Carol Clover, in men, woman and chainsaws argues that horrors representation of gender is very interesting because it frequently offers its core target audience of young males an identification with a female character, unlike any other mainstream genre. To what extent do you think horrors representation of gender challenges dominant representation?

The media industry has very strong representations to gender which has been challenged in recent years but by no accounts is sorted. Males still are favoured and shown as the dominant sex, shown as strong and intellectual people with a lot of authority. Females on the other hand are seen more as objects and focused on their physical beauty, one of the main ways woman are shown is through relationships with men. Jeremy Tunstall's book “The Media in Britain” in 1983 suggested that there are subcategories that woman are commonly placed into, those are domestic, sexual, consumer and marital. These categories are all very sexist and none of them express any form of independence, it all connotes a sense of dependancy on other people. Although the majority of men are marital too, this isn’t shown in the film industry as a very relevant factor, the marriage is shown through the female, while the husband is shown in other ways, usually something masculine or heroic. Another thing that is often shown in the media is men outside the home, while woman are doing house work. This implies that woman aren’t as capable having paying jobs, or even that men are superior?

As well as representations of gender in theory, there are also ways that the media look at woman using the camera. Theorists such as Laura Mulvey have talked about “The Male Gaze” which treats woman as objects that the audience observe completely based on their outer beauty, for example the camera focusing on certain parts of the body (Legs, Chest, Face) which divide a woman into separate body parts to be admired. The audience are all almost always males which gives off such a negative representation to woman, which obviously gives the media a problem when it comes to female audiences who are annoyed with being objectified and revoked of their independence. When the theory is studied further, the clearer it is that there isn’t a female gaze as such because males are seen as dominant in media which leaves a large hole in the representation of gender.

In horror films this stereotypical representation of woman is challenged which we can learn more about through people like Carol Clover in “Men, Woman and Chainsaws” 1993 which talks about a “Final girl” in the movies which is always the woman who survives right to the very end. This of course totally challenges the representation of gender because in the average action movie the last person to survive or main character would be a man, but in this case we are seeing more and more woman who are the final characters. In the film “Halloween” 1978 the main character is a woman called Laurie who is a quite boyish character, which straight away is different to the classic representation because she isn’t particularly beautiful and defiantly doesn’t give off any sexual vibes and isn’t seen as an object through the camera. She just seems like an average actor in the film. As the story develops her friends who are more alike to their stereotype are also sexually active get slowly killed off one by one. This connotes that the women are getting punished because of their sexual antics? Another thing Carol talks about is how throughout the film there is nothing sexual related to Laurie and she is shown as virginal which may be one of there reasons she survives. Towards the end Michael (the monster) turns on her and she ends up fighting him off and surviving. This is a very progressive representation of woman and was a large step towards change in the way that women are shown through films. Since Halloween there have been a number of horror films which have a “Final girl” such as Buffy Summers from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” 1997-2003 or even Alexa Woods in “Alien vs Predator” 2004 which is a much more recent interpretation of the final girl, which shows the lasting fight towards levelling equality between the sexes.

Although the final girl is a very strong way of challenging typical gender representations there are still many other horror films which show woman in a more conservative state, such as “Scary Movie” 2000 which shows woman as very stupid and connotes right from the very start that woman are pretty useless in dangerous situations, for example Carmen Electra playing the role of Drew Decker who chooses a banana over a knife or a gun on a weapons table. Another negative representation of woman in this scene is how sexually visual the woman is to the audience, showing strong cleavage and verbal sexual puns. Carmen Electra is a very typical actress to be playing this kind of role and when an audience is watching a film with her acting they expect it to have some kind of sexual related scene or feminine stupidity, which shows how even though many woman fight for the equality in media, there are still many woman who act out these roles and make the representations of their own sex even worse. This creates a vicious circle because there are vast numbers of woman who want to fight to fix the issue and also large numbers of woman who are not making it any better for themselves by carrying out these roles and enforcing this stereotype.

Woman are also far more likely to loose acting roles with age because of the way they are viewed to the audience; the older they get, the less roles they can play. Although this is a very negative way of thinking, the media connotes that audiences don’t want to see an ageing woman, they want to see a young beautiful woman. Which objectifies even more, because they are just being used as a face and body, rather than a whole person. Men on the other hand play many roles even when aged and old, for example the “James Bond” films which don’t have a young main character, in-fact he is middle aged and is still shown as a very strong, intellectual hero. When you compare this example to woman, it is very hard to think of a film in which an older woman is shown in a similar manor.

I think that horror films and Carol Clovers “Final girl” are very progressive representations of woman and it is definitely a strong way of fighting to equality. Year by year we are seeing more progressive ways women are being shown through the media and in an ideal world, one day the sexes will be seen as equals in the media. Personally I think that even though this would be much fairer, its not a realistic prospect, and I think that men will always been shown with some kind of dominance. Yes the gap between men and woman will get smaller and smaller, but I don’t think the gap will ever totally close, because even though on paper it all seems very unfair and sexist, it makes money, and thats the main thing media industries and film directors care about.