Draft 1

Pauls media course work

Fear is a natural instinct. People resort to such things as horror films, white knuckle rides and extreme sports to get the adrenaline rush. The adrenaline rush masks the fear and thus entertaining the participant. This is why the horror genre is one of the most successful and sought after. The scarier the film the better.  Not only do horror films provide pleasure from watching they also represent society’s views on certain issues such as femininity and the woman’s role in society.
  One of the first horror films was the house of the devil or as otherwise known the haunted castle 1896. This film purpose was to amuse people but it had a negative effect and this was effectively the birth of the horror film as they contained what society now views as generic conventions of horror films. This then set a trend for the production of horror films. Most of the early horror films were based on horror novels such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Nosfertu. The progression of the horror genre started to incorporate the views of society within these films. An example of this is Alfred Hitchcock’s psycho in 1960. This is a time when women are seen to be sexually independent and ideologically the man was the one in control the bread winner and to see a woman being sexually independent was straying away from the norms of society and something had to enforce society’s views on such issues. This is where the horror genre comes into its element as it allows for society’s views to be portrayed within these films and there is an underlying message within such films as psycho.  This film consists of a man who is obsessed with his own mother and who is a killer of women. The killer uses a knife to penetrate the women leading to death. This set a trend for the future slasher films as this was a symbolic killing of women. These women are shown to be sexually active and sexually independent. The knife is used in a phallic manner to show women that the man is in control and by stabbing these women there sexual independence has been removed by a man. Women in horror films are not seen as much more than sex objects that will eventually be hacked down by the killer as the sexually active girls are the ones who traditionally die first. “Horror is cultural apparatus for keeping the sexually active woman in her place”. 
  Horror movies represent what society is scared of and enforce the ideas of what has to be done to restore the equilibrium. Most horror films are extremely sexist putting the sexually active female in the role of the damsel in distress while the male comes and “saves” the female by taking away her power by killing her. Although this is the case within most films there is also the concept of the final girl. This is usally the girl who isn’t sexually active. The one who is geeky and quiet. This further enforces the idea that the good girls survuive and the bad girls get killed. An example of this is scream as cindy survuives and is the final girl. the FinalGirl is a virtuous character distinguishable from the rest of the film castbecause she possesses several exceptional traits: her avoidance of sexualactivity, her watchful “paranoia” which allows her to be “resourceful in apinch” when danger strikes, and her “boyish” (i.e., not girlish and weak)nature(2).

http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ss/horrortimeline_2.htm

2.(Clover, Men, Women 39-40).

http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/34.1/Christensen.pdf

The final girl. A nightmare on elm street

http://www.jgcinema.com/single.php?sl=jennifers-body-politics-of-horror

http://screampsychohorror.wordpress.com/representation-of-women-in-horror-films/

Scream representations of women. saw 2 working togeather idea.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art37257.asp

changing representations of femaninity

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/moor0605/everydaylife/2008/08/women_in_horror.html
The first true slasher film is widely acknowledged to be Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece about a psychotic killer of women who is obsessed with his own mother (Psycho). In all films following, the phallic knife used as the standard method of murder speaks volumes about the symbolic punishment for these women. Because most of these females are shown early in the movie as sexually active, they are guaranteed to die first (Thornton 238). The fear of a sexually independent woman is revealed through her death, when the male killer thrusts his knife into her, taking away her sexual power through the symbolic rape of her body. “Horror is cultural apparatus for keeping the sexually active woman in her place��? (Badley 102). With the knife’s penetration, the sexually frustrated male serial killer is taking away all of the woman’s sexuality and showing his power. In the majority of slasher films, this formula of the male killer targeting female victims is used to repress women and take away any power they may have had, thereby making them non-threatening to men because they hold no sexual control (Freeland 185). Male sexuality can then be shown through the act of murder, since most killers in slasher films are sexually repressed themselves (Freeland 187). Only through penetration and murder can these men find sexual freedom.
The women in slasher films are often objectified and shown as nothing more than sex objects. For example, in the Friday the 13^th series, many of the women are seen half clothed and hyper-sexualized, taking away the audience’s ability to sympathize with them because they are seen as less valuable. The plot of the films takes place at a summer camp, which makes the women easy targets to be picked off by the killer, who wants revenge after drowning as a boy because the camp counselors were not watching him (Friday the 13^th). The full rage of the murderer comes out most strongly in the cases of the females because of the inadequacy he feels as a male (Clover 32). Classic slasher films usually show a direct cause and effect link between sex and death, with murder serving as a symbolic punishment for any kind of immoral intercourse. “Killing those who seek or engage in unauthorized sex amounts to a generic imperative of the slasher film��? (Clover 34). The symbolism illustrates a kind of unconscious moral lesson to the viewer that if he or she strays from the path of good behavior, the result could be death.