Media A2

For my A2 Media Studies project I had take on the challenge of discussing the representation of women in horror films. I wanted to show an alternative role for women in the horror genre, suggesting them to be a powerful, threatening antagonist in immense contrast to the expected conventional damsel in distress to which in the past has been the domineering female stereotype in horror films.

After doing countless research in to the roles of women in the horror genre, it soon became apparent to me that they are dominantly represented as the vulnerable, victim whom lacks initiative and independence in the narrative itself. Prime examples of this can be demonstrated in films such as "Scream" by the character Tatum Riley who gets killed in the most stereotypical way. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVOQHgurUCw)

After establishing my aims and intentions I now had to research in to films that possessed the female antagonist I desired to achieve and finally came across Samara Morgan in "The Ring". Samara demonstrated the controlling power I wished to achieve, and is presented in a way that she is even seen as a threat to the stereotypical heroic male characters within the narrative. Not only this but she broke theories such as Laura Mulveys 'Male Gaze' and John Berger's "Men act and women appear" as Samara lacks an attractive sex appeal in terms of appearance.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpb2-ZOzc_o)

With this in mind I conducted a photo shoot, taking extra time on creating the perfect mise en scene in terms of costume and makeup for my deranged ghost girl. This involved ripping up an old gown and smothering it in mud, coffee granules and left over fake blood from the previous Halloween. I pasted my ghost girls face with a pale powder in order to suggest a sense of lifelessness and cold-bloodedness along with dark eye shadow around her eyes to add to the sinister appeal. Please click on each image for a closer observation.

My first finished product- DVD cover

Here is my first finished text for this unit and although it is purely a screenshot of the computer screen you can overall get the gist of what I was striving to achieve. The ghost girl looks lifeless and paranormal, I tried to suggest this through editing the images and reinforcing the blue overlay- creating the cold and deceased traits to the character. Furthermore I positioned my character over the film title, empowering her and making her the main focal point for the reader. I maintained the natural conventions to DVD covers such as star ratings and a credit block in order to conceal that authenticity and make my product look as believably real as possible. The trickiest challenge I came across in the creation of this product was probably overlaying the enlarged letter 'H' on the back of the DVD cover, with the background of the antagonists eye. I saw this as either turning out well or unsuccessful therefore positioning of the image was vital in the overall conclusion, but thankfully came out rewarding.

For my second DVD cover I blanked out my models eyes in a luminous white colour; creating spooky enigmas in terms of her anonymous identity, as well as intriguing the audience. Horror film marketing often focuses on a powerful antagonist, but usually they are male, For example Freddy Kruger and Jason from Friday 13^th. The film is located in the woods, as I found this a source of identifiable iconography to the horror genre. Theorist Germaine Greer states that “If women are not beautiful they are unsuccessful and useless”.I wanted to confront this point within my products, allowing my unsightly model to be empowered and embody a sense of strength and status. This was achieved in selected secondary images on my DVD cover, which provide visual evidence of my female antagonist overpowering a male victim; an unlikely occurrence in stereotypical gender representations.

It was important that my second product, the film review, followed basic conventions of a magazine article such as: columns, page numbers and an eye catching title. For this reason a fairly basic layout was used with an overall house style using the colours purple, black and white. I felt the purple provided various connotations of femininity, alongside the forceful black and basic white colour scheme. I wanted to achieve a paranormal look to my model and for this reason duplicated the image to suggest a 3D, ghostly impression. The facial expressions on my model’s face suggest connotations of mystery, cunning and create a sense of intimidation. My model contradicts theorist John Berger’s “Men act women appear” concept as she is the active antagonist in the narrative. In my review, when discussing the relationship between the antagonist and a male character I state “Certain shots allow us to see him worthlessly positioned at antagonist Gretel's feet”, suggesting the antagonist to be domineering over male characters. 

The last of my products is the billboard poster. I selected a close up shot of my model in order to offer a variety of images, as well as draw attention centrally to the antagonist; empowering her again. Similarly to my other two products, the image was edited to suggest the lifelessness of my character. Furthermore, due to the facial focus of the image, I blanked out my model’s eyes; reinforcing a sense of intimidating impact. I continued with the familiar purple colour scheme as I found this effective in portraying connotations of dark femininity. The mise-en-scene features low-key images of trees, again stereotypical horror imagery. However, my model remains the central focus of the product as the background’s opacity is reduced; empowering her even more. This conforms to the statement “Contrary to popular belief, women aren't mere victims in horror movies – in many cases they're empowered”. The role of women in horror films has now been granted a distinguishing amount of status and dominance, which is what I wish to clearly portray in my products.