Forbes says "Women have come a long way in the genre--but not long enough." Jezebel responds with "In Defense of Lady-Terrorizing Horror Movies." We say, "Roth has it right".
Using the recent horror film The Last Exorcism as a jump-off point for an article about feminism and horror, Forbes.com, in an interview with the film's producer Eli Roth entitled Women in Horror Films, gives a sweeping, and un-cited, general history 101 for the masses of women in horror movies. And it's pretty generic, run-of-the-mill, untrained and unspecific. As usual. As we would expect. Here's the 'history' part.
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In the old days, women did little more than try to wriggle out of their bonds as a train barreled down on them, or scream as a psycho slashed them in the shower. By the 1970s, with the rise of the feminism, female protagonists were fighting back, and something called the "final girl" archetype emerged--she was last one standing, the girl who escaped the killer.
Also in the 1970s, final girls and victims alike suffered from what Syracuse University professor Kendall Phillips calls "sexualized terror," wherein any woman who was sexually active got axed (or knifed or strangled or garroted). Jamie Lee Curtis' final girl in 1978's Halloween is the most brazen example of this--much is made of her androgyny and undateability.
It wasn't until 20 years later, with Neve Campbell's turn in Scream, that a non-virgin survived. Campbell, whose character has sex in the movie, and is just as pretty and popular as her high school victim-mates, survives her attacker. Her mother, an adulteress, isn't so lucky.
The '90s was a banner decade for female empowerment in the movies in many genres. Think of the smart, independent, buff, ready-to-kill-if-necessary women from Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Thelma and Louise.
Okay. So there's a bit of 'history' for you, to set the tone of the article. But the real 'gist' of what I want to address is riiiiiiight here:
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Since then, it's been a bit of a backward slide, say experts. "I would argue that since Scream, we haven't seen any major developments so far as the role of women are concerned in the American horror film," says Carlos Segura, an editor at film site Cinespect. "Horror isn't 'in' right now, so there's not much room for risk taking."
Que? Quoi? Whaaa? First off, I have no idea who this Segura is, or what their site Cinespect is, but it looks sort of regular film-y. Great! But what the hell is Segura talking about? Since Scream, we have seen older women getting more and more intense and character-driven roles in horror, like Naomi Watts in The Ring and Funny Games. We've also seen more women filmmakers making horror and having distribution via independent filmmaking. We've seen an increase in the violence level in which women participate, even in the dumbest of slasher remakes. Women are no longer 'just' the dumb slut or virginal final girl, and anyone who believed that they 'always were' read Carol Clover's book 'Men Women and Chainsaws' and swallowed that pile of academic garbage hook line, and sinker without even questioning it.
The Forbes article author, Kiri Blakeley, inists that we've been 'reverting to type' in recent remakes.
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With so many horror remakes of late--Halloween in 2007, Friday the 13th in 2009, Nightmare on Elm Street in 2010--there's been a reverting to type. Hollywood isn't bothering to upend or transform the female paradigm. This, experts say, is partly Hollywood laziness. Why mess with a successful formula? Plus, most remakes are put in the hands of first-time directors, who don't want to risk screwing up a moneymaker. And female audiences are OK with this method--or at least not abandoning the genre.
So, what Blakeley is saying is that not only have there been 'zero' innovations in the horror genre, and now we're 'reverting' to even worse previous standards by making teen slashers. But ONLY in regard to WOMEN are there any sterotypes or negative connotations when it comes to gender. Why isn't anyone talkinmg about MALE stereotypes in horror? Men are all psychotic killers, demented rapists, or frat-boy meatheads in movies where there are limited representations of women. In the upcoming horror film I Spit on Your Grave, the men are depicted as imbecilic rapists unable to distinguish between sex and rape and who all want to hurt women every opportunity they have. Is that a great way to represent men? Why doesn't Blakely mention that?
Because it isn't 'cool' to talk about BOTH genders in horror. It is easier, takes less expertise, and looks better for a fast, flashier Forbes.com article that your editor will approve if you just write about what you think is going on, rather than taking the time to find out what actually IS going on.
