Since the creation of cinema, the male gaze has completely dominated the way films are made and the stories within are told. While this is true for all genres of film, there may be one where the male gaze is more prominent than any other. The genre of horror has always been judged and looked at differently than other genres within cinema. A large part of this is due to the depiction of violence and disturbing imagery used to create a frightening experience. That imagery is overwhelmingly portrayed through the male gaze.
The male gaze in films can mean several different things. From the way female characters are written, to the camera focusing on women’s bodies, to the clothing given to the actresses to wear. The horror genre unfortunately is notorious for doing all of these. While in recent years themes have begun to change, the majority of horror films before the year 2010 are unrealistic and sometimes gross depictions of women. Few other franchises are as known for this as the Friday the 13th franchise. With 12 films spanning from 1980 to 2009, Friday the 13th has become one of the most influential horror franchises to ever exist. The films contain many female characters, often as just objects for the main villain to kill during the films runtime. When shown on screen they are often in extremely revealing clothing or completely naked.
The films are constantly having the female characters take off their clothes for sex scenes or reasons that make no sense for the plot other than the creators of the film wanted the actress to be naked. The characters are also written using many stereotypes of women including portraying them as dumber than men. These characters are almost always killed before the end of the movie, creating a trend that seeing a woman without clothes on means she will die later in the movie. This is ingrained into viewing that women being sexual is wrong and they deserve to be punished for being nude or having sex. Showing the actresses nude on screen is curating completely to male veiwers and somehow it is still blamed on the woman for her actions being wrong.
In recent years females have pushed themselves farther into the horror genre by being active creators. This does not automatically take away the trends that have become a pillar to horror films. Many female creatives have further pushed these narratives and images. While this is sometimes incorrectly blamed on the female creators, there is so much more to the idea of females creating using the male gaze. A majority of the cinema or writing that these women have studied and seen have been products of the male gaze. Horror creators are majorly influenced by existing horror while creating new projects and it is difficult to find existing horror that is not in some way or another the male gaze. The first step in combating the dominance of the male gaze is horror is by pushing forward female horror creators and giving them the opportunity to try new things and support projects they are able to create.
