Genre and Gender Representations - Horror

Genre is the most important part of a film as it lets the audience know what to expect when they hit play. All films have a genre such as horror, action, thriller and comedy and some even combine two together such as action thrillers and romantic comedies. All of these genres have something specific about them which makes the film fall under certain categories.

 

Horror is mostly associated with darkness, blood and murder so in a movie trailer if anything like or similar to those aspects the audience automatically knows that the trailer is advertising a horror film and would be surprised if it turned out to be anything else. For example a rom-com is unlike to involve a killer that walks around in a mask and a bloodied knife during the night as this would usually fall under the horror genre, if it did the audience would likely be very surprised when watching the film.

 

Most people can assign a film a genre with classic 'clichés' that show up in trailers or during the film. For example some horror clichés would be:

 

• Creepy Locations (hospitals, abandoned buildings, forests)
• Darkness (with only a flashlight/small amount of light to see)
• Killer / Dolls / Young Girls as Murderers
• Blood
• Demons / Supernatural

These are only a few but most of these things are the parts of horror films that people enjoy the most. The poster for the horror film Friday the 13th shows most of the points above:

 

 

Genre often includes stereotypes of the two different genders by having characters that are require to act a certain way. Sticking with the genre of horror the main protagonist is usually someone that has no idea of their current situation, whether they are male or female and sometimes a sidekick that will usually be killed. The main character is usually a venerable woman that is victim to the killer however narrowly escapes death throughout the film.  The antagonist is typically a full grown man in a mask with a weapon or a young girl or a doll that can do anything a human can, typically dressed in a dress and the things that people would usually associate as being 'cute' or 'innocent' suddenly become creepy. Instead of a weapon the young girls usually have some supernatural power or be able to kill them without a weapon. If the antagonist is grown male they usually have something unique about them that separates them form other horror killers, this is mainly their weapon choice. A knife or machete is usually chosen but some films have had new and scarier weapons such as chainsaws and pickaxes.

 

 

I personally think that these four pictures play to the horror and gender stereotypes: doll, man in a mask, younger girl victim and/or antagonist and a woman having the main role as the victim. Horror films are usually centred around either the protagonist or the antagonist, this means that the audience has to either route for the character or plot against them. However a oblivious female protagonist makes the audience immediately recognise this character as the one the film will be focusing on