Blakeley goes on to illustrate my point for me by regurgitating a common assumption about female characters in horror:
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Two types are still a certain death sentence for a woman in horror: the bitch and the slut. "The bitch will die bloody," says Andrew Cooper, author of Gothic Realities: The Impact of Horror Fiction on Modern Culture, who points to recent movies like Sorority Row, The Descent and the new Nightmare on Elm Street, where any female who is "unpleasant" gets it in the end. "If a woman mouths off too much, you know she's gone," he says.
I mean, have they SEEN how many more men die and for far fewer reasons in horror films?
Femi-gossip site Jezebel posted an immediate response with the article In Defense of Lady-Terrorizing Horror Movies. They knew they didn't like what Blakeley had written, but couldn't get too specific as it veers a litttttle bit off their mainstream agenda:
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Women may be brutally murdered in the genre, but at least they get to do stuff. They get to fight! And strategize! They frequently take charge in ways they don't in other movies. While women are often window-dressing in thrillers or spy movies (think The Departed), in horror films they're often at the very center of a gripping story.
Right on, Jezebel. They do. In any film that features negative, repetative, lame, dumb, silly, or downright insulting representations of women, you will also see degrading, presumptious, negative, and awful representations of men. These characters, neither male nor female, will be well-rounded, make any sense, or inspire a magnificant performance out of any seasoned actor.
Instead, we must realize that like ALL films, there are some good horror films, and some bad horror films. Like romantic comedies, there are some horror films that degrade women and lack real awesome or innovative roles for female actors. Then again, there are some that challenge not only the media's images of women in horror, but that challenge filmmaking and art on greater levels that are not bound by the rules that restrict most movies. This has to do equally with the people behind the film; no one film is ever soleley the product of the larger 'society' - there are individuals are work who insert their own agendas and ideals and goals in every cinematic masterpiece.
And every cinematic piece of shit, too.
I think we need to stop concentrating on how 'horror' specifically degrades women and look, if we really want to make a difference, on how women are represented in all films, and give credit to the films that show women as they really are: complicated and complex human beings. We should also be just as ready to attack any romantic comedy that makes women out to be man-hungry spinsters obsessed with their best friend's weddings. As Eli Roth put it best to Forbes,
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As to the question of whether all of this sexualized terror, not to mention the maiming, killing and possessing of young women in horror in general, is exploitative, Roth has this to say: "I'd say women were far more exploited in [the romantic comedy] Valentine's Day."
Comments
Well the whole point of "Scream" was making fun of the whole slasher genre. But yeah it kind of started the trend stupid teen horror movies and other crap. Yeah the movies during that time period the 90's, did not bode well only some movies, but mostly indie and foreign are of course going to be fan favorites.
Well the whole point of "Scream" was making fun of the whole slasher genre. But yeah it kind of started the trend stupid teen horror movies and other crap. Yeah the movies during that time period the 90's, did not bode well only some movies, but mostly indie and foreign are of course going to be fan favorites.
Scream sent the entire horror genre into the crapper. I would throw out all mainstream horror films made after 1985 and only consider independent and foriegn horror. Those are the only films that can be taken seriously anymore.
Kiri, I wanted to thank you for commenting on this article and replying to us. The main point of this site is to start and have intelligent discussions about genre films, and particlularly about the role women have in them.
And yes, this site is chock full of intense horror fans who, no matter how much research is put into anything we say, will still disgaree amongst each other.
Your article was important because it attracted attention to women in genre films - it even got us talking about them in relation to forbes. So thanks.
The point of the article wasn't really to do a thesis on the entire history of women in the genre, but to just kind of sum up what the trajectory has been. Whenever you have 700 words to work with, tops, you are going to probably leave out a few key points. I was also coming at the topic as a novice, as I figured most of our ForbesWoman readers were-- not everyone is as well-informed about the genre as the people on this site. Also, I had about 24 hours to turn it around. But from the experts I spoke with, and yes, the materials I read, I thought I came up with an accurate summation of the female archetype in horror. In fact, "The Descent," was named as one of the movies that did not forward the archetype at all-- and in this Jezebel agreed. I'm not saying there has been NO progress, but generally everyone seemed to agree that the main upending occurred with the lead female in "Scream," and there hasn't been much since then. So I recorded that. If I'd had time to screen 20 horror films, perhaps I would have come to a different conclusion.
ForbesWoman does appear on the homepage, but in general Forbes in a business magazine/website, so the topic is horror is not one that is going to be as detailed and well-informed as, say, perhaps, bonds would be.
