considers herself a feminist) was as follows: 'The fact that the most famous people in horror are men is not the magazine's fault. And it isn't the mag's agenda to be promoting one way or another.'"

I have to agree on the point that it isn't SFX's fault that most famous people in horror are men, but I believe that it is because magazines like SFX don't actively seek out information on females in the genre the way they do with men's projects that women continue to be less famous than men in the areas of directing, writing, and producing.

He continues by relating another woman horror fan's opinion"

"A female freelancer who specialises in horror journalism responded in similar terms: 'It's not your fault; you're just reflecting the industry. There just aren't that many female horror directors. There aren't even that many female horror fans, come to that.'"

I want to point out that Berriman's journalist friend is wrong. There are over 600 - 1000 female horror directors, about 200 of whom have had horror films screened in theaters in the last 40 years and who have distributed their films on either VHS or DVD. There are dozens living and working in Los Angeles today, in NYC, and more located around the world including the UK, Australia, and in Asia. We just tend not to hear about them very much in any magazines or online. And when we do, they don't seem to be promoted to the same extant as male directors.

There is a reason that female filmmakers do not get the attention that male filmmakers in the horror genre get; because only actresses in horror are given attention by horror fans. I am not sure why this is. Actresses are invited to conventions, asked to appear in documentaries about women in horror, and in general are very well covered by horror magazines everywhere.

But it is the female directors like Mary Lambert, Katt Shea, Rachel Talalay, Sue Montford, Amanda Gusack, Anya Camilleri, Lola Wallace, Devi Snively, Gloria Katz, Jackie Kong, Barbara Peters, Stephanie Rothman, Roberta Findlay, Mary Harron, Marian Dora, Marina de Van, Jennifer Lynch, Claire Denis, and about 60-100 more I could rattle off the top of my head, who are not given the same respect by horror fans as are their male counterparts.

You can attend any horror convention or read any horror magazine, and chances are you'll hear about George Romero, Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham, John Carpenter, and dozens more. But when was the last time you saw a female horror director invited to a convention as an official guest? Chances are you haven't. I've only seen one; Jennifer Lynch at the 2009 Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles.

Needless to say, it is clearly an issue of women in front of the camera being made out to be more important than the women behind the camera; even though the women do the same jobs the men do as directors and writers.

People might argue that this is because most horror fans are male and males enjoy looking at beautiful women while aspiring to be important men. But that doesn't gel when you see how many fans actually are women. Graze any horror web site's forums and you'll see that women enjoy horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and action films just as much as men do. Recent articles, like this one by Phil Boatwright, show that statistically, women are now leading over men in horror film attendance in theaters.

So, if there ARE many female horror directors out there, (roughly 500 living and available today), and females ARE horror fans (as we define horror by Berriman's standards) then what is the issue? Are women who work behind the scenes in horror films just largely ignored because the horror industry values physical visual performances from beautiful women on camera more than it values women's directorial or writing jobs? Yes.

Magazines and websites that choose not to cover horror films directed by women in favor of equally-budgeted, equally-enjoyable horror films made by men are making an editorial choice to shape not only their audience's beliefs about how many women direct horror films, but the overall persistent theory that women exist in horror only as actresses, usually only as sexualized scream queens. Which simply isn't true, and frankly, is more than a little cheesy and juvenile.

Fortunately, Berriman isn't closed-minded about including more women's opinions in future issues.

"It may be that there are female horror writers/directors that we could and should have gone the extra yard to contact who simply aren’t on my radar, and who really should be."

I'm really glad to hear that, and I'd be happy to send him directly to female horror film directors and horror novelists who could be on his permanent Rolodex as sources of news, opinion, and more.