Media Essay: How does the horror genre represent women?

We have recently been watching and discussing horror movies in my A2 media studies class, this is when we were presented with the question of how the horror genre represented women in the films; We have watched two films in particular in which I can discover the answer to this question.

The general representation of women in the horror genre is they are seen to be either very innocent and domesticated or they are shown as being sex objects; Women are often shown as being weak and that generally if the woman is not shown as the sex object she ends up being the main protagonist that we eventually identify with as she is the person who survives; where as if we are presented with a young woman who is very pretty and often has a character role such as a cheerleader etc they are killed off first.

To back up my answer I have added some information from the two horror films that we watched in class.

The first film we watched was Halloween which is an old horror film from 1978; We are presented with four main female characters Judith Myers, Annie(Middle), Lynda (Far left) and Laurie (Right).

The first of our female characters is Judith Myers she is looked at as a sex object after being seen having sex by her younger brother Michael who then kills her. Michael is sent to a mental institute but he breaks out on Halloween, this is when we are presented with the next three girls.

Annie is one of the friends and she is seen as a sex object, we begin to learn this when she reveals that she uses the houses she babysits in as a place to have sex with the boyfriend and later that day as she babysits a young girl Lindsay she gets her clothes messy and changes into just a shirt, she then gets her friend Laurie to take Lindsay in whilst she goes to pick up her boyfriend but as she gets in her car she is killed by Michael Myers.

The next girl is Lynda she is seen as a sex object from the very start as we see her talking to Laurie about the fact that she is a cheerleader and that she is also very popular and doesnt have time for all of her social activities, later that day we learn more about her being a sex object when she turns up at the house where Annie is babysitting at and has sex with her boyfriend Bob shortly afterwards both Bob and Lynda are killed by Michael Myers.

The last girl is Laurie she is very domesticated as she helps out her father and babysits, she also talks to a young boy called Tommy who she is babysitting that night and they discuss carving pumpkins and making popcorn; Throughout the movie we see that she is continually stalked and looked at by Michael Myers and he even attempts at harming her but he never succeeds which leaves her to be the main protagonist that we identify with at the end of the movie; The girls are also shown as being weak as their attempts at fighting back are very feble or even non existant.

The next film I have chosen to back up my theories is "The Shining" a horror film made in 1980; The Shining is a film in which a family moves to a hotel after the father takes a job as a caretaker in which he wants to pursue his dream of writing in the five month stay of which they will be there; There are a few twists in the movie as Wendy and Jacks son Danny has a special gift called "Shining" in which he can connect with others and see bad things that will happen in the future and as the film progresses we learn that Jack is mentally unstable.

We have only one main female character in this movie and her name is Wendy but firstly I would like to talk about a brief part in the movie that involves a woman in the bath at the hotel.

Jack goes to investigate Danny's claims that there is a woman in a hotel room and as he enters she is a young attractive woman getting out of the bath, this is where she is seen as a sex object until Jack kisses her and looks in the mirror and discovers that she is actually old/mouldy/dead looking and so in connection with my theory this woman is seen as a sex object but is infact already dead.

I will now talk about the main character Wendy she is not seen as a sex object at all throughout the movie and she is definately not seen as being strong as she often looks scared of Jack and doesn't really stand up for herself much and when she does it is always a feeble attempt at it; Wendy ends up being the main protagonist and the person we identify with. In conclusion I believe that my theory that women seen as weak and as sexual objects die much sooner than those who are domesticated and not seen as sexual objects in most cases is right.