Critical research - are women represented as sexual objects in Slasher films

Part 1 : information Gathering Q.1

Critical Research
Samuel Byrne
Women in Film

The topic I chose to research into was women in film. However to narrow down my argument as this is a very broad topic I decided to focus on the representation on women in the Slasher genre of film, More specifically; to find if women represented as sexual objects in Slasher films.

To start my research I decided and thought it would be intelligent to produce some Primary research so I can find out exactly what I wanted to know. I decided to buy; Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), John carpenters Halloween (1978) and a nightmare on Elm Street (1984). I felt watching films in the genre would help me make up my own mind on the topic rather than seeing previous examples and my decision on how women are represented in the Slasher film being based around them.

I then decided to do various Internet searches for secondary research such as pre-written examples from search engines such as www.google.com, and www.dogpile.com by searching “Women In the Slasher films” and “how re women represented in Slasher films”. I found a few examples of pre made essays that briefly talked about my topic but nothing, which could significantly help me in my essay most of the essays found were not as specific as I had hoped and the people that had written them were not genre critics only people at there first year of media A-level so I did not think that they were as a reliable source as I would hope to find.

The other piece of primary research I decided to do was to read some books at my local library on the topic. I came across a book) Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover, 1993 which introduced me tot he theory of “The Final Girl” which I feel is very important in my chosen topic. After doing some research on carol clover I found that she is a very renowned film critique, especially in the representation of women which meant information in this book would be a great help to help me decide upon my feelings to my chosen argument.

I also found and read a book by Steven West & Paul J. Brown, Slash Hits
Volume One: Bloody Beginnings, 2000 that introduced me to an interesting way of rating films, with boobs and blood bags. Out of 5 boobs to tell you how much of a sexual film it is, and blood bags to tell you how gory it was. Which helped me to understand how many people saw these films.

A final book I came across was by William Schoell, Stay Out Of The Shower, 1985, which counter Carol Clovers arguments to the representation of women in the Slasher Genre. William Schoell also being a big name in the film critiques world.

From doing various google searches I found a useful website while searching for “male gaze – Laura Mulvey” a term I heard in a media studies lesson which was www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze09.html. This site explained to me what the ‘male gaze’ was and it also helped me learn more about my topic and gave me a greater understanding on what i would write for my second paper.

Other sites I found were www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2152/mulvey.htm and www.albany.edu/scj/jcpc/vol2is4/horror.html both of which have an opposite view to how women are represented in the Slasher genre to my previous data giving me a balanced argument to create a judgement upon.

Although I used an extensive amount of time resulting in many website links to help me with them critical research I found that there was a lack of very useful information there for me to help me come upon a conclusion. So I thought different types of research was needed which would allow me to ask questions I needed to be answered.

This then led me onto thinking about primary research which I can carry out myself, so decided to do a bit of primary research to fill any voids and questions that could not be answered from looking a the internet. I made a simple questionnaire which asked questions about on how they saw women represented, and then I also asked a few questions on how many Slasher films they had seen so I could see how reliable they were in answering my questions. This was pretty useful however I feel that a larger sample size would have been better however this was impractical because there was a lack of a willing sample at my sixth form.

I then thought to counter this I would post questions on peoples views on various forums which touched on horror films and how they thought about women in Slasher films and also how they thought they were represented. Many of these sites had many Slasher fans in there so they new what I was wanting to hear, which didn’t help me rely on my sample as I thought the answers they gave were biased. However, I then thought to post them in general film forums, which I could discuss what they thought about the representation of women in the Slasher film, this was like an interview and I found out many useful pieces of useful information due to the shear numbers of people willing to discuss anything on film.

Again to make my sample more reliable I chose a few short clips from Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream. I then showed them to media student in the year below and in my class to see what they thought about them, I decided to leave these questions more open and simply asked, “how do you feel women are represented in these clips”. I also left a blank page to allow them to write more openly, hoping to allow them to elaborate on there theories and to let their creative juices to flow without hindrance to help me decide how I felt about Slasher films and there representation of women in them.

I then decided to try to get a more professional view on the theories and I attempted to contact the BFI to gain some professional opinions I wrote an email to the chief executive but I received no reply.

I feel that I found a few very helpful pieces of information from my secondary research from academic sources, but not as specific as my information I gathered from my primary research, although my primary research was from less academic sources and less reliable. All in all however I feel my research into the representation of women in the Slasher film was very helpful in helping me decide.