Explore how the genre represents woman

I have researched how woman are represented in horrors in films such as ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Shining’. Involving what each female wears showing such things as sexuality, how woman are portrayed when ‘fighting’ basically how woman supposedly act when put in danger, how us as the audience see how woman are seen as and how woman are seen the total opposite to men.
In my opinion woman are always shown as being weak. To begin with when looking at the sizes of woman they are all fairly slim, which can help with the concept of the woman in horrors of being weak, venerable and basically there for there physical beauty. They are also stereotyped under certain roles either through domestic or sexuality. For example in ‘Halloween’ Annie and Laurie are babysitting making popcorn for the children and making sure they are changed for bed therefore taking on the motherly domestic role. Sexuality is shown by Annie wearing a males shirt showing off her legs and showing hoe petite she is. Even main protagonists are seen to be sexual for the male eye and for females to desire them, for example Lara Croft she is seen in little black shorts and a tight vest top with rough hair what some men like to call ‘sex hair’ where as men in action movies actually wear suitable clothes such as trousers and jumpers. As more movies are made females continue to be seen in a sexual nature by wearing males shirts or even being naked.
All woman in horrors are heterosexual woman they never show a lesbian relationship. I think this is because horrors are made mainly for men as they seem to like gore and scary films. As I have said woman are represented as being weak an didn’t shows on their deaths. For example when Annie is murdered in Halloween she kicks and screams, waving her arms in the air not in any temp on hitting ‘Michael’. and when Linda is strangled by Michael with the telephone cord she does nothing but swing her arms in the air in panic. Doing the typical ‘attack’ what males expect us females to do not being able to defend our selves properly even though the boyfriend doesn’t defend himself. Also it occurs to me that when looking back on horrors people always remember the females deaths first, as I have said before females are seen as weak and the gender to be killed due to our sexuality and strength. How ever when looking back at the boyfriends death on ‘Halloween’ he does not put up a fight just stands still which you would think to be more feminine that not attempting to break free like the females do.
When watching horror films the woman are seen as objects, how ever when we are watching woman being treated I this way no one seems to reflect on it as it has become normal to our society. For example in ‘The shining’ Jack shouts and Wendy ‘will you just fuck of’ and she obeys to it and leaves him alone. After watching the film no one made any comments on how he treated her, they commented her on how she ran and screamed, making a joke out of it. In ’Halloween’ ‘Lynda’ is treated as a sex object as when they enter the house all the male thinks about is sex and she allows him to treat her this way and yet again when we were discussing this as a class no one had any problem with the way she was treated.
The male gaze uses camera shots such as point of view shots use specifically to show how woman are treated as sex objects for example, when Annie is in a males shirt ’Michael’ looks at her legs and works his way up to the top showing woman are represented as being just physical beauty nothing else on the lines of being intelligent and wise. With point of view shots come tilts for zooming up the body showing desire for the woman. I have noticed that in both the films there is not a close up of facial expressions or at the face at all showing that all males care about it a good body for sexual reasons. With this it denies woman in the films such as Annie and Lynda on having any chance of being seen as anything serious. When comparing this to action films I do think there is such thing as ‘female gaze’ for example in ’James Bond’ films there is a scene where he is walking out of the sea and there is a tilt up showing his masculine body, How ever it is not as serious as how woman are treated through films as ‘us’ woman are seen as this in our society where as men are not. The final girl is normally seen as quite masculine, yes she may dress in a feminine way but when put in danger her reaction are watching a has males may fight.
Propp had made a list of eight character roles and not to my surprise when reading through them, without even having to watch a horror you can tell what role the females will get. Roles such as ‘The Princess’ and ‘The false hero’. Woman are shown to be in a way useless with a quote from ‘The critical eye’ “Laurie drop the knife twice, for no good reason” also when Laurie thinks she has killed ‘Michael’ she doesn’t turn around to make sure he is dead she waits to turn around when it is too late, showing that woman don’t have common sense showing men could have done a better job.
Over all woman are represented as only sex objects and to be seen as useless when it comes to anything else. Even Laurie she is not shown to be a sexual object she is just seen to be good at academics. In my opinion men will always be seen as ‘The Hero’s’ who are strong, masculine and ‘Have the brains’ and woman will always be seen as weak and only good for physical beauty.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfout_rgPSA)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydgEmQWOp0)