Gender Stereotypes In John Carpenter's Halloween

I’m using this source as it relates to my research question regarding history, myths, and exploitation of women in horror films. In Part 2 of the book “Audiences, Fans, and Consumption’, the article ‘Trashing the Academy’ by Jefferey Scone offers a detailed analysis of emerging politics in the genre of horror

Patriarchy is described as a general structure where men hold the position of power over women. This could include being the head of the household, ‘upper level’ in the workplace, or leader in society. Cinema serves this patriarchal institution by constantly constructing ideological images of women. Since the beginning, women in film are “made to conform to the ideal image that the man has of them” (Smelik, 496). Essentially, Hollywood cinema is structured for the male audience, and therefore majority of films are classified as patriarchal. A lot has to do with how female characters are portrayed and if there is a male gaze in the film. Although Pan’s Labyrinth is constructed through the classic narrative mode, the film has a female lead and focuses on women. Del Toro demonstrates the female characters overcoming obstacles and stigmas. Ofelia and Mercedes are the two strong female protagonists who are good-natured and act to what they think is right, different from the passive or aggressive protagonists found in traditional fairytales. So, how do these two women subvert and problematize the patriarchal stereotype? In the paper, I will analyze the mise-en-scene of the two different worlds and the inclusion of the male gaze to establish how these women subvert and problematize the patriarchal stereotype.

Several film theorists have used a variety of tactics and view points to analyze feature films since their inception. One of the most prominent theorists of those that analyze films from a feminist perspective is Laura Mulvey. Mulvey is famous for her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which presents an array of theories involving the treatment of women in films. Arguably the most notable idea presented in Mulvey’s work is the existence of the “male gaze” in films. This essay will examine Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze in relation to Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo. Vertigo does not fit the criteria of a film that

Classic texts are valued as their representation of cultural and social concerns are constructed in a way that continues to resonate with audiences despite their personal context. Cultural values are regarded by larger society as they reflect the social and political attitudes of the time. “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, is a gothic science fiction novel written in 1818, which explores the dark side of the human psyche, a highly valued cultural value, formed from the romanticism era. Shelley explores the role of man as creator as she forewarns of the impact of scientific advancement. These issues are re-examined in the twenty- first century film, “Edward Scissorhands”. ‘Edward Scissorhands’ is an appropriation of Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, directed by Tim Burton in the 1990. ‘Edward Scissorhands’ also explores the dark side of human psyche. Burton examines on what makes us human, as well as the perspective of living in society, being regarded as a ‘monster’. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is a 1975 gender bender, sci-fi, comedy, horror musical film, directed by Richard O’Brien. O’Brien pursue in encouraging to expand our society’s social standards, a cultural value from the sexual revolution throughout the eras of the 1960’s to 1980’s. Shelley’s “Frankenstein” has been adapted by Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” as well as O’Brien’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. These films have adapted to “Frankenstein” as it explores the cultural value of the dark side of human psyche

For example, Frankenstein is afraid of the female creature’s “reproductive powers” and her aesthetic as a whole that seeing as her monstrous stature defies the stereotype that “women should be small, delicate, passive, and sexually pleasing” (7). On top of this, Mellor claims that Frankenstein’s unwillingness to complete the female monster stems from being “afraid of an independent female will” that “cannot be controlled” , thus implying that “female sexuality is strikingly repressed”

According to the La Times article “2016 TV Statistics,” only about 17% of female protagonists are likely to appear in horror films each year (1). The low percentage of female protagonists speaks to the fact that monster narratives almost always portray women as the victim; however, this poses the question: why are women hardly shown as the protagonist? Scholars have attempted to study why females are not shown as the protagonists and almost always as victims, and they have discovered that it is because women are sexualized in monster narratives. The question raised now is: how exactly are women sexualized in monster narratives? When it comes to the topic of sexualizing women, most scholars readily agree that monster narratives highly sexualize

Over the years, the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has become universally portrayed in one way: a tall, green-skinned, dumb brute with no language or reasoning abilities. Society has turned the story of Frankenstein into a mere horror story, dehumanizing the monster more than was intended in Shelley’s novel. However, the message of Frankenstein is a far cry from the freak show displayed by the media. While many people may only see Frankenstein as a grotesque story meant to thrill its audience, its purpose goes much deeper as it advocates for the equal rights of women in society.

