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... e escaped from, however, what is most interesting here and indeed unexpected is that while the novel by King provides no other maternal roles in the novel instead focusing primarily on Carrie and her mother, De Palma adds a mother for Sue and even creates a scene whereby the two mothers meet and Carries mothers extreme religious fanaticism is demonstrated more clearly against the backdrop of a normal home with a normal mother who after politely attempting to get rid of Carries mother eventually makes a donation in an attempt to be free of her manic religious sermons. There are no father figures in the novel except for that of Chris, which interestingly is omitted from the film. In the novel Chris wealthy father contests the refusal of her prom tickets but in the film we learn nothing of her background. Again it comes back to my original point; King was creating a novel within which he created characters with lives, lives that a reader could relate to. By the end of reading the novel the reader would have at some point or another related to one or more of the characters.
The film is not really about that, and this is the key difference, the film is about instilling fear in the audience and the statements that it inadvertently makes and its portrayals of gender roles are merely recycled from the novel or merely reflective of society at the time of production and filming. The theme of the absent paternal role is one that manifests itself in many horror films. In The Amityville Horror the initial impression is that of a normal family with three children moving into a new house. However as the film and novel progresses it becomes apparent that the male character George is not the biological father of any of the children a fact which removes him from the family sphere and makes him, initially a more relatable character. The representation of the individual genders in Amityville is interesting as it is a polar opposite to the representations in Carrie. The children are never properly introduced and the film concentrates mostly on the relationship between the couple especially their sexual relationship.
Cathy is throughout the film rarely in a state of full dress but rather is more likely to be in either white virginal nightgowns or lying naked beneath white sheets. Her hair interestingly remains at all times in various types of pigtails, a rather childish hairstyle for a woman of her age. Similar to Carrie a parallel is drawn between Cathy and Eve by her husband; this appears to be an attempt to present Cathy as the ultimate female, so as to make her more accessible to her female audience. These small details when considered cultivate a perception of not only innocence in Cathy but also one of someone weaker than George, someone who needs protecting by a male character. As the film progresses and George deteriorates into madness eventually resorting to violence Cathy turns to another male role model, Father Delaney. When father Delaney fails to be of any kind of help to her she becomes the strong character, she becomes the viewpoint for the audience at least until George retains his sanity and reclaims his role as that of dominant protector.
Another interesting gender feature of this film which is comparable to Carrie also is that of the fascination of young girls and the complexities that are implied to go on in their minds. Although as I mentioned before very little regard or attention is given to the children or to their individual characters however when building atmosphere in the film the scene with the babysitter is interesting. Not only does the babysitter represent a power or authority within the household but that fact that the babysitter is left minding only one of the children, Amy and her mischievous imaginary friend Jodi is interesting as well because of the state of hysteria that the babysitter ends up in. Amy does nothing to help the screaming girl when she is locked in the cupboard.
This implies a sadistic and cruel streak to the child which is juxtaposed by the lack of any insight into any personality traits of the other, male children. I chose to look at Alien Resurrection as opposed to the first Alien film because in addition to being more modern that the earlier film Alien Resurrection is filmed at a point where Ripley's character has been developed and with the addition of a new female character played by Winona Ryder there is more focus on the female relationship which is central to the film. While all of the alien films are largely marketed as being aimed at a male audience the central character is and always has been female. This encourages the male audience to relate to a woman which is interesting. In Alien resurrection Ripley has been reincarnated and remains as tough as ever. Whats interesting about Resurrection and what exposes an evolving in films is the fact that Ripley is very much more aware sexually of herself in this film than in any of the others.
Ryders character also is serialized by the male characters very early on where she is described as being severely fuck able. Ripley's statement after the aliens have escaped is also very telling who do I have to fuck to get off this boat. So while Ripley is a female figure in the film her language, appearance and attitude has a very masculine energy which makes her, as a leading lady more likely to receive empathy from both sexes in the audience. When Ripley expresses clear emotion for the first time when she finds clones of herself in various monstrous forms the men make light-hearted comments about it associating her upset with her femininity must be a chick thing. Although there is some sexualisation of Ripley and also some undermining of her emotions based on the fact that she is female the fact is that the audience is and always has been Ripley, we never are offered or care to learn anything in any depth about the other characters because it is at this stage a given that all characters will probably die except Ripley and possibly in this case Call purely because she is representative of a younger more nave Ripley. When Call initially attempts to kill Ripley and put her out of her misery, but fails a hostile relationship develops between them that transgresses into something else.
