How The Horror Genre Represents Gender In The Films We Have Studied?

The three films we have studied on gender are:

John Carpenter's Halloween (1978)

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980)

James Watkins's Eden Lake (2008)

We looked at whether women are shown equally with men in horror films, or if they are stereotypically shown as domesticated, familial, consumer or sexual.

We looked at theses sections in all three films: characters, visibility, roles, gaze and narrative/deaths.

Firstly Halloween, there is an equal split of main characters; there are 6 women and 6 men. This gives the first impression that this film is going to be equal regarding gender.

Next we looked at roles within the film. The stereotypical domestic roles such as babysitting, cleaning and cooking were all shown with the characters Laurie, Annie and Lynda. Also sexual  characters such as Annie and Lynda who have sex in the film and then die. This connotes that sex is bad for women. Also the tradition Familial roles are present in this film, Annie's dad is the sheriff and Judith is Mike Myers's sister.

Then we looked at the Gaze within Halloween, and weather the film identifies with women or it objectifies them. And the very first scene of the film, is a strong male gaze and you get this all through the film when you get at a POV (Point Of View) from Mike Myers; he objectifies Annie, Lynda and Judith and coincidentally kills all of them. But we identify with Laurie as the "final girl" because she chooses not to have sex and sticks to the rules, and coincidentally she is the one who survives.

Finally we looked at the narrative and amount of deaths. and there is approximately equal death toll of 3 females and 2/3 males, but the female deaths are more important within the narrative.

Secondly we looked at The Shining, and this film doesn't have an equal split within main characters; roughly 2/3rd or 60:40 in favour of men. This already gives the women an unfair disadvantage.

The roles in this film are again very typical. Domestically there is Wendy, who cooks, cleans and does all the stereotypical housewife chores. Again there is the Familial roles of Wendy who is Jacks wife and Delbert Grady's twin daughters. And sexually there is one possible scene in the bathroom where women have a sexual role, so unlike Halloween that is not the main driving force of the narrative. Next there is one hint

 of the male gaze in the bathroom sequence, but the lady turns into a corpse thus undermining the objectification process. Also like Halloween there is a "final girl" in Wendy and again is slightly androgynous, so in this film the gaze is good and not bias towards men.

Finally the narrative and deaths, there are 3 women and 2 men killed and this is similar to Halloween, except that there only 4 women in the whole film, so having only 1 survive again makes the women's deaths more important and targeting women.

Finally Eden Lake, there is a lack of visibility towards women, there are fewer than half as many women as men. This shows that the film is going to be very male dominated in all aspects.

Domestically, the female roles are very stereotypical. Jenny is a teacher, and in the cafe the waitress is female etc. Also the female in the gang Paige is very passive within the gang, she does what she is told and just films and doesn't get involved.

Familial, Jenny becomes Steve's fiance during the film; just before he dies. Brett's dad kills Jenny and beats Brett, this connotes that a broken home effects them both psychologically.

Sexually, Jenny is a attractive looking woman and she has sex, and dies, and again similar to Halloween this is saying sex is bad.

The male gaze similarly to The Shining is complicated within this film. The scene where Jenny and Steve are sitting near the lake, Brett and the gang are looking at Jenny through a pair of binoculars, which is okay until Jenny starts covering herself up and shows she is uncomfortable with it, then it make it bad and uncomfortable for the viewers to look at her sexually. But there is identification with Jenny for much of the film. So the gaze in this like The Shining is okay for women.

Finally the narrative and deaths, 2 out of 3 women die and 4 out of 8 men die. It doesnt really have a sexual agenda and there isnt a victor in the story, because the "final girl" doesnt survive.

In conclusion, these 3 films are all of the Horror genre but they are all different. And the main theme according to gender; is that women are lower than men, and tend to die when they have sex. And if you dont have sex and you look androgyenos then you can survive and occasionally defeat the monster.

Overall the Horror genre has shown it is very stereotypical towards women and like to show them sexually.