Chapter V - Genders in Trouble: Can There Really Be A Feminist Horror Cinema?

In researching existing work on "feminist" horror cinema, I came across an astute observation by Heidi Martinuzzi writing for Bitch Magainze [http://bitchmagazine.org/post/horror-show-faux-feminism-and-horror-films].  She cites horror films that are touted as feminist such as I Spit on Your Grave, Teeth and Ginger and discovers that what they have in common is that the female-monster characters (pro/antagonists) use their sexuality to lure victims.  She continues, "Personally though, women being depicted as so powerless that the only way they can fight against their oppressors is by using sex is not my idea of a feminist film."

Another similar film released more recently, although with a twist, is Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441395/].  What separates this film from the above mentioned films, however, is the ultimate victimization of the feminine, seductive monster, played by Scarlett Johansson.  In the end, the sexual violence implicit in patriarchal human cultures comes back on this seductive, alien man-eater.  This twist on the seductive, feminine monster trope can be interpreted two ways.  First, one could argue that the message of Under the Skin is more patriarchal than films with a "strong woman" archetypal monster such as Teeth or I Spit on Your Grave, as the "strong woman" monster is not triumphant against the male oppressors in the end.

I would argue, however, that the message of Under the Skin is actually more progressive than the above mentioned films.  Scarlett Johansson's character is not a woman.  She is an alien who takes the form of a woman to seduce male victims.  However, she finds, in the end, that taking the form of a woman in a patriarchal society is highly problematic if one is interested in taking the most victims.  In patriarchal "rape culture" a woman foe is not feared as much as a male foe.  Thus, in the end, the alien's femininity is her undoing.

Of course, this message still remains highly problematic.  Are women simply helpless against rape culture, even if they are ruthless, alien monsters?

The tropes these films carry are somewhat reminiscent of C. L. Moore's 1933 horror story "Shambleau" [https://archive.org/details/Shambleau19331948].  Under the Skin uses tropes from "Shambleau" as pastiche, but the "T is for Torture Porn" segement of ABCs of Death II, directed by Sylvia Soska [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3609300/?ref_=ttfc_fc_dr29],  is a rather faithful homage.  In "T is for Torture Porn" we are confronted by the disturbing image of a clearly uncomfortable woman being humiliated by a pornographer.  However, the victim becomes the perpetrator of abuse when she reveals her monsterous tentacles that brutally murder the director and entire crew.  It is a self-consciously cinematic take on the tropes in "Shambleau." 

In C. L. Moore's story the woman/monster lures her victim in using her sexuality.  This is precisely what Martinuzzi is talking about in the article mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.  C. L. Moore used her initials because she didn't want to reveal her gender to the male-dominated science fiction culture of the 1950s.  If one didn't know "Shambleau" was written by a woman it might seem like a piece written with a male gaze indulging male fantasies.  Understanding that it was written by a woman, a fact of which 1950s readers were not aware, adds a totally different interpretation.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, horror cinema is the second most likely genre to pass the Bechdel test.  The Bechdel test is a simple test that explores representations of women in film, first proposed by graphic novelist Alison Bechdel.  Quite simply, the Bechdel test is a litmus test whereby a film passes if it 1) has to have at least two women in it, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something besides a man.  Below is a chart of films that pass/don't pass the Bechdel test by genre.

So why are action films at the bottom of the list (another violent and male dominate genre), yet horror films are at the top?  Clearly horror cinema is not generally emancipatory towards women.  Equally as clear is that most horror films cater to the male gaze.

One possible explanation is just the tropes of the genre itself.  Horror cinema tends to pass because there are usually situations where women go off alone and talk, and then the monster or killer etc. can take advance of the situation.  Thus, it's not necessarily an emancipatory thing, but it is a representation of women in cinema where women aren't defined by the male characters.


Feminist horror is not necessarily an established genre, but there are certain tropes already existing in horror films that we can use to identify a film as feminist or not.  Feminist horror can be defined as essentially the idea that horror cinema can be used for women's liberation.  Does this mean that violence against men in horror films is feminist?  I would say not on its own, but it can become emancipatory violence if it is motivated by a desire for liberation on the part of the female, protagonist/antagonist, monster character.