As Ripley becomes more and more macho she develops a maternal relationship with Call. Especially after it emerges that Call is in fact a robot, when Ripley and call suddenly have something major in common and both suffer the ridicule of the other crew members who we, the audience know are likely to die. Interestingly the main computer system in the ship is called father and when Call overrides the system she maintains that father is dead. Its interesting because as the female relationship central to the film becomes more complex and stronger the male representatives die off one by one, for the computer system on the ship, and therefore the representation of order and civility to be firstly called father and then to be killed makes a statement, I think about the fast rising femininity of the film.
Any attempt by any of the male characters to exert any type of power or authority over Ripley or Call is met with fierce masculine aggression. When Ripley is apparently dead the typical male and female roles are resumed with Call becoming the victim and the men once again becoming the macho heroes. This is very short-lived however and Ripley returns to reclaim her position as the Alien annihilator and ending that with a final scene with her and Call together very much like mother and daughter but also very much representations of empowered women who, with very little male intervention succeeded in saving themselves. Interview with a vampire has interesting similarities and differences with all three of the above. There is, in the film and novel much like Carrie and Alien, no heterosexual relationship but merely a hinted homosexual relationship between Lestat and Louis. The main female role in the film and novel is that of a child, who acts as a representation of Louis remaining humanity and makes him more relatable to his audience and not as a character to which female audiences might relate to.
The death of the child represents a further descent by Louis into evil. Women in the novel and in the film are very much objectified; the hero of the film, Louis is very obvious. Women are the constant victims their sexuality is used as and excuse to punish them. For example when Louis and Lestat have the two young French girls in their room. Lestat drinks blood from her breast of the girl, an act which appears to be sexual until he pulls away and the blood is revealed on her white dress. The similarity between the gender representations in this film and that of Alien and Carrie is that the gender of the central characters is not quite as important as their reliability to their audience.
The presence of a hero seems to be of more importance than any other representation in the movies. The film concentrates more on the descent of Louis than on his role for the audience. Unlike Carrie there is no question of who the hero is and indeed of whom the villain is. It seems that in horror films to develop a certain issue other issues have to be p redeveloped to allow for plenty of scope. In this case the roles of Lois and Lestat are clear so that more attention can be paid to Louis himself as a character and his battle with descending into pure evil like Lestat. While studying horror films it became apparent to me that there were distinct and varying representations of gender that were important not only to our understanding of the film but also of the issues that were important in society during filming.
Carrie, filmed during the late seventies was very much concerned much more so than the novel with the sexual exploits of its characters and comparing them with the overtly religious life of its main character Carrie. In An Amityville Horror the nuclear family stereotype is created, challenged and then destroyed. Cathy is the eternal victim, acting independently and heroic only when George has descended into madness. When he recovers, she too recovers her original victim image and behaviour. Similarly in Alien, Ripley is the hero with the male characters acting merely to compliment her role, that is until she is removed from the final scene and the men suddenly begin exerting their male power and Call transcends into the role of victim for the first time in the film. What has become apparent is that gender roles and representations in horror are extremely complex and excluding the basic aims of them, tend not to follow a particular mould.
While older horror films had clearer male and female roles the more contemporary horror tends to seek the role of the hero without being prejudice of the sex. It struck me that in some cases the film, while appearing to differ only ever so slightly from the novel upon which it was based, creates images onscreen that imply things that the novel does not. It attempts to make a statement or present visually an idea about people and relationships. It plays upon issues that we face daily, it scares us, but in a different way. Social issues like absent fathers and promiscuous teens are challenged and the offenders are punished or celebrated depending on the stance of the director.
Through the tiny differences between novel and film is where insight is to be gained about the audience to which the film is aimed and also about the directors perspective on the novel itself. To end on a positive note, the evolution of the representations of women is very obvious when comparing Carrie with Alien, womens sexuality is more celebrated, as is their willingness to use it as a weapon (Ripley who do I have to fuck to get off this boat) a change has occurred in film which is representative of the changing perceptions of women in everyday society.
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Research essay sample on Gender In Horror Films Carrie Alien And Amityville
