Objectification in Horror

Objectification in Horror and Lashing Back Against The Backlash

By K. LO Oct. 3, 2016

American horror films are many times criticized for their predictable plots and assumingly undeveloped characters. Furthermore, horror films are usually thought to serve no purpose other than mindless entertainment. These ideas about mindless entertainment may pertain to many “scary” movies but in reality, the characters and stories depicted within the horror genre help explain how social constructs permeate onto the screen. Films like John Carpenter’s Halloween and The Cabin in the Woods directed by Drew Goddard for example, depict the subordinate positions women are placed into within society. Not only are the female characters typecast within the film, they are seen as representations of femininity that seek to “backlash” against women’s newfound freedom after the feminist movement of the 1960’s. Halloween, a feature released during the backlash period (1978), upholds the idea that females should be pure and subordinate to men or suffer gruesome consequences. Similarly, The Cabin in the Woods (2012), while considered to be a type of innovative horror film, depicts similar ideas to Carpenter’s film, particularly the concept of punishing the impure woman. Through aesthetic constructs like the male gaze and character representations of women in their “ideal” roles, Goddard’s film, as well as Carpenter’s, expresses opinions of women which feminists regard as an attempt to halt or regress the progress feminist activists have made because it revives the virgin-whore complex and patriarchal structure of Classical Hollywood films.

Within Classical Hollywood, women were many times represented as things to be admired rather than people. In feminist film theory, the ways female characters are depicted in films like Gilda are regarded as fetishizing, or an “excess [of] emotional or sexual investment in a particular object” (Benshoff & Griffin 247). Even in the definition of this term, the “sexual investment” mentioned is linked to an object, accentuating the idea that through fetishization, female characters become things male audiences are meant to be infatuated with. Though the representation of women as objects whose only purpose is to be admired has roots in Classical Hollywood, the horror films that were so popular from the late 1970’s through the 1980’s, and continue to be

From: IMDB Copyright: Columbia Pictures

popular today, also make use of fetishization to portray the narratives. In horror films like Halloween and The Cabin in the Woods however, the use of fetishization appears as “women [being] killed in full view, often in extended sequences of suspense and torture” (Benshoff & Griffin 279). Unlike Classical Hollywood films like Gilda, where the male’s viewing desires are satisfied by simply looking at and admiring a beautiful woman on-screen, the horror genre adds a masochistic twist to the idea of fetishization and integrates violence to please male viewers. By focusing more attention on female murder victims than male casualties, horror films target male audiences, granting men the opportunity to feel pleased while the women viewing the film must conform to identifying with male pleasure. Further analysis of the horror film genre and its constructs help pinpoint the way women representations during the backlash era favor male viewers and uphold the idea that women are subordinate things that belong in the home.

From: IMDB Copyright: Falcon International; Productions

While fetishization helps explain how horror films draw upon aesthetic elements established during the Classical Hollywood era, the horror films released during the backlash of the 1970’s and 80’s promote patriarchal norms through a virgin-whore complex. The backlash in film has its roots in a movement begun during the 1970’s and popularized during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, as support for “[returning] the country to the ideas and ideologies of an earlier era, in this case the supposedly ‘better’ era and attitudes of the 1950’s” (Benshoff & Griffin 277). By reading this explanation of Reagan’s backlash, we can see the connection between Classical Hollywood’s fetishization and the focus on the female death scene. Since the goal of Reagan’s

vision for America involved returning to ideals upheld thirty years prior, many films released during the backlash adapted and portrayed the glorification of strong male figures like Silvester Stallone, while punishing women who were sexually comfortable and free, particularly in horror films. This, in turn, paved the way for other ideals attempting to objectify women, particularly patriarchal constructs, to reappear in American-made films. The virgin-whore complex, for example, supports male patriarchy and institutes two main types of characterizations applied to women. Through this complex, “female sexuality is often depicted within the boundaries of two opposing categories; one encompassing characters who are moralistic, nurturing, and asexual, and the other consisting of those who are unethical, dangerous and erotic” (Wyman 209). Consequently, the dichotomy created through the virgin-whore complex praises the pure female characters and punishes unethical—usually more liberated—women on the screen. When applying this concept to Halloween and The Cabin in the Woods, the female characters are either pure and virginal or wild and erotic.

