How women are represented in horror films (comparing Scream (1996) to Alien (1979)

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Kaya Cheshire                         Yr13 Media studies coursework

Media studies:

How women are represented in horror films (comparing Scream (1996) to Alien (1979)

Women are represented in a variety of ways in films, depending on the genre and narrative that it’s based on, for example Sci-Fi films. In which they are usually portrayed as intelligent leaders (such as Ripley in Alien (1979) (Her being the sole survivor and leading the team by trying to save them throughout the film.) She’s strong willed in the whole film, which shows another side to women in the industry, creating a wider mass audience than some types of films. Such as chick flicks, which are targeted usually towards a young female audience, which is a much more niche market, basically because it has feminine qualities/narrative. This then enables the audience too empathise with the character, but also feel they can personally relate too. Where as men can’t relate to this as well, so would appeal to them less as they aren’t used too seeing such diversity in women’s roles. Instead they are much more interested in pleasure of watching a woman “male gaze”. Women understand the emotional films where as In general the majority of the killers/villains in horror films tend to be males, as they are associated more with being overpowering. The position of the female as the antagonist also seems to be a rarity in the genre. Yet in the few cases this has actually occurred, after the shock of finding out the killer’s gender was not male rubs off, it becomes harder for an audience to keep fearing her in the same way. I like the new era of horror, thanks to the likes of Switchblade Romance, Pans Labyrinth and Let the Right One In. These new forms of horror films are great, thanks to the films “not in the English language category” (Sight and Sound magazine (May 2009). “The director, who’s brutal, arty “extreme” movies, set the tone for this cycle”. These really are brutal, but in a lot of contrasting ways, such as gender role reverse in Switchblade Romance, unlike the typical slasher films.

The traditional roles and representations of women are stereotyped as “housewives”, until the emergence of feminism; women were almost treated as objects, passive agents in a male world. Women used too be represented in a lot more of a cliché style (Damsel in distress/ helpless victim), this may have been down too gender studies at the time. "The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality." Just one saying from SCUMS (Society for cutting up men) quotes. (http://antimisandry.com/feminist-misandry/feminist-quotes-20106.html).This is one feminist group, but unlike where feminism started of for political rights, equality and issues, extreme feminism has started to pick up, and the controversy’s that surround it. The roots of the feminist theory go back too the eighteenth century and run through suffragette movement, who fought for the votes for women’s rights.

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“The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing more rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involved political and sociological theories and philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference, as well as a movement that advocates more gender specific rights for women and campaigns for women’s rights and interests. Although the terms “feminism” and “feminist” did not gain widespread use until the 1970’s, they were already being used in the public parlance much earlier; for instance, Katherine Hepburn speaks of the “feminist movement” in the 1942 film Woman of the ...

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