Preface

Once again this is another essay taken my media and cultural studies degree. Found it while looking through some old articles. Felt the quality and points made where pretty good, so seemed worth sharing. Made a few minor edits here and there. Also as stated before I know some students use this blog so if this can be of any help that is great. I hope you enjoy.

Essay

Slasher films are a sub-genre of horror that were very popular during the seventies and eighties. The films have always had an integral link with gender. This is caused by many of the films representation of weak female characters; who act as cattle to the slaughter. Clover (2002, p.77) expands on this idea when stating “On the face of it, the relation between the sexes in slasher films could hardly be clearer. The killer is with few exceptions recognizably human and distinctly male; his fury is unmistakably sexual in both roots and expression; his victims are mostly women, often sexually free and always young and beautiful ones.” In this essay we will be exploring how the films A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Alien: Directors Cut (2003) both use very different techniques to create sexual anxiety in female viewers. Although Alien is a Science Fiction film it also has a place in the horror genre and specifically slasher which shall be explored later on. More importantly we shall focus on the empowerment that female audience members receive from these films or lack there of.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) introduction does a lot of theme setting around gender. The first thing we see is Freddy hammering and forging his claws. The shots have connotation of blacksmithing, primarily a male profession. This leads on to Tina in a white nightgown appearing lost in an industrial boiler scene. Here two of main themes of contrast are set up the concept of light and dark, along with the real and dream worlds. Heba, (1995 p.111) describes the real world when stating “In the first two instalments of the series, members of the dominant culture appear as the stereotypical, ineffectual authorities […]. They are white, apparently middle-class adults living in a suburb, but their characters are not distinguished by occupation–except for Lieutenant Thompson, a police officer.” They live in this perfect suburban town that appears uncanny and dreamlike; contrasting the surreal events around them that they all just ignore. Tina as well as many of the girls wears white which is symbolic for innocence and vulnerability. These are all very feminine traits so there is clear contrast in Freddy’s masculine industrial world. The Film preaches the idea that they cannot escape this fate, as you have to eventually fall asleep. The film promotes an idea of a male dominated world inside and outside the film that cannot be escaped. This is clearly not empowering to women as it displays that whatever they do they cannot escape the male patriarchal society.

It may be argued that this is not true as Freddy does not just kill teenage girls but boys too; however there are some clear differences in the way he treats the two genders. We shall focus on Freddy’s four main targets; Rod, Glen, Tina and Nancy. Rods death is very fast he is hung in prison and we see very little of the dream. Glen is very similar he is sucked into his bed and spat back out in a fountain of blood. Rathgeb (1991, p.42) states that “In both the dream clinic sequence and Glenn’s dream death, Craven manipulates the dichotomy further, making the specifics of the two dreams’ content less accessible while exposing their horrific consequences more readily. […]In Glenn’s dream death, moreover, we observe none of the actual dream content, only it’s appalling consequences.” We see very little of Freddy scaring the boys, he kills them very fast in comparison to his treatment of the girls. He toys with the girls a lot more, almost feeding off of there fear.

This leads to nearly all the dream sequences taking place inside the female characters heads. In these dreams Freddy is not just trying to kill the victim but play with them. In the surface narrative of the film Freddy Krueger was a child killer. Craven encodes the idea into the film that he is also a child molester. He does not want to just kill the girls like the boys but gain sexual pleaser from the act. The film makes it clear that Freddy is powered from fear, this is also sexual fear. When Nancy is in the bath we see this clearly as we are presented with a very sexually suggestive image see below. The dream can even be seen as fears of sexual rape as Nancy is at this point unaware of what is happening.

There are many more example of Freddy’s sexual desires towards young girls, he gets on top of both Nancy and Tina in their beds and his tongue emerging from a phone trying to kiss Nancy. The film even adds these ideas on a subtle level as at the beginning of the film four young girls sing and skip, but only three at the end, leaving it up to the audience’s imagination what Freddy might have done. This focus on Freddy’s forced sexual desires towards young women cannot be empowering to female viewers. Bulkeley (1999, p.107) states that male audience members “They Identify not simply with Nancy and her teenage friends, but with Freddy Kreuger himself. For adolescent boys, Freddy expressed all the terribly urgent sexual desires they feel rising up within themselves.” This along female characters treatment when compared to the males shows that the film should be far scarier for women as it deals with the real world issue of rape. Freddy makes fun of and clearly gains pleaser from these activities. The film would be far from empowering to rape victims as they have to relive their negative experiences.