Having discussed Victorian ideas of sex and gender, this paper will now focus on the monstrous feminine in Dracula. The term monstrous-feminine itself derives from Barbara Creed's "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection." In her text, Creed claims that every human culture has its version of the monstrous-feminine, "of what it is about woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject" ("Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" 44). Creed applies this concept onto horror movies such as Psycho ("Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" 70) or Alien ("Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" 68). She also links this concept to Medusa in Geek mythology who turns men into stone by simply looking at them (Creed, "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" 44). Creed proposes that the monstrous-feminine is a man-made villain representing a male fear of female domination in a society when that was unthinkable and

In the review of the movie “Halloween”, women break the stereotype of always being dependent. In this movie, the main character is indeed a woman and she happens to kill the “boogeyman” herself. Instead of crying and waiting for her last moment of life, she courageously decided to take the “boogeyman” herself. She did not wait for a man to come to save her, because she knew that she alone could get victory. This movie broke the stereotype that women depend on guys to do everything for them. “Halloween” gave women their voices. People don’t have to always to be

Monster and horror movies can be a perfect mode for representing repressed fears and can be seen throughout the history of the genre. Haitian zombies can be seen as a representation of the fear of being stuck as mindless workers forever, werewolves can be understood as representation of our repressed fear of being our most primal selves, Frankenstein as a fear of the power of modern science, and so on throughout history. While this film creates a sense of uncanniness through the replacing of our loved ones with mindless automatons it can also be seen as a repressed cultural fear of being a mindless, emotionless, cookie cutter member of suburbia that was present in the 1950s when this book and film were

Based on this idea, Barbara Creed (1993) concluded the concept of monstrous-feminine as the “shocking, terrifying, horrific, and abject” (Creed 1993, 1) female image which is also commonly associated with mothering functions. We can find that the abjection occupies the whole film The Babadook.

“Kristeva is attempting to explore the different ways in which abjection works within human societies as means of separating out the human and non human.” (Creed, 1993, p.8) It will focus on Kristeva’s theory of the abject and the construction of the human subject in relation to the border, the mother-child relationship and the feminine body. It will also explore how the representation of woman as abject is almost always in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions. The representation of women in relation to Freud’s castration and the religious abject as discussed in Powers of Horror will also be examined. This chapter will also include a discussion on Kristeva’s abject through Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous Feminine. “All human societies have a conception of the monstrous feminine, of what it is about women that is shocking.” (Creed, 1993, p.1) Creed gives an interesting insight to Kristeva’s abject and Freud’s theory on castration in horror films. By looking at the construction of female monsters and what it is about them that is monstrous, in particular the archaic mother, the monstrous womb and the castrating mother as archetypes of the abject

“For the concept of the monstrous feminine, as constructed within/by a patriarchal and phallocentric ideology, is related intimately to the problem of sexual differences and castration.” (Creed, 1993, p.2) Creed takes an interesting approach to Kristeva theory of abjection and Freud’s theory of castration and applies it to horror film. Taking Kristeva’s theory of the abject and the archaic mother, she constructs monstrous representations of the abject woman. The monstrous womb which is the representation of mans fear of woman’s maternal functions. “Fear of the archaic mother turns out to be essentially fear of her generative power. It is this power, a dreaded one, that patrilineal filiation has the burden of subduing.” (Kristeva, 1982, p.77) Freud argued that woman terrifies because she is castrated. “Castration fear plays on a collapse of gender boundaries” (Creed, 1993, p.54) She suggests, that Freud misread Han’s fear in the Little Hans and that Han’s viewed his mothers as the castrator not his father, that his mother’s lack of phallus is seen not as a castrated organ but that of a castrating organ. The mother-child border is entangled in the complex and multi-faceted image of the castrating mother. According to Freud, man fears that of the mother as castrated and as that of the cannibalistic all devouring mother. “Construction of a patriarchal ideology unable to deal with the threat of sexual differences as it is embodied in the images of the feminine as archaic mother and is seen as the castrated mother.” (Creed, 1993, p.22) Kristeva suggests that the notion of the castrated women is to ease mans fear of woman, who has the power to psychologically and physically castrate him. The archaic mother as the monstrous womb and the castrating mother can be used as a way of understanding the work of Mona Hatoum and AIne Phillips, both

Women have an urge to expel “this thing” from our bodies that doesn’t belong there. Even though it is natural, almost as an impulse, women are disgusted by it, repulsed in an inherent way. This film betrays normal female sexuality by urging the viewer to turn this natural moment into a violent and monstrous feature which is repulsive. The monster, in this case, is nominally portrayed as the werewolf related to the stereotypical image depicted since the early days of cinema. In Ginger Snaps, the monster is not really the werewolf but the Monstrous-Feminine, Ginger and Brigitte dismayed by the internalized problems affecting most modern teenage girls, who describe menstruation as “the curse”. Ginger Snaps reveals how these two teenage girls are repulsed by their body’s own natural flux by associating their menstruations with acts of terror. Just by looking at the film’s opening title, with its montage sequence of various images that the girls have created for a school project that represents them playing dead, Bridgette and Ginger have constructed their own death in a glorious and gory

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.