Here’s that essay I posted about

I wrote this my first semester of college this fall so constructive criticism is really nice.

When the line between horror films and the women in them are linked, words like misogyny and sexism are thrown around as casually as conversational pieces about the weather. When accusations of the horror genre and its treatment of women are brought up, everyone from a super fan to the most diligent opposer has some form of opinion on the topic. Journalist Ghill De Rozario writes about the fine line horror seems to toddle between misogynistic and misunderstood. In her article “Women In Horror” De Rozario discusses common tropes in horror and challenges the claims of sexism in the genre.



A common criticism of horror cinema, old and new, is violence against women is nearly a given. De Rozario counters this claim by stating the obvious; “violence and gore [are] a major component” of nearly all horror films. For many, the appeal and draw of horror cinema is the feeling of watching something you know deep down is terrible and taboo. Horror is such a ‘love it or hate it’ genre because it is known for “portraying the unthinkable” no matter how unpleasant and ugly it truly is (De Rozario). Film is as heavily laced with symbolism as canvas art or poetry. De Rozario delves deeper into the violence against women on the screen as more than “watching women be killed in graphic and violent ways” being just pure entertainment (De Rozario). Many disturbing “and intentionally horrifying scenes” are filmed as such to “provoke discussion” or allow social commentary of the times (De Rozario).

In the 1970’s a subgenera of horror known as rape and revenge films were under great scrutiny for being sexist exploitations while they contrarily were political commentary. These films showed “brutal [displays] of sexual violence” in an often gritty and disturbingly realistic fashion (De Rozario). Rape and revenge films usually followed a three act formula; a character is assaulted or raped, the character recovers and finally, the survivor takes brutal revenge on their tormenters. Films like I Spit On Your Grave and Last House on the Left accompanied these prolonged rape scenes with no background music which only further drove the gritty and realistic angle that the film was aiming for. I Spit On Your Grave was created after director Mark Zarchi assisted a woman to the hospital after a brutal sexual assault. Zarchi then decided this woman’s story needed to be heard. While the first half of rape and revenge films typically depict an unforgiving and violent attack the second half then “follows the victim turned survivor in tracking down..and violently killing” those responsible for her assault (De Rozario) . A public outcry followed the release of these films and they found the films banned in many countries as many believed the “lengthy, drawn out rape scenes glorified violence against women” (De Rozario). On the other end of the spectrum however many found the films to be feminist friendly and empowering. This is because of the film’s gritty and unforgiving scenes of sexual violence refusing to “hold back in showing the vicious reality” of sexual violence raising awareness to what victims of sexual assault actually go through (De Rozario).

Many non-fans and opposers to the horror genre’s onscreen treatment of women fail to factor in the male-to-female death ratio. A common staple of horror films is that they start with “a group of people” and by the end a majority of them are dead. Commonly in “slasher, splatter and zombie” subgenres, the “gender balance” is essentially 50/50 (De Rozario). The inability to see the female victim as anything but female, despite the pure circumstances surrounding their onscreen demise, poses a problem feminists have been trying to eliminate for years. De Rozario then clarifies that while there are many cases of gender based violence, a death in a horror film is not one unless clearly distinguished.

De Rozario also touches upon tropes in horror films surrounding women. She states a “concern for many..is the genre’s portrayal of women as victims” (De Rozario). Looking at horror films from as iconic as John Carpenter’s Halloween to as obscure as Dario Argento’s Suspiria, the last person left is usually a woman. A common ending in most horror films is this girl is the one who defeats the evil. This is referred to as the “final girl trope” (De Rozario). This character is stereotypically a young girl who is being targeted by a malevolent being such as a monster, murderer, or supernatural being. This “entity is virtually always characterized as male” (De Rozario). The final girl trope is condemned because it “portrays women as victims” of male led violence and terror (De Rozario). This reflects on the harsh reality that women are commonly victimized by men. De Rozario claims that tampering with this trope is to invalidate horrifyingly real statistics. The final girl being tormented by this entity could even be “argued to validate women’s fears as real dangers” (De Rozario). The final girl trope could further be called empowering because “the woman rises up to victory and becomes a survivor” shaking the title of victim that was bestowed upon the others who perished (De Rozario). The usage of the final girl claiming her survivor title is strikingly similar to that seen in the rape and revenge films where the “female survivor [gets] back at her attackers” (De Rozario). This female empowerment is almost essential in any horror film’s framework.

When representation of women in film as a whole is brought up, many incorrectly recall women as being background objects or target practice in the horror genre. The now widely renowned Bechdel test was started as a joke in a webcomic about women’s lack of representation in film. The test measures how many named female characters are in a film and if the interaction between two female characters goes beyond discussing men. In a study of the amount of films which pass the Bechdel test De Rozario found a staggering 43% failed across all genres. This shows us that overall a majority of women’s “representation in films” are reduced to “revolving around male characters” (De Rozario). In categorizing the passing films by genre, horror “came in second only to music” (De Rozario). Horror genre is more likely to show women as independent and the subject of the story as opposed to a secondary object that furthers the male characters’ stories. Recently characters like Katniss from The Hunger Games have been praised as being the only strong female character in film. It seems those praising this have forgotten about Ripley in Alien or Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is “over looked and dismissed” as a genre for males all too often (De Rozario).

De Rozario concludes her argument by acknowledging there are reasons for people to “critically assess” and recognize flaws in the horror genre. These flaws are ones that could be found in any genre however and horror is “actually being more progressive in some essential ways” (De Rozario). De Rozario even includes a recommendation list of horror films that clearly demonstrate the strong women of the genre. If critics and viewers were to watch horror without such an eagerness to call it mindless violence and were to view it with the same light they view films like Lolita, a film focusing on the sexualization of a thirteen year old girl that is often called romantic, horror would gain the recognition it deserves as a highly progressive genre that was working towards women empowerment as early as the 1940’s with the Bride of Frankenstein.



Works Cited

Outspoken, T. (2015). Women in Horror - Are horror movies inherently misogynistic, or are they just misunderstood? Retrieved November 03, 2016, from https://medium.com/@Ghill_deRozario/are-horror-movies-inherently-misogynistic-or-are-they-just-misunderstood-76990d8753aa