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This thread has been percolating in my mind for quite a while. It was sparked by a discussion I had w/ Chris O on fb about his opinion that VHS was a veritable study in misogyny. I disagreed with him on this point, and so annoyed was I that this seemed to be the general consensus among he & his film student brethren in that thread that I actually got a little snarky, something I rarely do. But I think they were all looking a little too hard to find misogyny in this film, and I commented that it must be kind of sad to be a film student, and unable, because of all the "knowledge" that study affords them, to appreciate a flm on a more surface level and just enjoy it for what it is without ascribing sinister motives to the film makers where I'm sure nmone was intended. But as I pondered the evidence to support my opinion, I started to ponder the big picture a bit more.
My opinion is that VHS in particular & horror in general is not misogynistic as a general rule. Oh sure, you may get some particularly twisted film by an indie director that can be classified this way, but I'll be damned if I can think of one. But let's begin a little closer to the beginning shall we? In the early days of gothic horror novels & stories, and the films they inspired, women were seen as helpless victims of the monster antagonist. This much is true. But if one defines misogyny as the HATRED of women, as I am for purposes of this argument, I don't see that victim role as misogynistic. Quite the contrary; the heroes of such stories rsik their lives, their sanity, even their very souls to battle the monster threatening the damsel in distress. A perfect example is the band of heroes that sets out to destroy Count Dracula in the novel and the Coppola film adaptation. Van Helsing and the others barely know her, and are still willing to risk everything to save her. Quincy Morris, the American cowboy, ends up dying in the final confrontation. Gladly, no less, in one of the most emotionally powerful scenes in both the book and the film. And this remains true in the 50's creature features , with the square jawed, straight talking male protagonist carrying the fainting female victim from the monster's clutches. The laughably low budget "Attack of the Giant Leeches" is just one for instance of this phenomenon. As is "Creature from the Black Lagoon". This approach may be CHAUVANISTIC, but that's a far cry from misogynistic, except in the broadest definition of that term.
Fast forward to the end of the 1970's, and John Carpenter's slasher subgenre-defining "Halloween". The female "victim" in that film and almost all the slashers that came after it for more than 20 years also turned out to be the protagonist, confronting and eventually overcoming (at least until the next sequel) the male villain. One could argue that putting a female character through so much suffering - as she watches her friends get killed in terrible, bloody ways, and is perhapsphysically injured herself (althpough always in a minor, nion fatal manner), and just being terrorized relentlessly in an emotional sense - is misogynistic. But would a film maker that truly hated women, and an audience that felt likewise, have that character ifnd reserves of inner strength she didn't know she possessed, to overcome the killer when so many iof her companions, male and female alike, had failed? Or respond favorably to her doing so? And audiences must have so responded, as this formula was rigidly played out in an endless string of slasher films. Studios wouldn't make them if no one wanted to see them. I'm tempted to argue that in the victimization of women, these flms mirrored real life, as the vast majority of serial killers are men targeting women. But most slasher villains don't behave like real life serial killers, who don't usually go on multi victim sprees. And they also kill plenty of men in most slasher films. So the victimology of the slasher film isn't really strictly misogynistic, either (even if serial killers are).
One gripe the White Knights had with VHS was that several of the vignettes featured female antagonists. Apparently this was misogynistic, too. They stated the makers of VHS all had "issues" with women, and were playing out some kind of warped fantasy by making women into a flesh eating demon that gave a couple of roofie happy frat boys their comeuppance, or having the woman on the cross country trip with her boyfriend slitting his throat and robbing him. Ditto the woman rescued from a satanic ritual turn out to be a demon that strands the car of her would be rescuers in front of an oncoming train, or the surviving victim of an unfilmable slasher using her traveling companions as bait to lure him out so she could trap and kill him. I saw these devices as clever ways of turning some of the old memes on their heads, and showing a spark of innovation. Why is the flesh eating demon so different from the girl that captures and tortures the pedophile that murdered her friend in "Hard Candy"? Similarly, ruthlessness is a quality we as an audience dig in a villain like Hannibal Lecter. Why is it a "warped" way of working out "issues" in the case of the woman trying to kill the unfilmable killer? And why is Laurie Strode turning out to be anything but a helpless victim to be applauded while the seemingly helpless victim of the satanic ritual turning out to be the demon and dooming her rescuers deplorable? As formulaic as they were, not even all slasher films featured a male antagonist. I'm thinking of fllms like "April Fool's Day", "Friday the 13th" (remember, it was Mrs Voorhees in that one), and "Sleepway Camp" (at least, until the end). And while rare, there have been female serial killers in real life. I find it telling that these same critics found the vicitmization of the woman forced to carry the alien's offspring by her traitorous boyfriend equally deplorable. It's hard to figure out what role, exactly, would be acceptable for a female character in a horror movie.
