Female Representation In Horror
Horror has given us female-led stories for decades, but we rarely talk about it.
The Final Girl
The common “final girl” trope in horror has been used in all forms of storytelling since pretty much the dawn of time. Horror is one of the only genres that focuses on stories in which a woman is antagonized by a man. While these depictions can often paint women in a bad light, we rarely get stories about women being targeted in other genres. They are often just supposed to deal with toxic men in their lives as if they’re heroes. The final girl stereotype generally does a great job at depicting just how much women have to notice and watch out for in the real world.
Obviously, most of us aren’t going to be running from an axe-wielding psychopath-but we often have to be aware of any kind of potential dangers at all times, much like the final girls in horror. Final girls are the ones that must realize when a gas station owner is actually a cannibal, and often figure these red flags out before their male counterparts. In fact, they’re normally much smarter and more courageous than the men in the story. They’re the ones with the power to fight back against, run faster than, and ultimately kill/ find an escape from the killers chasing them.
One of my favorite things about the trope, is that they are rarely damsels in distress. Final girls usually have to save themselves because the villain has already murdered their big strong boyfriends. It’s one of the only tropes in which the women are better at survival than the men in the story. It’s a really empowering feeling to see a young girl that’s smarter than all of the men around her, and able to successfully do what those men couldn’t.
Additionally, final girls have evolved over time to become some of the strongest female leads in pop culture. Seeing characters like Clarice Starling, Sidney Prescott, and Laurie Strode that all had their own thoughts, ambitions, and strengths that weren’t tied to men was so inspiring to me. For once, I was able to find female characters that didn’t exist for the attention of men.
Horror was one of the first genres to have these strong female characters, simply because they literally needed to be total badasses to survive the antagonists in the story. How many other films from 1978 featured an intelligent and independent female lead that literally stared down the face of evil and came out alive?
Female Villains in Horror
In addition to the strong female representation of final girls, horror also has amazing female antagonists.
I grew up acting, and the biggest thing that bothered me was that I kept getting cast as the girl next door. While at first it was great, playing literally the same character over and over again became very dull very quickly. The male actors around me were playing psychopaths, secret agents, and man-eating plants; why wasn’t I? All that I wanted was to study complex and interesting characters like the Joker, yet everywhere that I looked I could only find the boring normal girl or the overly-sexualized maneater; neither had any goals or purposes outside of aiding the male leads.
That’s when I started looking into female antagonists in horror. They were terrifying, even more so than many male villains. It was the first time that I’d seen women take power for themselves, and not ask for permission. They were so interesting and had so much more depth than many other female characters, it was really inspiring. Many of the films and books that I’d had growing up featured women with zero ambitions, but horror finally gave me female characters with real objectives.
I’d rarely seen any kind of story in which the female characters didn’t fear a man, let alone where a man feared a female character. The first horror film with a female villain that I remember watching was Carrie. I couldn’t believe that such a timid person could hold so much power. It was incredible, for once a woman was taking the power into her own hands and getting back at those who’d wronged her. And while I obviously don’t think that arson is the way to get back at a bully, it was the first time I’d seen a girl have so much strength.
Female villains are particularly interesting to me because many assume that women “aren’t strong enough” to kill someone. I’ve always thought this was an odd thing to say because I wouldn’t associate strength with murder, but maybe that’s just me. And yes, most real life killers are men, but that’s what makes female villains so fascinating. They’re insanely terrifying because it’s so unusual, and this often means that they have incredibly entertaining backstories/reasoning for the murders. Additionally, Stories like Bloody Mary and the Girl With The Ribbon Around Her Neck were some of the first scary stories I’d ever heard, and finally getting to see female villains in film gave me a sense of nostalgia for those tales.
Women like Rose Armitage are so engaging because they’re manipulative and pure evil. What could possibly drive a woman to gain “the strength” to kill usually makes for an awesome story, and is often much darker and more emotional than random serial killers that just kill for shoots and giggles.
Overall, Horror Has Awesome Female Characters In General
Whether it’s Buffy, Jennifer Check, or Red, female horror characters are usually just way cooler than those in other genres. Instead of “manic pixie dream girls”, they’re witches, werewolves, vampire slayers, and serial killer survivors. Everybody knows not to dare mess with them because they’ve either killed monsters, or they are monsters. Nancy Thompson literally survived a murderous ghost that could control her dreams. Pamela Voorhees killed seven fit teenagers at age 49. Nurse Rita fearlessly worked with (what she thought was) one of the worst serial killers of all time and survived a camp full of bloodthirsty ghosts and multiple murderers.
However, there is still so much more that the horror community can do. We still lack a lot of women of color as well as trans women (especially trans women of color) in horror. But, horror will certainly continue to produce a multitude of badass female characters in the future, and hopefully many of them will be able to represent those less-represented groups. One of the ways we as audience members can push for this is by supporting horror with diverse casts and crews. Additionally, supporting female artists, storytellers, and general fanatics in the horror community.
While Women In Horror Month is coming to an end, it’s always a good time to support women in horror. From Mary Shelley to Morticia Addams, spooky women will continue to create amazing additions to the horror community and benefit the genre as a whole.
