Carol Clover, in Men, Women and Chainsaws, argues that horror's representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males identification with a female character, unlike any other mainstream genre.
To what extent do you challenge horror's representation of gender dominant representations?
There are many issues about how representation of women in the horror genre is different compared with other media text genres. Discussions about whether female are being used as an object to objectify or used as the main protagonist to identify with. These issues became arguments about whether horror genre gives a progressive or conservative representative of women.
In many mainstream movies, women are stereotypically represented under these following roles: sexual, marital, domestic and consumer. Jeremy Tunstall argued that women usually are represented as someone's mother or wife (or related with a man character in anyway), sexually appeal to men, or consumers. He said that women commonly are restricted to one of these roles, either being a housewife or shown for their sexual appealing to men or practise. Other than these, then they are often shown as a character behind the men which related them to the men characters. The 1992 research demonstrated that men outnumber women by 2 to 1 on screen. Typical representation issues are women have less appearance comparing to men.
Consumers
domestic
Mother and wife
Sexually appeal
Here is the bathtube scene from
The Shining (1980) , the woman in the bathtube is obviously used as sex object for the audience which applied one of the four main roles for women.
The suggestion that women are represented as sex symbols leads into Laura Mulvey's theory about the male gaze. Her theory suggests that the camera uses specific techniques to objectify women and positioning the audience as a male character who is looking at her. The male gaze sequence often starts with a close up of the man, continues with a point of view shot and finishing with a reaction shot which helps the audience to identify with the male character to look at the female and make him the subject. Tilt up shots and long shots are also expected in the sequence to show the body parts of women, for example, usually showing legs. Mulvey argues that the male gaze has risen to a sexist way of viewing women as objects for male enjoyment. She also describes the male gaze is sadistic objectification, which means that it provides men with a sense of pleasure in controlling women.
In Men, Women and Chainsaws, Clover states that the horror genre has made the male gaze become masochistic identification with female characters. It is interesting that the horror genre has young males as its core target audience; however most of the horror movies give out identifications with female protagonists. For Clover, our identification in horror is unstable, not only shifting between victim and killer, and often encompassing both but also encouraging male audiences to identify with women on screen, both as victims and increasingly as victim-heroes. She also says that the main female protagonist is often a 'final girl', who survives until the movie ends with hero/victim figure but weak. The final girl is usually different from other female characters; she is usually a boyish girl, more sensible and androgynous. She is weak and strong and defeats the monster unlike the others. However, Clover uses Carrie(1976) as an example, states out that the final girl becomes the monster herself, as 'a kind of monstrous hero'. We have studied three horror movies which are Halloween(1978), The Shining(1980) and Eden Lake(2008). These three movies proved that the 'final girl' quite often exists in horror genre.
In Halloween(1978), there are approximately same amount of male and female characters which is not reflecting the 1992 research (suggests that men outnumber women on screen by 2 to 1). However, there are three female characters, Linda, Annie and Judith who are objectified as sex objects. Moreover, Laurie, the 'final girl' and Annie are presented as one of the stereotypical categories: domestic, as they are babysitters in the film. The POV shot from Mike Myers at the start, POV Annie in the laundry and Linda's death in bed are the shots which the women objectified by the male gaze, however, Laurie is never objectified and she becomes the subject. The main protagonist is a female and she is the 'final girl' who is weak but ultimately surviving and outcomes the monster, which is the convention of horror genre.
Laurie as the Final Girl.
In The Shining(1980), there are more male characters than female which reinforced the 1992 research that visibility is an issue. The main protagonist, Wendy is represented as domestic and familial, as she takes care of Jack and Danni, and as a wife and mum, the secretary is also represented as domestic which comes from the beginning when she is asked to make some coffee. The old lady in the bathtub is objectified as the sex object by the camera in male gaze sequence, but the gaze is reinforced the idea that old woman is often absent on screen because they lost attractiveness for audiences. Death characters are equal which suggests that women don't seen to be punished for transgression.
In Eden Lake(2008), men outnumbered women by 8 to 5 but death count is fairly equal which suggests that women are not punished either. The main protagonist, Jenny, is a primary school teacher which is related to domestic and caring, which is similar to the 'final girl' in Halloween, Laurie. In the gang, Paige has a passive role which may reinforce the stereotype of women only do the caring but they cannot be the murderer. At the beach scene, the gang look at Jenny in a male gaze but the gaze is undermined as Jenny is the subject in the following shots.
In conclusion, gender identification is complicated in horror genre and it often shifts between the killer and the main protagonist, 'final girl'. There isn't a clear definition of a progressive representation or a conservative representation of gender in any of the horror movies. I personally think that representation is an interesting issue in the horror genre.
This is my first draft for my magazine cover. I have searched some existing magazine covers such as Total Film and used them as templates.
This is my first draft for my movie poster which I am inspired by the real existing movie 'The Devil Inside', the poster of this movie has some similar conventions, for example, the main character is placed in the middle of the poster and the title is placed across the poster with large font size. A tagline which tells a little about the narrative is placed on top of the poster. Credits and 'Coming Soon' are placed at the bottom of the poster which is a common convention of posters.
The role of the 
The second theorist that we looked at was Todorov. Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960s. He suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo and this is disrupted, which is the disequilibrium, by some chains of events. Problems then solved into a new equilibrium so the order can be restored to the world of the fiction. Most of the classic Hollywood films are based on Todorov's ideas. This theory does fit with The Shining. The equilibrium is the normal life the family had before they moved to the hotel, then an engima raised when something happened to Jack to make him become mad. The disquilibrium was when Danny and Wendy were against Jack and the problems was solved and becomes the new equilibrium which was Wendy and Danny left the hotel and ends the film. I think that this theory helped me to understand the story of The Shining more than Propp's narrative function theory.