Although not all violence against men perpetrated by women is necessarily feminist, it is almost always, perhaps, an attempt, if not to subvert the male gaze, to make films that at least cater to the female gaze.  These acts of violence could be considered misandry, but horror cinema is about fantasy, it's not about reality.  Why does the legendary Valerie Solanas' SCUM manifesto still appeal to some radical feminists?  Could it be at SCUM was a horror fantasy that became all too real?  Couldn't it also be said, though, that David Berkowitz or Jeffery Dahmer where the same thing?

We watch horror films because the monster archetype is both pro and antagonist, the villian and the hero.  We're not supposed to be comfortable with our desire to root for the monster, that's part of the fun.  There should be psycho misandrist hero-villains if there are going to be psycho misogynist hero-villains and there is no shortage of the latter.

An equality in representation of gaze does not mean emancipatory potential, but merely a more inclusive genre.  There are plenty of female fans of horror cinema, but even if it was just exclusively a genre of films made by men for me (which is what most of cinematic history has been anyway, look at Noir, or Akira Kurisawa, or the French New Wave, or Westerns, or action ad nauseum) the ideological message of those films for men should be a good message (don't beat women, don't be racist, don't rape, don't kill unless you have to etc.).

Secondly, horror cinema is a male dominated genre only insofar as males have been the loudest voice in its production, but I think there is a growing interest in the genre from women.  The success of female-centric films like the Paranormal Activity series, Antichrist, May, Excision etc. show that.
The "crazy bitch" archetype is not a progressive replacement but, it's an under-explored sub-genre and I think it has a lot of potential.

To conclude, I would like to demonstrate my point with the example of the film Monster and the story of Aileen Wurnos.  Aileen Wurnos claimed she murdered the men she did in self defense.  Wurnos' story is brilliantly documented by Nick Broomfield in Aileen Wurnos: the Selling of a Serial Killer and Aileen: the Life and Death of a serial killer.  Broomfield's depiction of the real Aileen Wurnos differs slightly from the way Patty Jenkins depicted her in Monster.  Broomfield seems insistent that all her victims were killed in self defense, whereas Jenkins, although sympathetic, goes mostly with the police and prosecutor's story.  In The Selling of a Serial Killer Broomfield exposes the fact that the police and justice departments involved in Wurnos' case were in talks with Hollywood producers before the trial had even begun regarding selling the movie rights to her story.  What we get from Broomfield's documentary is a tragic story of a woman who was exploited, sexually violated and attacked by men and then, with the excitement of having "America's first serial killer," continued to be exploited and railroaded by men after she was apprehended.  This is feminist cinema.  Unfortunately, fictional films can't tell a true story as poignantly and articulately as a documentary can, but perhaps there are seeds of emancipatory potential there.

Sometimes social media freaks me out: News reports of police killing black people, hate legislation against women and LGBT folk, consolidation of wealth, bought politicians. our society is regressing back to fascism. The USA didn't succumb to fascism in WWII times because of the influence of the USSR and the Red Army ultimately defeated the fascist threat. I really do believe that. I ook for solutions to these problems and i don't see any other realistic option than socialism, whatever your tendency might be, if you're left wing you're ok with me. Why do we leftists deny ourselves victory by bickering? Why do we allow capital to exploit us and white, male, straight, xtian reactionaries to oppress all of us who don't fit their idea of the pure, the holy, the powerful, the straight? 

We are told there are "good cops," but where are they?

And one thing all these incidents and the countless others around the country—reported and unreported—have in common is silence. We don’t hear from the “good cops.”

No press conferences denouncing the actions of a few bad apples. No open letters putting the bad guys on notice that abusing the color of authority will not be tolerated. No public petitions demanding action from higher-ups and local government—and absolutely no change in police-union leadership. Sure, there are the requisite pressers after an incident by a police chief and possibly the mayor, but nothing from the rank and file, nothing from police groups and associations.
The Blue Wall of Silence is deafening.
http://www.theroot.com/.../08/where_are_the_good_cops.html

In these times when it is necessary to insist that #blacklivesmatter and people still don't listen riots are the only tool left in our arsenal. They are the only thing that gets attention, results. It reminds me of what Bobby Seale said on why the named the Black Panther Party that name: 

