Representation Essay.

Representative Essay. Representative is a typical class, group or body of opinion, in regard to horror it is the typical groups or people that appear in conventional horror films. A lot of the time media theorists explore the subtext behind different characters in a horror that unlocks a whole new underlying truth to why the horror storyline is the way it is. I will be exploring a wide range of theorists like; Berger, Mulvey, Clover and Dobbs. A theorist called Berger believed “ men act and woman appear, men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at” to further explain this they believed that defining genders is a biological classification but if we think about it the words “masculine” and “feminine” creates the social construction we have today. Males in horrors are seen as dominant and strong however women are seen as submissive and passive. The way that gender is represented through the horror genre are shown through the subgenres of horror, however the cons of gender are represented through my summer trailer. It is clear that my horror trailer follows the theory of Berger quite vividly. The protagonist (a woman) is shown as a very passive character in my horror trailer. She is shown easily giving up in the middle of an attack between her and the antagonist. The antagonist is also shown as dominant throughout the trailer having a special control over the protagonist especially in the attack. The subtext beneath this may be the reoccurring issue with the inequality between men and women and the fact that the women in my trailer are not going against this inequality and are just admitting defeat. Another theorist that goes by the name of Mulvey focuses very strongly on “the gaze” in the horror genre. She stated that when a woman’s body is displayed on the screen, the men get exotic pleasure from seeing this and therefore controls the woman. This is done by camera angles and shots used throughout the film that shows them as decorative objects for the men to gaze at, this is called “the male gaze”. We as a audience are then forced to this objectifying of women whilst identifying with the male. Mulvey identifies that the cinema is a largely male dominant based industry so therefore men are in control of the cinematic text, especially in a horror film, particularly slashers have been criticised for being the product of “the male gaze” since most directors are men. Recently men have been portrayed as the decorative or sexual objects that the woman or homosexual men of the target audience can now look at, this is now being called “the female gaze” However on my horror trailer there is only use of “the male gaze” throughout the trailer. For example in the scene where she wakes up attacked from her dream, there is a close up shot of her chest area showing the objectification of women and allowing men to view her as a decorative object. Due to this, it is clear that Mulvey’s theory s widely active throughout my summer work creating many analyses that I can go deeper into in my conclusion. A theorist called Clover create a theory about the last girl standing in a horror film, she called them “the final girl” normally she is left to confront the killer/ antagonist. In horrors, the viewer begins by sharing the killer’s perspective but then experiences a shift of identification with the final girl towards the end of the film as she keeps getting away from being killed. She is stereotypically a virgin, with a more masculine look and sometimes a unisex name. She is normally seen as pure by the killer and therefore he doesn’t kill her because the antagonist has no reason to. She becomes masculine when in front of the killer because she takes on masculine features in order to defeat the antagonist. Audiences often identify with the male protagonist however Clover argues that the horror is popular with males as they identify as not being on top of the “macho hierarchy” for example every male has been intimidated at some point. Clover argues that for a horror to succeed, the survivor must be a female experiencing terror as viewers would reject this being a male. I would say that my horror trailer has a attempt of a final girl without the masculine features, for example she has more feminine features then a final girl should have, this may be due to the fact that I didn’t know about this key convention in a horror and therefore couldn’t incorporate it into my trailer. I know to do this next time. Finally the last theorist I will be exploring relating to the horror genre and my work is Dobbs, she explore feminism in the horror genre. She stated that horror has confused relationships with woman, you are likely to have a women victim in this genre or a romcom and they are frequently seen as decorative objective. She continued this statement by explaining that the most famous women in horrors are actors, she creates the opinion that it would be nice to have a more common interest of females included on the other side of the camera. Dobbs also said that there is no reason why horrors should have a gender preference, you don’t need to be a male to enjoy being scared, horrors allow audiences the thrill of the unknown and females are allowed to feel that. She also continues adding her part on the final girl, she believes that there is a problem with the frequent final girl, she asks if there is really a need to have a final girl in every horror. On the other hand there is something wonderful about it to, the fact that she survives. No matter what happens to her in the film, she gets her revenge in the end by killing the antagonist. After learning about Dobbs and her opinions, I found it hard to be able to link it to my summer work, this is because I never knew about her way of analysing horrors and therefore couldn’t apply it to my own work. However I think this is a good thing because its helped me be able to plan my future trailer and how to make it more effective. In conclusion, it becomes clear to me that there are many media theorists that explore the representation side of the horror genre. After analysing their theories against my own summer trailer I feel it has helped me improve on my previous work in time for my future work. I now won’t make these mistakes that are identified through the theories and it will therefore improve my grade for the future.