Gender Depiction in Horror Films

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Gender Depiction in Horror Films There has been a large variety of horror films produced throughout the last fifty years. People are always going to be frightened and scared by different types of horror films. But, what type of horror film scares more people, and were men or women more frightened by these horror films? Each one of the horror films had its own agenda to frighten its audience using several different methods of horror. Some of these methods were more so directed at the female audience than the male audience. Most horror movies show the female as being vulnerable, because in real life females are defenseless against monsters. Are women portrayed as being defenseless? In most horror films women seem to be slower, less powerful, and simply less dominant. Men in the same films are going to die too, but are not shown as being so defenseless. Females are commonly shown getting killed slowly and getting carried off into the night screaming. On the other hand males will be killed quickly with fewer struggles. For example in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when the men go into the house where the butcher lives, they are killed with one smash of a sledge hammer with the camera at a distance. Where as, when the first girl goes in she is seen grabbed and put on the shoulder of the butch and carried off kicking her legs and screaming. She is then hung on a butchers hook and is forced to watch her boyfriend get sawed in half. Same incident happens with the next two men, they are quickly killed, but the girl barely gets away and you get to see her running away screaming the entire time. This helps show how women are portrayed as being defenseless where most of the time men are also, but are not given the seen of... ... middle of paper ... ...D., Fred, and Barry S. Sapolsky, Ph. D.. Sex and Violence in Slasher Films. Ed. E A. Hakanen, and A Wells. 1997. Florida State University and California State University at Sacramento. . 4. Wilson, Wayne. Sexuality in the Land of Oz. Friday the the 13th films Essay Dissicusion. . 5. "Young Men's and Women's Different Autobiographical Memories of the Experience of Seeing Frightening Movies on a Date.." Media Psychology. 2000: EBSCO Host. 02 Mar. 2005. 6. Hunter, Dan, and Jason Knowles. The Terror Trap. . 7. The Texa Chainsaw Massacre. Dir. Tobe Hopper. DVD. Bryanston Films Ltd., 1974.

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