John Carpenter’s Halloween, serves as an example of how the mise-en-scene and narrative work hand-in-hand to objectify and punish the free woman in favor of a much more conservative female image. From the opening scene of the film, a male objective point of view—and consequently, male gaze—is established, informing viewers that they must submit to experiencing the movie through a man’s perspective. True, the first scene of the film finds Michael Myers as a child who observes as an older female engages in sexual activity with her partner, but “the killer actively takes on the adult male gaze by placing [a Halloween] mask on his face” (Connelly 15). Once Myers puts the mask on, the audience can only see through his eyes, forcing movie-watchers to conform to his male gaze. Instead of seeing things through a camera lens, the point of view shows only what the young Michael Myers sees through his mask and only specific items like walls and—at some points—Myers’ hands are visible in a visual cloud of darkness. For male viewers, identifying with Myers is not going to be a difficult feat to accomplish but, for female audiences, their only choices are to either adopt the male gaze or feel no relation to any part of the film.

Before Myers’ first victim submits to his attacks, the male gaze dominates the mise-en-scene of the opening scene. Judith’s (Sandy Johnson) boyfriend has obliged to the same consented deviant behavior she has engaged in, but he manages to leave the house before Myers gazes at his sister. Before Michael attacks Judith, her “to-be-looked-at-ness,” or the idea that female characters mainly serve to be admired for their beauty, “[brings] the narrative to a halt” (Benshoff & Griffin 246). The viewer, still seeing through Myers’ mask, watches the young woman as she looks at herself in the mirror and brushes her hair in her underwear. Not only does this instance in the movie halt the narrative enough for the male viewer to enjoy Judith’s physical beauty before being murdered, it fetishizes the character’s breasts once Myers kills her and observes her dead body on the ground. This fetishization and male gaze continues throughout the rest of the film, particularly during Lynda’s (P.J. Soles) death scene.

Similar to the opening scene, Lynda and her boyfriend engage in sexual activity before being killed, but this time around, the young “[man is] killed quickly [and] in the shadows,” while the audience is forced to watch a one-way interaction between Lynda and Michael before she is murdered (Benshoff & Griffin 279). One of the major contrasts between

Lynda’s murder scene and Judith’s is that Judith does not get more than a couple words of dialogue before being murdered, while Lynda manages to talk to a disguised Michael before being strangled. Another thing to note about Lynda is that while she is nude, the viewer only sees her bare breasts for a couple of seconds, whereas Judith’s are on the screen longer. Being that Lynda’s character is of more importance, she is not as fetishized as Judith, but the consequences of her actions still require a “re-establishment [of] male dominance [which] involves physically punishing [Lynda] . . . with death” (Benshoff & Griffin 247). Again, the women on the screen and in the audience are informed that being sexually liberated and having power—Lynda makes her boyfriend get her a beer instead of him bossing her around—is abnormal for a female. Punishing the liberated woman with death in horror films like Halloween support backlash cinema’s purpose as well as the virgin-whore complex, where the more conservative females, like Laurie Strode, earn the title of “final girl” and survive the massacre.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the only one of the three main females in the film who is not sexually active or drinking alcohol. This, in turn, grants her the title of “final girl,” or “the last girl to survive in the . . . slasher film” (Keisner 418). Unlike Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda, who are branded the whores, Laurie remains virginal throughout the course of the film, which allows her to survive. Though Kelly Connelly claims that Laurie “is unable to adopt enough of Michael’s male characteristics to finally defeat the monster,” she injures him enough to be the last girl to survive, nicely fitting the definition of a “final girl” (Connelly 16). However, Laurie’s character and her survival also serve as an example of what kinds of morals—being pure and waiting for marriage to have intercourse—women should value. By portraying Laurie as a pure and vigilant young woman, and having her be the last woman standing, female viewers are urged to adopt the main character’s manners and attitude in order to avoid physical, and maybe emotional, harm. Carpenter’s film lashes against female liberation through the depiction of—and gazing at—Annie and Lynda’s deaths, while utilizing final girl Laurie to support the idea that women belong in subordinate positions in order for society to function correctly. While Halloween expresses ideas supported during Reagan’s presidency, today’s horror films many times seek to break the rules established through films like Carpenter’s, even if many of the same aspects remain.

