Feminism
Women in the horror film: Ripley, the Alien, and the Monstrous Feminine
Carol Clover in her work analysing ‘slasher’ films and her theories of the ‘Final girl’ can explain this masculinisation of the female lead character. She claims that male and female spectators identify bisexually and she separates out the differences between appearance (sex) and behaviour (gender). Examining narrative she states that the ‘Final Girl: the one girl in the film who fights, resists and survives the killer-monster, [is the one who] acquires the gaze, and dominates the action, and is thus masculinised.’ (Clover, 1992, pg. 357) In Alien, Ripley acquires the gaze by being the only one left alive, and dominates the action by defeating the alien. Clover argues that by openly playing on the difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, that the ‘theatricalisation of gender’ feminises the audience because the woman is her own saviour making her the hero, at which point the male viewer gives up the last pretence of male identification. (Clover, 1992) Like the ‘slasher’ film, Alien’s Ripley displays many of the narrative characteristics which Clover discusses, and Clover is adamant the modern horror film ‘adjusts gender representations and identifications’ (Clover, 1992. pg 378), something Hollywood wasn’t doing pre-1960 according to Mulvey. What Clover appears to be arguing is that through the ‘Final Girl’ modern horror cinema is largely a feminist movement because ‘the male gives up the last pretence of male identification’. Whilst gender roles can differ, the masculinisation of a character such as Ripley, only serves as a celebration of feminism, and instead of, as Mulvey claimed, women being ‘passive and powerless’, they are now being empowered at the expense of men. (Read full essay)
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?