A couple of days later, Huey Newton and I was trying to figure out why was that on a Lowndes County Freedom Organization, it was Lowndes County, Mississippi, a pamphlet that we had, why they had this charging Black panther as logo. And, Huey come up with some notion that if you drive a panther into a corner, if he can't go left and he can't go right, then he will tend to come out of that corner to wipe out or stop its aggressor. So, I said, "That's just like Black people. All the Civil Rights people are getting brutalized across this country for exercising the First Amendment of the Constitution which is the law of the land, they can't go left. Other people have tried to control the police with law books and tape recorders and have been brutalized. They can't go right. Even the young Whites who were protesting," I said, "Who was in support of the Black people, can't go left, can't go right. So we just like the Black panthers and in effect Huey P. Newton and I named the organization the Black Panther Party. But at first it was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.
http://digital.wustl.edu/.../sea5427.0172.147bobbyseale.html

Class warfare will always be waged as long as there is a ruling class. The question is, at what point do we as the exploited and oppressed class fight back? If we don't fight in this war it is a one sided war. They war is already waged, we just aren't fighting back.

Class antagonism has existed since feudalism. When there is a class that has and a class that has not there will be no justice until the have class is eradicated and equality established. Class consciousness is the first step to engaging in our own defense and liberation. Additionally, systems of oppression and privilege (racism, sexism, heterosexism, nationalism) will not be eradicated by ignoring them, but by recognizing they exist and struggling against them. This liberal notion that if you ignore exploitation and oppression it will go away is profoundly beneficial to the ruling class. Most of us would like to live in a society without class warfare, racism, sexism, heterosexism, nationalism, but it's not going to exist without liberation struggles (proletarian revolution, black/red/yellow power, feminism, gay pride/liberation, revolutionary nationalism/national liberation struggles) because the powerful aren't going to voluntarily give up their power. Don't you think they would have already if they were going to? What is clear from history is that they will brutally, violently defend their power.

Spontaneous, violent acts of frusteration have their place as what Zizek calls an expression of that which is unarticulated, but change does not come from spontaneous violence or terrorism, it comes from agitation, education and revolt. It comes from an organized, coordinated, subversive effort by the exploited class to undermine the foundations on which the ruling class builds their exploitation and oppression:

Svoboda advocates terror as a means of “exciting” the working-class movement and of giving it a “strong impetus”. It is difficult to imagine an argument that more thoroughly disproves itself. Are there not enough outrages committed in Russian life without special “excitants” having to be invented? On the other hand, is it not obvious that those who are not, and cannot be, roused to excitement even by Russian tyranny will stand by “twiddling their thumbs” and watch a handful of terrorists engaged in single combat with the government? The fact is that the working masses are roused to a high pitch of excitement by the social evils in Russian life, but we are unable to gather, if one may so put it, and concentrate all these drops and streamlets of popular resentment that are brought forth to a far larger extent than we imagine by the conditions of Russian life, and that must be combined into a single gigantic torrent. That this can be accomplished is irrefutably proved by the enormous growth of the working-class movement and the eagerness, noted above, with which the workers clamour for political literature. On the other hand, calls for terror and calls to lend the economic struggle itself a political character are merely two different forms of evading the most pressing duty now resting upon Russian revolutionaries, namely, the organisation of comprehensive political agitation. Svoboda desires to substitute terror for agitation, openly admitting that “as soon as intensified and strenuous agitation is begun among the masses the excitative function of terror will be ended” (The Regeneration of Revolutionism, p. 68).  - Lenin, What is to Be Done

The Congress decisively rejects terrorism, i.e., the system of individual political assassinations, as being a method of political struggle which is most inexpedient at the present time, diverting the best forces from the urgent and imperatively necessary work of organisation and agitation, destroying contact between the revolutionaries and the masses of the revolutionary classes of the population, and spreading both among the revolutionaries themselves and the population in general utterly distorted ideas of the aims and methods of struggle against the autocracy.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (July–August) [1903], "Second Congress of the RSDLP: Drafts of Minor Resolutions", Collected Works, 6, Marxists.

Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti and others have warned us about it and I'm afraid fascism is fast upon us. Podemos, Syriza, Socialist Alternative, they have achieved some advances in the electoral arena, but we all know deep down that revolution is the only solution. To me it seems clear that at this time in history we have a choice between fascism and socialism, rule by an elite class of sadists, or rule by a dictatorship of the proletariat. Which side are you on?