Misogyny Within Horror Films by Leah Shifrel

Recently, horror films have been criticized as misogynistic through victimization, sex, and death. Although the film industry attempts to represent a feminist persona through a final girl, it fails due to the previous girls killed. As a result, the horror film industry has sunk to a new low. As  author Kiri Blakeley says in a Forbes magazine piece, “The ’90s was a banner decade for female empowerment in the movies in many genres. Think of the smart, independent, buff, ready-to-kill-if-necessary women from Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Thelma and Louise. Since then, it’s been a bit of a backward slide, say experts.”

Why do horror films still portray women as helpless victims in 2016? Unfortunately, society still sees women as sensitive and vulnerable. Horror films portray women as victims because the audience is supposed to be afraid for the women in these films. As film critic Plexico Gingrich says “The films are effective partially because we are inclined to see women as victims and we want to see them rescued or defended, which the films deny us until the very end.”

In contrast to earlier horror films, the genre today often includes a woman who does not need to be rescued by a man but in the end is able to save herself. This is known as the “final girl.”

So isn’t having a final girl in a horror film a feminist act? My response is no -- not if other women had to die in a sexual way before the final girl saves the day. The girls who die in order to make the appearance of a final girl possible have typically had sex, whereas the final girl is typically a virgin. The subtext of a lot of horror films, then, is that having sex as a 20-something-year-old is a terrible act, and being a virgin should be rewarded. “Every time you have sex, or are even attracted to someone, you indirectly acknowledge your eventual death,” Gingrich says.“Horror films tend to emphasise these connections between sex and death by doing things like having big strong men with giant knives chase pretty young girls….Once you show someone having sex, you pretty much have to kill them. Sex and death: you can’t have one without the other!”

It is not a surprise that most horror films are made by men. The perspective of these films, then, is strongly influenced by the male point of view.  "Horror reflects society. What we probably need are more thoughtful horror films that speak directly to female experiences.” says Emine Saner in the Guardian newspaper. In other words, the film industry needs more women directors and writers in making horror movies.

Why should we care? Why not just accept that these are just movies?  Audiences are influenced by the screen. When audiences repeatedly see women killed and abused in sexual ways, it this behavior becomes acceptable. Society thinks it’s OK to treat women as weak and vulnerable, and the need for powerful female role models and a feminist persona disappears..

 http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/22644/women-in-horror-movies/