Since its release in 1978, John Carpenter’s film Halloween has become a staple in the horror genre. This film is regarded as highly influential, being dubbed “a cornerstone of the modern horror film” by one critic (Vishnevetsky). Though the film tells the story of Michael Myers, it is the female lead, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who captures the attention of the audience. In this analysis, I will provide evidence that Curtis’ character, Laurie Strode, is an example of Carol Clover’s trope of the Final Girl. I will also discuss how this film relates to Laura Mulvey’s concept of the Male Gaze and furthermore, Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages of development theory. With her theory of the Male Gaze, it is impossible not to mention Laura Mulvey when talking about the portrayal of women in cinema. This theory suggests that certain film techniques are used to appeal to an audience based on the assumption that it consists exclusively of heterosexual males. Males are used as the targeted audience by default, due to the patriarchy that is embedded in our society. The core assertion of this concept is that men are the viewers and women are the ones being viewed. Women are seen as objects, placed in the film for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Women, “in their traditional exhibitionist role… are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey). Throughout her work, Laura Mulvey references Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages of development theory. According to Freud, people are driven by biological urges that must be satisfied. In his theory, Freud proposed that there are five stages in which individuals need to successfully evolve through in order to develop a healthy personality: the oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages. The ability to form mature sexual relationships is especially important during this final stage. The theory suggests that life revolves around tension and pleasure. Freud’s belief was that all tension was due to the accumulation of libido, or sexual energy, and that all pleasure came from its release (McLeod). Freud’s theory also mentions three terms: scopophila (a love of watching), voyeurism (attaining sexual pleasure from watching), and objectification (viewing a person as an object). Mulvey applies these terms to cinema as a whole, recognizing that going to see a film is a voyeuristic action in and of itself. She acknowledges that some may argue voyeurism is not an aspect of film, as the people on screen are aware they are being watched. However, Mulvey points out that films are meant to depict people going through their everyday lives, with no knowledge that they are being watched. The author states, “although the film is really being shown, there is to be seen, conditions of screening and narrative conventions give the spectator an illusion of looking in on a private world… the position of the spectators in the cinema is blatantly one of repression of their exhibitionism and projection of the repressed desire on to the performer” (Mulvey 836). Mulvey’s application of Freud’s theory to her concept of the Male Gaze is relevant to how women are portrayed in many different types of films. However the horror genre, and the Slasher subgenre in particular, tends to display its female characters in sexually-fueled situations. As Clover notes in one of her essays, the female
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Referencing Julia Kristeva’s “Powers of Horror,” Barbara Creed discusses how abject, or the discomfort resulting from one’s inability to distinguish something as either object or subject, relates to horror films. The author notes that “disfigurement as a religious abomination is also central to the slash movie, particularly those in which woman is slashed, the mark a sign of her ‘difference’, her impurity,” as suggested by Kristeva (Creed). In this example, the abject is not a literal disfigurement, but rather a commentary on how women who go against the expectations a patriarchal society puts on them are seen as mutilated. They do not fit into the stereotypical role of a woman. They are sexually empowered, bold and free. The deaths of Annie, Lynda, and even Judith point to the idea that women should be punished for breaking the mold. In the religious sense, the impurity of these women is cause for punishment, as Creed
Referencing Julia Kristeva’s “Powers of Horror,” Barbara Creed discusses how abject, or the discomfort resulting from one’s inability to distinguish something as either object or subject, relates to horror films. The author notes that “disfigurement as a religious abomination is also central to the slash movie, particularly those in which woman is slashed, the mark a sign of her ‘difference’, her impurity,” as suggested by Kristeva (Creed). In this example, the abject is not a literal disfigurement, but rather a commentary on how women who go against the expectations a patriarchal society puts on them are seen as mutilated. They do not fit into the stereotypical role of a woman. They are sexually empowered, bold and free. The deaths of Annie, Lynda, and even Judith point to the idea that women should be punished for breaking the mold. In the religious sense, the impurity of these women is cause for punishment, as Creed