I suppose one could have an all male cast, and have men be victim, killer and hero. "The Thing" (the John Carpenter version) didn't have a single female character (although the antagonist was an asexual alien life form). And Jeffrey Dahmer stalked & murdered gay men. But I imagine painting gay men in so unflattering a light as killer or victom would be just as politically incorrect to them. And removing the sexual tension having a female/male confrontation typically contains would rob many films of an added layer of suspense, I'd argue. I shudder to think what this next generation of film makers will try to pass off as horror cinema. I foresee a bleak, soulless wasteland of inoffensive movies being made. At least for a while. I doubt it will take long for audiences to lose interest in such films - if they even get greenlighted in the first place - lamenting the days when horror fiction had some heart and genunine scares behind it.
I've gone on record both here and at DERP as theorizing that the torture porn trend, with its mixed bag of victims from both sexes was a response to 9/11, and the way that event made us all feel helpless, and that any of us could be victimized at any time. But now that I think about it, perhaps ploitical correctness is playing a role here as well. "Hostel" featued just as many (if not more) male victims as female ones, and had a male version of Laurie Strode overcoming and escaping the killer's clutches. And "The Strangers" had as its most vocal villain a female killer, and a pretty egalitarian victim list. Most critics seem to think torture porn is a lowest common denominmator kind of film making, celebrating gore and violence for its own sake. But perhaps these same critics should look a little beyind the surface of THOSE films and see them for the sexual equaiizers they may be.
At its core, horror has always been about man's (or monster's) inhumanity to man. Given the fact that more than 50% of the world's population is female, it stands to reason jst from a sheer numerical standpoint that at least half of the inhumanity is going to be visited on women, and that at least some percentage of those visiting the inhumanity will be women too. That's not misogynystic; it's FAIR. If antything, I'd argue that the evolution of horror fiction, cinematically in particular, reflects changing societal norms about the role of women, as they morphed from helpless, swooning victims that were the object of rescues by their male protectors to a more empowered role as strong protagonists and, eventually, the villans themselves in some cases. I have also gone on record as saying if nothing else, torture porn did away with the tired old morality of the slasher by making it clear that ANYONE can be a victim, whether they behaved "badly" or not. And this is a plus in my book, if for no other reason than because it made the plots of the films a lot less predictable. Similarly, I think the expanded role of women in films like VHS, where they can be the villains as well as the heroes or the victims, is to be applauded if for no other reason than because it also makes the films harder to pigeonhole and predict.
What do all of you think?
My opinion is that VHS in particular & horror in general is not misogynistic as a general rule. Oh sure, you may get some particularly twisted film by an indie director that can be classified this way, but I'll be damned if I can think of one. But let's begin a little closer to the beginning shall we? In the early days of gothic horror novels & stories, and the films they inspired, women were seen as helpless victims of the monster antagonist. This much is true. But if one defines misogyny as the HATRED of women, as I am for purposes of this argument, I don't see that victim role as misogynistic. Quite the contrary; the heroes of such stories rsik their lives, their sanity, even their very souls to battle the monster threatening the damsel in distress. A perfect example is the band of heroes that sets out to destroy Count Dracula in the novel and the Coppola film adaptation. Van Helsing and the others barely know her, and are still willing to risk everything to save her. Quincy Morris, the American cowboy, ends up dying in the final confrontation. Gladly, no less, in one of the most emotionally powerful scenes in both the book and the film. And this remains true in the 50's creature features , with the square jawed, straight talking male protagonist carrying the fainting female victim from the monster's clutches. The laughably low budget "Attack of the Giant Leeches" is just one for instance of this phenomenon. As is "Creature from the Black Lagoon". This approach may be CHAUVANISTIC, but that's a far cry from misogynistic, except in the broadest definition of that term.
Fast forward to the end of the 1970's, and John Carpenter's slasher subgenre-defining "Halloween". The female "victim" in that film and almost all the slashers that came after it for more than 20 years also turned out to be the protagonist, confronting and eventually overcoming (at least until the next sequel) the male villain. One could argue that putting a female character through so much suffering - as she watches her friends get killed in terrible, bloody ways, and is perhapsphysically injured herself (althpough always in a minor, nion fatal manner), and just being terrorized relentlessly in an emotional sense - is misogynistic. But would a film maker that truly hated women, and an audience that felt likewise, have that character ifnd reserves of inner strength she didn't know she possessed, to overcome the killer when so many iof her companions, male and female alike, had failed? Or respond favorably to her doing so? And audiences must have so responded, as this formula was rigidly played out in an endless string of slasher films. Studios wouldn't make them if no one wanted to see them. I'm tempted to argue that in the victimization of women, these flms mirrored real life, as the vast majority of serial killers are men targeting women. But most slasher villains don't behave like real life serial killers, who don't usually go on multi victim sprees. And they also kill plenty of men in most slasher films. So the victimology of the slasher film isn't really strictly misogynistic, either (even if serial killers are).