The main source of empowerment for female viewers emerges towards the end of the film; as Nancy decides to seek out and fight Freddy. Getting Freddy out of the dream and solely doing what no one else in the film could. Locking him the basement before all the male police slowly react as she shouts for their help. It’s overcoming her fear of Freddy which includes the sexual fear created throughout the film that finally defeats him. As Halpern (2003, p.120) describes “Nancy Literally make an attempt to take away Freddy’s power and figuratively attempts to take away the power of her pressed sexuality by turning her back on the “monster” she created.” This is the most empowering idea within the film for female viewers; that evil will always exist in the world and the only way to survive is to not fear it. If the evil is feared it has won, this is the message the film presents. This can be viewed as empowering to female views, as they can relate to Nancy’s struggle. Applying this idea into their real lives could have positive effects.

The effect of empowerment on female viewer in A Nightmare on Elm Street is created by showing the negative and how it can be overcome. However this is quite different to the approach of Alien. Alien misdirected audiences when it was released in 1979 as at this time nearly all protagonists in Hollywood movies where male. Mulhall (2002, p.14) displays how the opening of the film even follows this misdirect as it presents its first character “His face – deeply lined and weary, marked by some kind of suffering from which it has not yet escaped – is instantly recognizable as that of John Hurt, whose name was perhaps the most famous of those which appeared during the film’s opening credits. We think we have finally arrived at the human centre of the film that is about to begin. And we are wrong.” The character Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver as a warrant officer aboard the spaceship Nostromo, blends in with the other six members of her crew at the beginning of the film. However throughout the film is brought more into the spot light as her smart and strong decisions keep her alive. This is where the source of empowerment lies in alien in the character Ripley.

First we must address an issue brought up earlier. Is Alien not a science fiction film? The subject of the film suggests this idea, but Scott was able to incorporate elements of horror and more specifically slasher. Gallardo and Smith (2004, p.14) back up this idea when they state “Alien owes a debt for its uniqueness to the horror genre, particularly to a then nascent subgenre, the slasher. In her ground-breaking critique of the slasher, occult, and rape-revenge film genres entitled Men, Women, and Chainsaw, Carol J. Clover unequivocally designates Alien “a sci-fi/slasher hybrid.” Positioning it along the lines of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Halloween (1978).” The narrative structure of the film follows that of a slasher. The Film begins with the seven members of the Nostromo, although as the film progressive slowly single members of the team are killed one by one; very similar to the narrative structure of a slasher. Slashers typically involve a psychopathic killer whose appears to lack motive. The Aliens act as this killers as there motives throughout the film is unclear, adding to the ambiguity and horror. Slashers as we have already explored have an integral link with sex and gender; these elements are also displayed throughout alien.

Alien differs from many slashers as it’s not a psychotic killer out to get a group, but a group of aliens. The film however is still loaded with ideas of sexualisation and gender but through its design of the alien. Mulhall (2002, p. 23) supports this idea when stating “It seems clear, however, that it is the alien’s monstrous representation of human sexual difference that most fundamentally drives the plot of Scott’s film. For given the alien’s threatening incarnation of predatory masculinity” This effect was primarily created through Scott’s collaboration with the surrealist artist HR Giger. See bellow for an image from Giger’s Necronomicon 4 that was very likely the starting point of the creation. The image depicts an alien like creature very similar to the ones present in the film; however the head of the alien is more phallic than in the films. Also the tail that is present in the film has been replaced with a huge penis containing what looks like one of its off spring.

The work is overtly sexual however this had to be toned down due to differences in mainstream film and surrealist art. Giger (1993, p.57) states that “Having painted, in approx. three months, almost thirty pictures for the Alien project for Ridley Scott and Twentieth Century Fox, I was invited to England to supervise and execute the décor at Shepperton Studios” see bellow for examples of these concepts. The first displays the life and possibly mating cycle of the Alien within the film. While second appears to be a redesign of the image from Necronomicon 4 (above), the penis has been replaced by the tail we see in the film but the creature is still holding it in a phallic way. Scott took this idea into the film to create a sense of sexual threat around the alien creature.

