Source+9

etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04092009.../Brewer_thesis.pdf.pdf http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04092009-105427/unrestricted/Brewer_thesis.pdf.pdf

Brewer, C. (2009). //The stereotypic portrayal of women in slasher films: Then versus now//. (Master's thesis, Louisiana State University)Retrieved from http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04092009-105427/unrestricted/Brewer_thesis.pdf.pdf

(Brewer, 2009)

__**15 Facts:**__
 * 1) ** Zillmann and Weaver (1996) established **** that **** “girls and female adolescents [in horror films] **** who are witnessed **** displaying fearfulness and protective need in the face of terror **** on the screen **** are more favorably evaluated by male and female peers and non-peers than their counterparts **** who are witnessed displaying no distress” (p. 87). (PAGE 1) **


 * 1) This ** display of fear ** is merely one ** example of feminine stereotyping ** in ** that viewers expect ** that ** females will remain afraid and helpless **.
 * 2) Many scholars would argue that the ** portrayals of women in ** television and ** film have changed over the last few decades because of the feminist movement **
 * 3) ** Modern slasher films have continued to redefine and challenge what it means to be a human being ** ; however, they have also commented on what it means to be male and female.
 * 4) men are often praised and revered for their sexual prowess ** (PAGE 3) **
 * 5) however, ** women are often punished for sexual promiscuity **
 * 6) ** In slasher films **, the ** final girls who survive at the end of the film always remain virgins. ** Those that ** engage in sexual behavior often die at the hands of the killer **
 * 7) As a whole, ** society has become more accepting of women‟s equality to men **
 * 8) the ** American slasher film became extremely popular in the early 1980s as a result of several American slasher films of the 1970s ** based on stories originally found in the Italian giallo ** (PAGE 4) **
 * 9) Schneider defines the slasher film as “a horror film in which isolated psychotic individuals (usually males) are pitted against one or more young people (usually females) whose looks, personalities, and/or promiscuities serve to trigger recollections of some past trauma in the killer‟s mind” (Hutchings, 2004, p. 194). ** (PAGE 5) **
 * 10) Alfred Hitchcock‟s ** Psycho ** (1960) ** provided the greatest American influence on the American slasher films of the 1970s ** . It ** provided a mold that portrayed a traumatized killer with various mental problems who stalks and murders his victims. **
 * 11) Halloween (1978) became the highest grossing independent film ever produced until 1990.
 * 12) ** slasher film typically involves a killer who stalks and graphically murders a series of victims in a typically random, unprovoked fashion ** . usually ** teenagers or young adults who are away from mainstream civilization or far away from help ** . typically ** begin with the murder of a young woman and end with a lone female survivor who manages to subdue the killer, only to discover that the problem has not been completely solved **
 * 13) Results showed that the films portrayed female characters in more instances of fear, screaming, and cowering, than the male characters. ** (PAGE 14) **
 * 14) ** women are to remain sexually reserved and virginal, if they want to survive. **
 * 15) Males can engage in sexual activity and still succeed in life; however, ** film stereotypes sexually active females as promiscuous harlots who deserve to die or fail in some aspect of survival. **** (PAGE 15) **
 * 16) ** Female characters **, on the other hand, ** are far more likely to run away from the killer and only engage in physical combat when absolutely forced to defend themselves **