User:Rodrit03/Gender in horror films

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Female

Linda Williams suggests it is supposedly honorable for males to gaze upon the terror shown on a movie screen while females hide, avoiding these screen images. She also suggests women have the right to feel as if they do not belong since they are shown as powerless "in the face of rape, mutilation and murder". As Mulvey argues, the female character "exists only to be looked at." When female audiences gaze upon the screen and when the women on the screen are involved in the gaze, they see "a distorted reflection of" their own image. "The monster is thus a particularly insidious form of the many mirrors patriarchal structure of seeing hold up to the woman." Linda William believes that the woman's gaze is "so threatening to male power, it is violently punished." Researchers like Nolan and Ryan have were informed that women more-likely remember scenes revolving around being stalked, possessed, or betrayed.

Kathleen Kendall argues, however, that it is important to remember that horror films do have a female audience. Additionally, Clover recognizes how groups of adolescent girls made up a proportion of horror movie goers.

Sex paired with violence

Sex in slasher films is broken down into the following behaviors: flirting, kissing, petting, exposed breasts or genitalia, masturbation, intercourse, or forced sex.[58] In slasher films from 1980 to 1993, studies in Linz and Donnerstiens article have concluded that 33% of occurrences of sex were connected to violence (male or female), 14% of all sex incidents were linked to the death of a female, and a slasher killed 22% of all "innocent" female protagonists during or following a sexual display or act.[57]

If a person watched all of the slasher films included in the Molitor and Sapolsky study, they would have seen sex and violence paired approximately 92 times. Sexual behavior included female characters shown in undergarments, partially or completely nude, or teasing or enticing male characters in a sensual manner. Couples seen kissing, fondling, or involved in sexual intercourse were also coded as acts of sex. According to Molitor and Sapolsky, sexual behavior is considered linked to violence when one of three types of circumstances occurred. A partially nude female was shown being tortured by the central villain. Martin discussed how there was more time showing female deaths than male and that these women are more likely to be promiscuous and wear revealing clothing.

In other cases, violence immediately followed, or interrupted, a sexual act, such as when a couple was shown kissing passionately and the central villain then attacked both or one character. The third type of circumstance consisted of continuous cuts between two scenes, one sexual and one violent. This third type of sex and violence combination occurred to a lesser extent than the other two.[2]