The Cabin in the Woods, while attempting to break many horror film constructs, still makes use of the male gaze and depicts a more intricate version of the virgin-whore complex. In this film, the male gaze works similarly to Carpenter’s film through the way Jules (Anna Hutchinson) and Dana (Kristen Conolly) are constantly being looked at by the male characters and, as a result, the viewers. The Cabin in the Woods gazes mostly at Jules throughout the course of the film, signaling her as the whore archetype and fetishizing her body. When she walks through the woods with Curt for example, the camera focuses Jules’ legs and backside while Curt walks in front of her and is virtually not visible on the screen. This instance in the film “defines [Jules] by [Curt’s]

patriarchal needs,” which mirrors the purpose of Annie and Lynda’s characters in Halloween and supports a dominant male society. Like her Halloween counterparts, Jules is doomed from the beginning of the film for her overtly sexual demeanor, but at the same time, we are introduced to a “final girl” who does not represent the typical morals and appearance that backlash cinema final girls did.

Unlike Laurie Strode, Dana’s role as the “final girl” skews the horror-genre tradition of identifying a virginal female character that will survive to the end of the film. Within the first few minutes of The Cabin in the Woods, Dana and Jules are both established as non-virginal college students excited to go on a trip to a remote cabin belonging to Curt’s cousin. Even though neither of the young women has succumbed to the patriarchal belief of waiting to have sex until marriage, Dana’s demeanor is much more reserved that Jules’ and throughout the course of the film, Dana does not have much of a sexual encounter with any of the male characters other than a quickly interrupted attempt to kiss Holden. Dana’s character seems to represent the director’s attempt to break horror film constructs but instead, Goddard manages to simply force “audiences [to] negotiate understandings of gendered subjectivities” since even though Dana is not a virgin at the beginning of the film, she manages to survive by avoiding sexual contact with anyone else during the film’s 95-minute run (Lazard 135). Although The Cabin in the Woods informs audiences that female subjectivity has not remained the same since the 1970’s and 80’s—especially when Sigourney Weaver as the Director explains virgins have become harder to find—the film continues to uphold the idea that in order to survive as the “final girl,” a woman must remain chaste. By punishing Dana during the closing scene of the film however, the idea that an impure female character cannot survive the horror is further upheld, supporting the same ideologies and concepts backlash films explored during the Reagan era.

With more progressive films like The Cabin in the Woods being released today, many conventions of the horror film genre are slowly being broken. Though Goddard’s film does not necessarily introduce new aspects useful for revising and reinventing the horror genre, it does make an attempt to explore new approaches for

depicting the horror many teenage audiences are attracted to. If audiences watch the aesthetic and narrative properties of horror films like Halloween and The Cabin in the Woods with a more analytical mindset, they will be able to more easily point out what kinds of comments these films are making about patriarchy. Though they can be entertaining, most horror films continue to follow the same formula, constantly depicting ideas of female subjectivity and male dominance through the male gaze and the punishment of the impure woman. In order for feminist ideals to surpass the boundaries backlash cinema has attempted to instate, the common female archetypes depicted on film must be reconstructed so that stronger female characters, even if sexually liberated, become more common within the horror genre. True, having a “whore” character as a possible “final girl” may seem somewhat far-fetched within horror films, but as Goddard has proven, the attempt to do so should not be abandoned. Since today’s society has different—and arguably more liberal—ideals than those individuals living during the 1970’s and 80’s, it makes sense that a liberated female character be given the chance to fight back against the monster, or murderer, and become a new type of woman within the horror genre; the “liberated final girl.”

THE RANT

ENTERTAINMENT

Objectification in Horror and Lashing Back Against The Backlash

By K. LO Oct. 3, 2016

Follow Us!

Our Top 10 Songs

Our Top 10 Things to Watch