Standards... There Are Two...

In the past, I have discussed the role of women in horror films from their looks to their age to visual stereotypes to their ankles to the last known survivors.  Today, though, women can eat a dick because women are the leading cause of death for MEN in horror films.  This is gonna SOUND misogynistic but it's not.  This is cold, hard facts, folks.

Not necessarily what I was implying but apropos.

I am not saying that woman are the DIRECT cause although that certainly is the case occasionally.  I'm saying that the world of horror hates men so it purges them from its system as quickly as possible, particularly in the slasher genre.  And it all boils down to one simple thing.

Sympathy.

See, it goes like this.  Women are always seen as moral, innocent, beautiful or, I hate to say it, sexual beings and always start any given movie with a modicum of audience sympathy.  Men, because we're supposed to be able to take care of ourselves, do not.  We have to earn it and the way this happens, more often than not, is by rescuing the damsel in distress.  If a man cannot take care of himself, he actually loses audience sympathy.  This is why nerds in horror films are usually the second to go after the foul-mouthed bimbo.

Well, not counting rapists...

Women, conversely, gain sympathy if they are vulnerable, helpless, stupid as fuck or are deserving of a smack for abandoning men in order to save themselves.  Don't ask me how that works. 

No, wait.  DO ask me how that works.  I'll TELL you how that works.  It's called a "double standard" and as unfair as it is, it's not going anywhere for quite some time.  Because Hollywood is run predominantly by men and men, in the horror business, have been accused of misogyny for far too long.  That's why the Final Girl trope exists.  Men may die trying to keep the final girl safe but it really doesn't matter WHAT she does because she's going to survive with or without his help.

Best Craftmatic commercial, EVER!

And it's because of this that men, in slasher films mostly, get relatively quick deaths and women get more brutal treatment.  It's the girls that get the cool deaths.  Plastic bags in the attic.  Antlers through the boobs.  Tanning beds.  Guys just get broken in half or stabbed.  Guys don't matter unless the villain is actually a woman.  Guys are a means to a bloody end.  Girls get slaughtered with abandon and often get a gory discretion shot since nobody wants to watch that.  If a story needs random anonymous characters dead or beaten up to show off how awesome the protagonist is, they'll be male

Part of this is because of the Bechdel (or Bechdal-Wallace) Test.  Alison Bechdel is best known as the artist behind Dykes to Watch Out For and in order for a fictional work to pass this test they have to include the following three criteria:

1: It must include at least two women.

2: These two women must have at least one conversation.

3: This conversation must not be about a man or men.

Now, this sounds pretty easy, right?  You would be surprised how few mainstream movies actually pass this test.  Mulan did not pass this test.  Fiction, it seems, does not feel comfortable portraying women outside of their relationship with men. Oddly, though, is the fact that this test is NOT a great indicator of feminism in film.  It doesn't matter what the women are talking about as long as it doesn't involve men and if men are being discussed, it doesn't matter if they're family members or not.  There are some incredibly misogynistic films that actually pass this test.

And then there's Uncle Sam...

Another thing to consider, here, is that if a male antagonist targets women in particular, he'll be portrayed as an utter monster whereas a female villain will never be subjected to that level of scrutiny.  A female character has, cinematically, more of a chance for redemption.  Take, for example, Deep Blue Sea.  We know that bitch-face made the sharks and we know that she was willing to sacrifice anything for her research.  She literally sacrificed herself when she did her heel-face turn, thus making her sympathetic again.

All-in-all, this, much like the concept of the final girl, isn't going anywhere for a while.  I understand that this is maybe an unconscious effort on the part of Hollywood to try and stabilize male/female relations (as brought to light by Carol Clover) but it seems forced and disingenuous.  Gender stereotypes will only go away in cinema when they go away in society.

Let's work on that, shall we?