Ghostnet, what a great comment! Very insightful.
Moonbutterfly and RAN, I agree that The Descent in no way belongs on the list of recent 'cliche' movies about women in horror. While I personally can't tell any of the damn women apart in that film because they all look the same except The gay One and The asian One, I see the film as very female-centric and more about the women's characters and relationships with one another than 'punishing' the bad ones.
Ghostnet you couldn't have said it better, funny the author came and defended herself and she was doing "research" but clearly didn't do it enough to understand that there has been some major changes in the genre. The Decsent was a great achievement that both men and women still wanted to see a horror movie with a all-women cast that had very strong characters. To me that article was a very generalized about the subject of women in horror. Does stereotypes still exist? Sure, but I think more movies with women behind the camera will help this as well. I think men especially guys like Lucky Mckee will do great things for women in horror. Men are clearly stereotyped as well. I for one would like to see more people of color especially women playing major parts in horror films.
Hello Kiri, I hope you're still around to reply. To be sure, "research" is the word, but that also includes reading articles and viewing materials, as opposed to merely conducting interviews. This is all the more important as you admit as you come to the topic as an outsider. Notably, your abbreviated and self-reflectively stereotyped “history” of horror, which is to say a stereotype of stereotypes that perpetuates stereotypes, makes a crucial historical error. Namely, it skips from the era spanning from the 1930‘s to the 1950‘s (the genre’s classical period symbolized by the popular reign of Universal Studios and b-movie horror) to the 1980‘s (with the emergence of the slasher cycle from the exploitation film circuit). Much has been said about the horror of these periods with surprising depth and nuance, but for our present purposes it is important to note the omission of the 1960‘s and 70‘s outside anecdotal reference to The Exorcist. Within the article itself, the admission is made that the years skipped over are the crucial transitional period with the emergence of second wave feminism, marking a crucial gender and genre shift within horror filmmaking, resulting in an explosive contingent of dedicated female fans. It is these two crucial decades of horror so adeptly analyzed by Robin Wood, a very important film critic deploying a psychoanalytic Marxist-feminist theoretical perspective to the analysis of horror in his classic essay “The Return of the Repressed”. An important benchmark to all future feminist film criticism, Wood argues that horror films of this period reflect the social upheaval of its times through a critique of familial narratives as engendered by the dominant value system of American patriarchal capitalism. Not coincidentally, this has a lot to do with the subtext of both “Exorcism” movies, which means this text directly relates to the context of your text.
While I doubt the late Mr. Wood to be very popular among the readers and subscribers of Forbes magazine, his approach is as ingenious as it is simple, an indispensable work. Disappointed in most everything that followed this very exciting period, but ever looking to the future, as the faithful Marxist must, in 2001 Robin Wood made a timely prediction. “Perhaps the new American administration will goad people into a new sense of outrage and fury, but it may take the equivalent of the Vietnam war.” (link) As a representative of Generation Y who came of age in this decade, I believe this cultural climate has had a similar impact upon the horror genre of my time, and I have a very similar response to Wood’s own. As such, I would now like to marshal five direct evidences against the claim that “since Scream, we haven't seen any major developments so far as the role of women are concerned in the American horror film.”
1. The Re-emergence of the Gothic Heroine
Way back in 1794, the very talented Ann Radcliffe wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho, a Gothic horror novel in which a determined young heroine explores a potentially haunted castle ruled over by a tyrannical count. In 2002, we see the full-blown re-emergence of the Gothic heroine, along with the Radcliffean/Burkean aesthetics of sublime terror (suggestive horror), beginning with The Ring. The new Gothic heroine tends to be either a young woman who adeptly navigates techno-Gothic landscapes (i.e. The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, The Skeleton Key), or an Alice-like young girl navigating a troubled rite of passage (i.e. Pan’s Labyrinth, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, The Captured Bird).
2. Sympathetic Female Monsters
With the exception of films like Carrie, until the past decade portrayals of “the monstrous feminine” (to quote the title of a book by Barbara Creed) have largely sought to avoid any sustained audience sympathy or rapport with monstrous eruptions of female aggression. By contrast, the 2000‘s sees a number of films in which the source of feminine monstrosity arises from the repressions of gender imbalance, and in which the monster is given strong pathos. Often she is even raised to the standing of the film’s protagonist, and we see the narrative through her eyes. Films characteristic of these developments include Ginger Snaps, May, Teeth, Let the Right One In, Orphan, and Splice.
