The Power of Horror

The Power of Horror

http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/horrormoviesRev2.htm

Significance of Power in Horror Films

http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/haunting-powerlessness-why-dystopia-is-horror-on-the-societal-level.php

The Societal and Political Issues That Stem From The Question: "Who Has The Power?"

As women began to gain more rights and leave their houses to work, they also started fighting the traditional roles associated with femininity. Women were determined to have equality to men in any areas they were challenged as unsuitable for, and although the population of men don’t necessarily outweigh the population of women, their efforts were met with some resistance from a world ruled by men, and it’s easy to see why when you “take a hard look at a culture that has long considered women status symbols rather than people.” (Wilson) There weren’t any female directors in horror film until the 1970s and the numbers have been increasing slowly over the past 30 years because women are interested in changing their self-representation in this film industry overall.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions in humanity; fear has immense power over people and as a result it’s a tool of influence around the world. In Glenn D. Walters’ journal, “Understanding the Popular Appeal of Horror Cinema: An Integrated-Interactive Model”, he quoted “Stephen King (1981) stat[ing] that horror films often serve as a “barometer of those things which trouble the night thoughts of a whole society.” Horror film specifically targets inherent fears and fears brought about by current events. Therefore, in short, horror film is rich in social commentary and we’re going to explicitly take a look at how women in horror have started to change and what horror film illustrates about how we feel about politics.

According to Steven Wilson, in his article, “Haunting Powerlessness: Why Dystopia Is Horror on the Societal Level”, “Horror is at its least effective when all it has to offer is viciousness, and is soul-rending when it offers slow inevitability.” It’s true, because when watching horror movies you don’t need to see the horrors to be scared; all you need to see is the look of hopeless terror on its victims’ faces. The less you see of the horror the scarier it is because you can’t face it and all you know is that it’s coming for you and you hope that the fear you feel will give you enough adrenaline to outrun it but it’s always a step ahead of you. Much of horror literature is kept alive by this inevitability of escape and the unknown but horror films, rather than the use of your imagination, give you both concrete images and sounds of the horrors and victims, making the experience, in some ways, more realistic and intense.

History of Horror

Women's Role in Horror Films: After

Women's Role in Horror Films: Before

The grip of horror in film history can be traced back to the ingenious works of horror writers whose books were adapted into notable movies. The best examples of this are Edison Studios’ Frankenstein (1910) which was the first adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West-Re-animator (1984) and H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau (1994). Indeed even one of the modern fathers of fictionalized horror, Stephen King, has a great deal of influence in the film industry as many of his horror novels are adapted into films that will give viewers nightmares for weeks after and yet they keep coming back for more. Why is that? Surely not just to watch innocents be slaughtered shamelessly?

“Why do women have to be celebrated as strictly Tits & Ass & Blood? Why can't we be recognized as 'Scream Queens' who scream out with our artistic and creative abilities; qualities other [than] how we look?” states Briony Kidd in ”Scream Time: Women Take Power over Horror”. As women have struggled to change the representation of women in film, there has been some rallying of discrete support from male directors in this area by displaying strong female leads in TV shows with elements of horror, a good example is J.J. Abrams Lost with Kate, at the beginning she seems like a scared little girl who doesn’t know where she is but she’s one of the toughest female leads in the show and with Jack she will step up and lead the way. Another example is Cabin In The Woods which parodies all the character stereotypes of horror films between the five friends who go to the cabin for vacation together, including a sexually promiscuous girl in the group who gets brutally murdered first, and virgin who manages to survive the whole night because she was brave enough to wield a gun, but because the whole plot of Cabin In The Woods is that the five kids were setup at the cabin by a secret branch of the government meant to sacrifice them to the gods in order to keep peace on earth, it suggests that the government is not to be trusted because they are hiding conspiracies behind your back.

The screaming damsel in distress is a stereotype we can often recognize on the, but she is perceived as more than just a powerless pretty woman, she is, like a lot of women in early horror, a novelty item, a bloody babe intended only for the slaughter. The “traditional attitudes toward female sexuality (i.e., women should remain virgins until marriage) were associated with greater liking for graphic horror films in which sexually promiscuous women were victimized” (Walters) meaning that the objectification of women seems to have been widely accepted as long as they were discredited as sexually licentious.

Coming Out Alive

Inevitability

http://libez.lib.georgiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=79451042&site=eds-live

It’s in your closet waiting for you to go to sleep. It’s under your bed ready to grab your ankle. It’s right behind you and escape isn’t an option. Why are horror films so popular? The inevitable and the uncertain strike fear into the heart of man. Yet, the instilling power of horror films resides in the powerlessness of both the audience and the characters. The uncertainty of escape, much less survival, keeps us on the edge of our seats, holding our breath in anticipation for the encounter and pumping adrenaline through our blood, hungry for the chase. Throughout the history of the horror genre in film, this powerlessness that captures audiences young and old demonstrates underlying political and societal issues, such as the evolving depiction of women and the distrust of our government with our futures.

As a culture we are afraid to leave our futures in the hands of our governments because we believe their involvement in our lives to be oppressive, so avoiding politics and voting is a common occurrence in American society because they are put off by the rivaling propaganda and limited knowledge of candidates. Part of what makes horror so real is the fear of uncertainty, whether we’ll survive in a zombie apocalypse, whether we’ll have a say in the way we’re governed in the future and the monsters and horrors witnessed in film really take place within ourselves. Those monsters within ourselves represent our daily struggles but ultimately reflect our universal fear of facing the future. As Julia Kristeva stated in her essay “Powers of Horror”, “we prefer to foresee or seduce: to plan ahead, promise a recovery… to provide social security” (p. 209) for the future which is why horror films try to emphasize and identify the public’s insecurity of authorities’ credibility in leadership. Overall these films want us to walk away thinking about how we can face these fears and realize that while we may not be able to control the future or how others perceive and judge us, be it by gender or race, we can change the present for a better future and we can control the people we become.

Politics of the Power of Horror

http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/RuttkayVeronika/Kristeva_-_powers_of_horror.pdf

By denoting the births of different sub genres of horror such as creature features and zombie movies, we can see a trend between horror film and current societal issues and concerns such as how “Watergate inspired mistrust for authority figures and films like Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)” (Glenn Walters) and even today with dystopian science fiction, we see elements of horror, death, and destruction wherever the authorities are concerned, good examples being The Hunger Games and the Divergent series, as well as The Walking Dead, where, off the bat, authorities failed to contain the outbreak of disease and let its people suffer.

Sources

Kidd, Briony. “Scream Time: Women Take Power over Horror.” Metro.

Winter2012, Issue 173, p102-105. Web. 31 Oct. 2014.

Kristeva, Julia. “Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.” Columbia University

Press. 1982. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

Walters, Glenn. "Understanding the Popular Appeal of Horror Cinema: An

Integrated-Interactive Model." Journal of Media Psychology, Volume 9, No. 2, Spring, 2004. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Wilson, Steven. "Haunting Powerlessness: Why Dsytopia Is Horror on the

Societal Level." Pajiba. 26 Sept. 2014. Web. 31 Oct. 2014.