Movies and
shows that fall under the genre of horror may have the same base objective – to
scare you while entertaining you – but go about it in very different ways. The
horror production toolkit includes jump scares, gore, suspense, handheld PoV
and the grainy security cam where you can never see who did it. But the true
key to any horror story is stupidity. The characters have to be exceedingly
stupid to keep putting themselves in perilous situations while ignoring clear
signs that something is not quite right with their surroundings. Worse yet, the
dumbest and least aware character who tends to set things in motion is almost
always a female.
I usually
only watch horror movies by myself or with a friend of mine. The first half of
the film usually focusses on individual hauntings and brutal killings before
the dopey characters try to become ghost/monster hunters. Some side characters
would get murdered or disappear to suggest that something evil is afoot. However,
the dumbest character will pay no heed to any of it and continue to pursue
their self-centred and shallow purpose in the script.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Most
recently, I watched a Bollywood production – ‘Bhool Bhulaiya 2’, in which the
lead female character pretends to be dead so that her cheating fiancé can marry
his true love – her sister. She ropes in the lead male who is infatuated within
10 minutes of meeting her. She takes him to her ancestral manor which is said
to be haunted and lies abandoned. The two find a large iron padlock on the main
door which happens to break and fall apart in front of them. The dude is
clearly picking up what the haunted house is putting down. But the female explains this clearly
suspicious occurrence as a pure coincidence and justifies that the lock is just
really old and happened to break when they touched it. Unconvinced and
hesitant, the male is about to turn away but this time the big ass heavy doors
open themselves to the duo. Certifiably spooked, he wants to get out ASAP, but
the female who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, says its just the wind.
Bitch a gust
strong enough to blow open doors that have stayed shut for over a decade would
have fucked up your hair too but that shit is immaculate and unperturbed. Ghosts
or not, something ain’t right and that’s a good enough reason to abandon Plan
A. Of course, the situation gets stickier still for both of them. Already, I
made peace with this female character’s possible death in the script. But soon enough I was hoping for it to
happen.
Later in the
movie, the haunted manor is being searched for the female lead by those who
want to prove that she is indeed alive and hiding with the aid of the male
character. The levels of stupid spike again as she goes against the advice of
literally everyone so far and unseals the room that is said to house the
trapped spirit of the movie’s ghoul. This is despite the fact that the
character had the choice to NOT open the door sealed by threads and a holy
artifact.
Up until
this point in the movie, this woman has let her family believe that she is
dead. She has been upbeat while watching them grieve her and be manipulated by
her co-conspirator who is guiding them to follow her wishes. Clearly, there is
no regard for chaotic consequences in her brain which is probably smaller than
those pointlessly tiny bags that women love to buy.
I won’t
spoil the rest of the story, but by this point in the movie, I was rooting for
that character to suffer a gory demise. I don’t know much about the actor who
was playing the role, but she did such a good job at playing a dumb bitch that her face will be forever associated with that kind of a person.
Another
recent example of a horror story hurting the fight for women being treated with
respect, is from the popular story-telling video game ‘The Quarry’. It has a
typical American horror backdrop of a forest area with teens at a summer camp under
threat from something supernatural. The core group has the usual selection of
character tropes that I’ll outline next.
In a horror
movie, the nerd or the physically weaker character tends to be the lead with
some sort of tragic backstory. They are the underdog that the audience will
root for and somehow the only character who actually takes things somewhat
seriously. Then there are the helpful or concerned friends who kind of pay
attention but not enough to avoid getting into dumb situations. Lastly, we have
the stupid ones who serve as the unlikeables – the male jock and the female
popular hottie. These would have been unkind to the lead character and their
deaths/misfortunes become justifiable to further the story arc of the monster.
So the
burden of stupidity seems to be split between genders, right? Nope. The jock is
still shown to have use/purpose as the brawn that can buy the others some time
or die a last minute heroic death as a human shield. Meanwhile, the popular
hottie female character is shown to just be a burden with her annoying
arrogance, her nose buried in her own butt, and proves to be untrustworthy.
In ‘The
Quarry’, the story revolves around the final night at camp and the female
hottie has dumped the male jock who is willing to do anything to get her back. The
group is playing Truth or Dare, and the smartass-but-friendly female dares Ms
Popular to kiss another male character, who is the love interest of a third
female character. Instead of a peck or a smooch, hottie proceeds to French him
directly in front of the jock, driving a wedge between the group. A completely
unnecessary provocation that just makes it harder for them to work together
when shit hits the fan.
Later in the
game, the smartass creates further discord by constantly raising doubt when any
of the male characters tries to take charge of the situation or at least has a
plan. Time to check off another negative female stereotype on the list right
there, aka, unhelpful nagging.
Even in ‘A
Quiet Place’, it’s the female kid who’s the reason for the death of many a
character. That’s one of the good horror movies out there, and still the burden
of stupidity landed on a girl.
These are
just a couple of examples from many, many such instances of the representation
of attractive females as either complete retards, indecisive whiners, or just
uncapable wimps in moments of crisis. If not entirely so, female characters in
horror stories will showcase those traits at certain moments that lead to more
deaths or injuries. Don’t even get me started on the number of times the woman
will not think of taking off her heels while being chased, before inevitably
tripping or twisting her ankle.
We already
understand that most if not all horror storylines need characters to make bad
choices for the plot to progress, but can it be someone else’s fault for a
change? Yes, sometimes they’re simply exaggerating stereotypes based on real
observations. But the end result seems to have a wider ranging judgment on
attractive women in general.
Stories
shape people’s realities, and what they watch is often a window into what they
think. Horror movies make it harder for the average male to overlook
stereotypes about attractive women, to see them as functional and independent
adults who will not be swayed by a wink and boozy smile.
We can’t get
these men to change or for horror movies to get more intellectual. So how about
we keep the stupid but mix it up a bit. Maybe this time, the weak male nerd
gets to be the moron who gets other people killed and the female hottie is a
wise-cracking, ass-kicking, riddle-solving, father-fricking hero.
