Representation Essay
Representation means the way something is portrayed and put across. In terms of horror films representation is conveyed through characters and themes Representation is important in horror films because it is how we link something to another. E.g. A knife is represented as phallic object as it is sharp and it is able to penetrate things, this is where male power comes into play. Also we have been classically conditioned to associate something with something else and that association gets maintained through reinforcement that we see in the horror films The representation theories I will be discussing today are the Male Gaze Theory, Final Girl,Religion & Sexuality and Zombies.
The male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey is about the way women are perceived from a misogynistic point of view. The woman's body tends to be sexualised and we see this by the camera angles and shots. the camera tends to focus on the woman's assets e.g. breasts,bum,legs etc, this way this is how the man would objectify her. In my summer trailer there are hardly any close ups of woman's body, therefore my trailer wouldn't take that misogynistic path. The fact that women are sexualised gives the notion that men are always the ones in power and that the women are just in the film for the mans sexual pleasure. Laura Mulvey states that only reason a woman is in a film is for male pleasure as the film is mainly male dominated. As the woman is in most cases a reward for a man, therefore again connoting that a woman is in less power than a man, this then again links to patriarchy
My trailer doesn't follow the conventions of the male gaze as I didn't show that the male was the one in power. However, to improve I could have objectified the female by using close ups and extreme close ups to focus on her body.
Carol Clover created a theory called 'Final Girl'. This theory refers to the last female in the film, this female is always pure in the sense that she is a virgin and she doesn't drink or take drugs. She mainly has brown hair and bears a unisex name. In some cases she may have a psychological past with the antagonist. This girl adopts masculine characteristics in order to defeat the antagonists who symbolizes male power and patriarchy, the fact that she is pure makes her stronger and able to adopt these characteristics. Clover suggests that the final girl moves the narrative forward and adds curiosity and vigilance. In Cabin in the Woods, the final girl Dana is an example of how the females adopt masculine characteristics. The final girl character may not be applicable to all sub-genre's of horror e.g. Psychological/Supernatural, as most of the times the demons/spirits are female therefore in this case the theory of patriarchy and male power over women cannot be connoted. Masculine power cannot be retrieved from a female entity. In my summer trailer i did not include a final girl as i did not want to take the post-feminism view.
Zombies are known to have many meanings attached to them. For example they can be metaphors of something being dead in society or a plague or disease within the culture. Zombies could be the concept of moral behavior decay in our society also. The binary opposition of Life and Death signifies the struggle of society. The survival of of the characters in zombie films are simply symbolic of an individuals struggle to survive in life. Zombies are bodies without spirits/souls so as something is missing in them it could connote that something could also be missing in society. E.g 28 Days Later a zombie film directed by Danny Boyle is about the spread of an infection, he wanted to explain that the infection was a representation of today's increase of road rage and air rage.
The male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey is about the way women are perceived from a misogynistic point of view. The woman's body tends to be sexualised and we see this by the camera angles and shots. the camera tends to focus on the woman's assets e.g. breasts,bum,legs etc, this way this is how the man would objectify her. In my summer trailer there are hardly any close ups of woman's body, therefore my trailer wouldn't take that misogynistic path. The fact that women are sexualised gives the notion that men are always the ones in power and that the women are just in the film for the mans sexual pleasure. Laura Mulvey states that only reason a woman is in a film is for male pleasure as the film is mainly male dominated. As the woman is in most cases a reward for a man, therefore again connoting that a woman is in less power than a man, this then again links to patriarchy
My trailer doesn't follow the conventions of the male gaze as I didn't show that the male was the one in power. However, to improve I could have objectified the female by using close ups and extreme close ups to focus on her body.
Carol Clover created a theory called 'Final Girl'. This theory refers to the last female in the film, this female is always pure in the sense that she is a virgin and she doesn't drink or take drugs. She mainly has brown hair and bears a unisex name. In some cases she may have a psychological past with the antagonist. This girl adopts masculine characteristics in order to defeat the antagonists who symbolizes male power and patriarchy, the fact that she is pure makes her stronger and able to adopt these characteristics. Clover suggests that the final girl moves the narrative forward and adds curiosity and vigilance. In Cabin in the Woods, the final girl Dana is an example of how the females adopt masculine characteristics. The final girl character may not be applicable to all sub-genre's of horror e.g. Psychological/Supernatural, as most of the times the demons/spirits are female therefore in this case the theory of patriarchy and male power over women cannot be connoted. Masculine power cannot be retrieved from a female entity. In my summer trailer i did not include a final girl as i did not want to take the post-feminism view.
Zombies are known to have many meanings attached to them. For example they can be metaphors of something being dead in society or a plague or disease within the culture. Zombies could be the concept of moral behavior decay in our society also. The binary opposition of Life and Death signifies the struggle of society. The survival of of the characters in zombie films are simply symbolic of an individuals struggle to survive in life. Zombies are bodies without spirits/souls so as something is missing in them it could connote that something could also be missing in society. E.g 28 Days Later a zombie film directed by Danny Boyle is about the spread of an infection, he wanted to explain that the infection was a representation of today's increase of road rage and air rage.
Comments
Post a Comment