One gripe the White Knights had with VHS was that several of the vignettes featured female antagonists. Apparently this was misogynistic, too. They stated the makers of VHS all had "issues" with women, and were playing out some kind of warped fantasy by making women into a flesh eating demon that gave a couple of roofie happy frat boys their comeuppance, or having the woman on the cross country trip with her boyfriend slitting his throat and robbing him. Ditto the woman rescued from a satanic ritual turn out to be a demon that strands the car of her would be rescuers in front of an oncoming train, or the surviving victim of an unfilmable slasher using her traveling companions as bait to lure him out so she could trap and kill him. I saw these devices as clever ways of turning some of the old memes on their heads, and showing a spark of innovation. Why is the flesh eating demon so different from the girl that captures and tortures the pedophile that murdered her friend in "Hard Candy"? Similarly, ruthlessness is a quality we as an audience dig in a villain like Hannibal Lecter. Why is it a "warped" way of working out "issues" in the case of the woman trying to kill the unfilmable killer? And why is Laurie Strode turning out to be anything but a helpless victim to be applauded while the seemingly helpless victim of the satanic ritual turning out to be the demon and dooming her rescuers deplorable? As formulaic as they were, not even all slasher films featured a male antagonist. I'm thinking of fllms like "April Fool's Day", "Friday the 13th" (remember, it was Mrs Voorhees in that one), and "Sleepway Camp" (at least, until the end). And while rare, there have been female serial killers in real life. I find it telling that these same critics found the vicitmization of the woman forced to carry the alien's offspring by her traitorous boyfriend equally deplorable. It's hard to figure out what role, exactly, would be acceptable for a female character in a horror movie.
I suppose one could have an all male cast, and have men be victim, killer and hero. "The Thing" (the John Carpenter version) didn't have a single female character (although the antagonist was an asexual alien life form). And Jeffrey Dahmer stalked & murdered gay men. But I imagine painting gay men in so unflattering a light as killer or victom would be just as politically incorrect to them. And removing the sexual tension having a female/male confrontation typically contains would rob many films of an added layer of suspense, I'd argue. I shudder to think what this next generation of film makers will try to pass off as horror cinema. I foresee a bleak, soulless wasteland of inoffensive movies being made. At least for a while. I doubt it will take long for audiences to lose interest in such films - if they even get greenlighted in the first place - lamenting the days when horror fiction had some heart and genunine scares behind it.
I've gone on record both here and at DERP as theorizing that the torture porn trend, with its mixed bag of victims from both sexes was a response to 9/11, and the way that event made us all feel helpless, and that any of us could be victimized at any time. But now that I think about it, perhaps ploitical correctness is playing a role here as well. "Hostel" featued just as many (if not more) male victims as female ones, and had a male version of Laurie Strode overcoming and escaping the killer's clutches. And "The Strangers" had as its most vocal villain a female killer, and a pretty egalitarian victim list. Most critics seem to think torture porn is a lowest common denominmator kind of film making, celebrating gore and violence for its own sake. But perhaps these same critics should look a little beyind the surface of THOSE films and see them for the sexual equaiizers they may be.
At its core, horror has always been about man's (or monster's) inhumanity to man. Given the fact that more than 50% of the world's population is female, it stands to reason jst from a sheer numerical standpoint that at least half of the inhumanity is going to be visited on women, and that at least some percentage of those visiting the inhumanity will be women too. That's not misogynystic; it's FAIR. If antything, I'd argue that the evolution of horror fiction, cinematically in particular, reflects changing societal norms about the role of women, as they morphed from helpless, swooning victims that were the object of rescues by their male protectors to a more empowered role as strong protagonists and, eventually, the villans themselves in some cases. I have also gone on record as saying if nothing else, torture porn did away with the tired old morality of the slasher by making it clear that ANYONE can be a victim, whether they behaved "badly" or not. And this is a plus in my book, if for no other reason than because it made the plots of the films a lot less predictable. Similarly, I think the expanded role of women in films like VHS, where they can be the villains as well as the heroes or the victims, is to be applauded if for no other reason than because it also makes the films harder to pigeonhole and predict.
What do all of you think?
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