3. Lucky McKee
Arguably the horror auteur of the noughties, Lucky McKee blends Brothers Grimm influenced fairy tales with horror in female-centered narratives. Countering the project of feminine passivity represented by his source material, the moral of these stories have a definite subversive undertones, with happy endings that are outrageously destabilizing. Highly stylish, within McKee’s work there is a curious balance to highly imbalanced characters. So far, McKee’s important works include May, The Woods, and Masters of Horror: Sick Girl.
4. Zombies!
With the popular re-emergence of zombie films, the 2000‘s sees the definitive establishment of the calm, competent, and highly resourceful women beginning with George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) as a subgenre convention. The audience now very literally expects these often narrative driving women to be in any zombie movie they see. This holds true both in the serious strand of zombie horror (i.e. 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead [2004], Diary of the Dead, The Crazies), and in the comic strand (i.e. Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland).
5. J-Horror
While nowhere near the craze it was a few years ago, in no small part because of an onslaught of substandard remakes, there certainly is something special about Japanese horror that makes it very different from American convention. According to director Takashi Miike, young women are the principle audience of horror in Japan, and indeed their horror reflects this accordingly. In the films that have crossed over to the States most effectively (i.e. Ringu, Ju-on: The Grudge, Audition), important gender issues like self-image in the culture of images, domestic abuse, child care, and access to gainful employment are raised to the level of central conflicts of the narratives. In addressing these conflicts, a combination of points one and two are effectively made, having a strong impact upon developments of horror in America.
Hi Kiri.
I think it was a mistake to focus only on women when looking at gender stereotypes in horror. Looking at how the men are portrayed puts women in the context they belong in the storyline. Saying 'women are portrayed negatively in horror' is like saying '3 Million Women were executed in the Holocaust' and making it a 'feminist' issue. We have to look at the men in the same instance to see if it really was.
Also, I have a Forbes question - why doesn't Forbes.com just use stories like this on their main site instead of making them specific to women in a 'women's section? They don't have a 'men's section' where they talk about sports. Should we assume that women only read that small section of Forbes? I know you probably don't know why they set it up that way, but it is something that has kinda bothered me.
I don't have a profnet account, so I am not sure what that is! The best way to reach me is always through my personal website or on this site, which come up in google searches on my name.
I would have loved to have contributed to the ideas in the story. Eli's quote is classic awsome.
Personally, I was wondering why The Descent was brought into it.
I agree - The Descent isn't really a good example of a modern horror movie where women get it for being "unpleasant". All of the women were of varying degrees of likability, and frankly, they *all* got it good.
Also, as the article made clear, I was quoting horror experts about the lack of development in the female archetype. I myself don't really watch horror, so I relied on many people who watch them and write about them to give me opinions.
You should hit us up! Many here are full of useful and/or semi-useless knowledge about movies.
Heidi will be getting back to you by the way - I know her personally, and I know her day was busy enough that she wasn't able to log online. I know she's also not part of profnet. Maybe you hit up the wrong Heidi Martinuzzi - could there be two?
Personally, I was wondering why The Descent was brought into it. I'm not a woman but I do think that the movie is filled with very strong, likeable famale characters. I even like Juno even though it's made clear from the opening scene that she is sleeping with Sarah's husband. The movie contains nothing but well developed, interesting female characters and I think should be used as a positive example of women in horror. But like I said I'm not a woman.
Um, hello. Thank you for reading my article. I did not mention men nor discuss men for a very plain reason, the article was for ForbesWoman which, as the title may suggest, is a channel for WOMEN. So, I focused on women.
Also, as the article made clear, I was quoting horror experts about the lack of development in the female archetype. I myself don't really watch horror, so I relied on many people who watch them and write about them to give me opinions. Journalists often do something called "research," which means talking to many people. If you'd responded to my Profnet query, we could have had a chat!
Also, you edited out my last comment, which was "Touche, Eli, touche." Meaning I agreed with Eli Roth that women fare worse in rom-coms than horror. Just want to set the record straight on that that. Thanks very much.
Kiri Blakeley
"Older women ... like Naomi Watts..." Poor Naomi. It's now in print, therefore official. Naomi Watts is a woman of a certain age.