Trigger Warning: Mentions of rape and sexual abuse.
The male gaze in modern cinema has been discussed extensively by gender and film studies researchers alike; we see endless examples of it in films of the last 20 years, from practically every picture of the Avengers franchise, to Transformers (2007), to The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and so on in a seemingly ever-continuous list. We analyze action and drama films’ modes of objectification in depth, but fail to critique the worst offenders — by far — of the film industry: the horror genre. In the last half-century, the genre has become partially diluted to what is essentially modified, shock-horror snuff films often involving the innate victimization of women to sexual violence.
The most blatant examples of this can be seen in the newly-risen ‘body horror’ genre. ‘Body horror’ is a somewhat recent term in film history, pitched in 1986 as a segment of the U.K. film journal Screen. This kind of cinema is exactly what it sounds like: a collection of films involving deconstruction or graphic transformation of the human body to shock and terrify. An especially well-known example of this genre would be The Human Centipede franchise (note its recurring female protagonist — we can cover that later, though).
The boundaries of body horror truly are limitless. There seem to be infinite ways to shock, disgust, and terrify audiences beyond simple 20th century horror techniques of suspense and climax. Why, then, in a genre with such a boundless sea of material to work from, is brutalized sex (consensual or otherwise) towards female characters such a repeated trope?
The stats of this are staggering. Of Wikipedia’s 2021 list of notable body horror films, roughly 40% contain graphic sex, and 1 in 4 contain rape scenes. However, old body horror didn’t seem to rely on this; it is much more a result of modern cinema. If we trim the list down to cinema from the last 20 years (leaving about 50 films), it’s obvious that directors have developed a knack for sexual violence. Roughly 75% of this selection contain graphic sex and 45% have rape scenes.
Of every American film in this list containing a rape scene, guess how many are directed by women?
Zero.
This leaves an open-ended question for film theorists and gender studies researchers alike: in a genre that seems to be dominated by men as both creators and audiences, why is there such a widespread taste for the brutalization of female characters? It’s not as if trauma stemming from rape resonates with the majority of these crowds, nor does the fear of it, so why is it there?
Several researchers have theorized the appeal of horror films, especially those with brutalization of their female protagonists, comes from a place of misogyny: as a variation of Laura Mulvey’s film proposal on the male gaze, these theorists have a nuanced approach that to a degree, there is a certain visual pleasure associated with feminine fear. As Alfred Hitchcock infamously declared when asked how the visceral impact of his films was achieved — “Torture the women!”.
Beyond the glaring sexual violence towards women in horror films, it is also worth noting the ways in which passive, consensual sex is often used as a precursor to punishment in horror films. Think about it: how many films have you seen that open with a couple having sex in some public area, only to be snuck up on and murdered? It’s almost as if in these movies, any consensual engagement of the female body in a sexual tone needs to be succeeded by violence. Women’s bodies in the horror genre are inherently associated with sadism.
So can horror movies even have sex? Sure; sex can be used in cinema for lots of reasons: as a plot device, as symbolism, as a mode of demonstrating power dynamics, intimacy, and so on; but in nearly every example of it under the horror genre, sex is connected to the inherent brutalization of women or as a precursor to karmic punishment.
This sentiment extends beyond graphic sex scenes, anyways. In the majority of horror films with any leading female character, it is worth noting that said character will typically have some form of past trauma — sexual or otherwise. Consider some of the top horror flicks of 2019: In The Tall Grass, Escape Room, It Chapter Two, and Midsommar (also all male directed) had female leads with varying forms of trauma from long before the plot even began. This brand of character is so common, actually, that it has a name: “final girl,” a trope coined by Carol J. Clover in 1992.
The final girl, as Clover explains, is often the leading female, and is “an agreed upon fiction [for] male-viewers’ use of her as a vehicle for his own sadomasochistic fantasies.” She will have a somewhat virginal image, be the first character to sense something amiss, and the last character to survive. In this, she enacts a dark fantasy of entering a situation strong, in some cases pure, and exiting it broken down, traumatized, and often maimed. This is a much earlier film cliche, typically used in non-body horror cinema (think slasher movies). As body horror has grown in popularity, directors have seemed to circumvent this route and instead cut directly to graphic abuse.
Pay close attention to the next frightful flick you watch: is the female lead strong, or is she just a victim of past trauma? How long does it take in the plot before she is subjected to some form of violence? If she lives until the end, how pure did she enter the situation and how damaged did she exit? It may begin to seem to you, as it were, that female abuse in horror movies is inevitable.
This isn’t entirely true; plenty of films have been spun out, even recently, that effectively communicate their plot without unnecessary desecration of female characters. Directors like Jordan Peele, Jennifer Kent, Karyn Kusama, John Krasinski, Ari Aster, and Susanne Bier (to name a few) seem to have, for the most part, evaded these faults. Horror can be an extremely powerful tool for unpacking the human experience when executed with class and consideration for the audience — not when shock (that often relates to very real trauma for female audiences) is haphazardly executed for a cheap gross-out.