I will be looking at visibility, roles (domestic, familial, sexual and consumer), the male gaze and narrative within a horror movie.
In the film Halloween (1978), the ratio between male and female characters is fairly even. This is based upon speaking roles within the film. This does not include a few seconds in shot. There is one expection to this rule within this film though. Mike Myers does not have a speaking role within the film but is the main cause of the death within the film so the rule is broken in his case. So the visibility within this film between males and females is even. The main roles within this film are domestic, sexual and familial. The consumer role does not appear in this film as much as the other three. The consumer role is hinted at where Laurie is talking on the phone about what to wear. The main character, Laurie is domesticated within the film as she is seen cooking, cleaning and baby sitting. According to Carol Clover, if people have sex within in a film, they will most probably die. This comes to my next point of sexual relationships within Halloween. Annie and Lynda are portrayed sexually as they both talk about having sex and Annie getting changed in front of Mike Myers. This point also links with "The Male Gaze". We also see Judith Myers die at the beginning and we see that is seen sexually as she is only wearing underwear. Both Annie and Lynda die within the film and Laurie is the final girl that survives. The Familial role is also featured in this film between Annie and her Dad (who is the Sheriff) and Judith Myers is sister to Mike Myers. There are a couple of points to mention for The Male Gaze within Halloween. At the beginning we witness Judith's death. This is part of the gaze as she is hardly clothed. Lynda is objectified within Halloween as we see in the bed scene of the movie. Annie is also objectified in the laundry scene. These points are for The Male Gaze however Laurie is identified with. Her name could be a male or female name, her clothes are very neutral and does not wear clothes specific for a woman. She also doesn't wear any make-up and has short hair like a male character would. This challenges The Male Gaze as Laurie is not objectified.
The ratio between female and male deaths within the film is about 3:2. There are 3 female deaths and 2 male deaths. So, therefore the death toll is pretty equal. There is more importance attached to the female deaths because the girls that are sexualised are the female characters that die. Laurie, who is not sexualised, survives. From this, the "Reactionary sexual agenda" could be considered. So within this film, the horror genre represents gender by killing off the girls who are sexualised and saving the girl who does not.
The Shining (1982) is another film where horror represents gender in a similar way to Halloween. Within The Shining two thirds of the characters are male so therefore the visibility of male and female characters does not work as most of the characters are male. The Shining consists of domestic, familial and sexual roles and does not include the consumer role. I would say that this film has a general role too. Wendy is the main female character within The Shining as she seems to be a housewife. Dick Halloran shows her around the kitchen area as she will be in charge of the cooking. She also appears to be quite a frail woman so this gives away that she does cleaning and looks after Danny. The secretary at the beginning of the film also brings coffee into the room. This role does not have much importance but it still shows that woman are domesticated in The Shining. The familial roles within The Shining are that Wendy is a wife and a mum. She is wife to Jack but a Mum to Danny. I think that Wendy is the main familiar part within The Shining as she brings the whole family together. We also see Grady's daughters within Danny's flashbacks and Grady's wife. The only sexual role in The Shining is the bathroom scene with Jack and the lady in the bath. We see a woman in the bath and Jack staring lustfully at her. She gets out of the bath and stands looking at Jack. This is sexual as she is completely naked. The more general role within The Shining is that Wendy is very submissive but seems to do all the Hotel Maintenence. The one male gaze within The Shining is the sexual role within the film. As we see Jack looking at the woman in the bath, we are put into Jack's eyes who is sexually aparasing the nude woman as an object however, the woman turns into an old corpse thus exposing the objectification process of the woman and this makes the male viewer ashamed of their leer. We also identify ourselves with Wendy, the final girl. There are 4 deaths within The Shining. The ratio between female deaths and male deaths are about 2:2. The female deaths are the twins and Grady's wife and the male deaths are Dick Halloran and Jack. This does not work as there is much more males and than females within the film but more females die. The Shining represents Wendy as domesticated but Jack as sexual. Jack dies and the final girl, Wendy, survives. This relates back to what Carol Clover had to say about stupid, sexual characters.
Another film that I have studied is Eden Lake which was released in 2008. Comparing the visibility to men and women in Eden Lake, we see that there is fewer than half as many women as men. Eden Lake is another film that does not feature the consumer role for women but features the other 3 roles. At the beginning of Eden Lake, we see Jenny as a nursery school teacher. This shows that her job is caring and that she needs to give lots of attention to the children. We do not see what Steve does for a living. We also see another domestic role within Eden Lake which is the lady who speaks to Jenny and Steve in the small cafe. She appears to be a waitress who takes orders and serves food within the cafe. Another role that could be domesticated is the role of Paige. She is very passive within the gang where she does not take part in what Brett tells the other gang members to do, but only takes video. Though outside the gang, she is very aggressive towards outsiders. A small sexual role within Eden Lake is that when Jenny is objectified when they are relaxing by the lake and the gang are looking at her. As this film is based on broken families, there is an obvious familial role within Eden Lake. Brett is signified as a monster and he is made into a monster due to having no mother and having a violent father. The woman in the cafe also has a familial role as she defends the fact that the gang are her kids when Steve and Jenny talk to her about them. We also see Steve try to propose to Jenny throughout the film however, there is always a distraction which stops him. Eventually Jenny finds the ring when Steve is injured and becomes Steve's fiance. Related to the sexual role within this film, the male gaze from the gang members is complicated due to the fact that they are 'bad' and Jenny is clearly uncomfortable with it. Despite this, we have identification with Jenny throughout the film. Considering that there is more males within this film than females, half of the males die and 2 out of the 3 women in the film die. This does not make a 'reactionary sexual agenda'. The final girl usually survives however in Eden Lake, the final girl does not survive (so we assume). This does not make her victorious.
Overall, the horror genre represents gender in different ways. All of the films that I have studied, there are more males within the films than there are females however there are more female deaths within horror than there are male deaths. Females are also objectified within horror rather than men because of 'The Male Gaze'. The female gender is also split into 4 categories. The Domestic, Sexual, Familial and Consumer roles which all females fit into within horror films. Females are very much targeted within horror because of their vulnerable stereotype but they turn out to be the strongest gender.
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