By making the alien the films sexual threat the characters can remain relatively un-sexualised. Where as in A Nightmare on Elm Street characters engage in sexual activities and are killed because of it. Alien’s characters never engage in sexual activities, the whole crew are seen in their underwear at the start of the film creating a sense of equality. Ripley is the only character to be seen again in this dress as she returns to stasis at the end of the film. Ripley’s actions throughout the film are the source of empowerment for the female viewers. On many occasions she displays her intelligence when compared to other crew members as her suggestions could have saved lives. An example of this at the start of the film she decodes the message “It’s a warning” she says, but ash ignores her leading to Kane getting one of the creatures attached to him. Ripley tries to follow quarantine but Ash lets them in. These are just two but Ripley’s suggestions would have saved lives and projected the crew but others would not listen. Ripley displays she is stronger than the other female character Lambert, as Lambert Freezes when coming face to face with the alien (sexual threat). This leads to her and Parkers deaths making Ripley the Final Girl.

The Final Girl is the source of empowerment for female viewers in many slashers. Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street is a clear indication of this as her actions throughout the film are not empowering. The way she handles the sexual threat in this case Freddy is. Clover (1992, p.40) describes this as “The Final Girl is boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine- not, in any case, feminine in the ways of her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from the other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself.” However it’s not just Ripley’s actions in her Final Girl sequence that are a source of empowerment but her as a character throughout the whole film. She displays strengths when a disfigured Dallas and Brett beg for death, as she reluctantly obeys. Finally as she takes control when an alien is in the escape pod, she ejects and shoots it with a harpoon gun; as the alien floats away from the egg like pod. The rope from the gun can be seen as a metaphorical umbilical cord and Ripley’s abortion of her sexual threat a very empowering moment after what she has been through.

It is clear that the character Ripley holds a lot of empowerment for female viewer; however this does not mean there are not criticisms. Clover (2002, p.80) displays an interesting point when stating “No one who has read “Red Riding Hood” to a small boy or participated in a viewing of, say, Deliverance (an all-male story that women find as gripping as men) or, more recently, Alien and Aliens, with whose space-age female Rambo, herself a Final Girl, male viewers seem to engage with ease, can doubt the phenomenon of cross-gender identification.” Some of Ripley’s actions can be viewed as masculine but inside the context of the film only a female could survive. The alien tail and erecting tongue as the masculine sexual threat of the film, means that it is essential for a female to survive or the films meaning is lost. This means that although criticisms of the empowerment created for female viewer is there, the film would simply not be a potent if Ripley was swapped a male character.

In conclusion the two films hold different sources and amounts of empowerment for female viewers. It is clear that there is an integral link between female sexual anxiety and the slasher genre. Meaning that empowerment for female viewers would be unlikely. However Nancy overcoming her fear of Freddy is a clear source of empowerment. The Film shows lot of the negative for her to overcome at the end of the film. This differs from aliens approach as it displays Ripley as a strong character throughout to be the source of empowerment and idolisation. However both films seem to display at least some form of empowerment for female viewers.

Bibliography

Bulkeley, K. (1999) Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology. New York: State University of New York Press.

Clover, C. (1992) Men Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. London: Princeton University Press.

Clover, C. (2002) ‘Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film’, in Jancovich, m. (ed.) Horror: The Film Reader. London: Routledge.

Gallardo, X. (2004) Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group.

Giger, HR. (1993) HR GIGER ARh+. Cologne: Taschen.

Halpern, L (2003) Dreams on Film: The cinematic Struggle Between Art and Science. North Carolina: McFarland & Company.

Heba, G. (1995). ‘Everyday nightmares’, Journal Of Popular Film & Television, 23(3), pp. 106-115.

Mulhall, S. (2002) On Film. London: Routledge.

Rathgeb, DL. (1991) ‘Bogeyman from the id’, Journal Of Popular Film & Television, 19(1), pp. 36-43