Once upon a time, women were given one role in the genre of horror: survive. She would run through a dark forest, tripping over an all-too-visible branch and shriek a tragic “NOOO!!” Then, either die a bloody, gory death or barely survive from an unrealistically lucky series of events. But the tables are turning and the writers are talking. Women are evolving from being merely in horror into becoming horror, and guess who’s frightened? The patriarchy.
From Scream to Mia Goth’s X trilogy, from Dani in Midsommar and Annie in Hereditary to Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance, contemporary horror has metamorphosed women’s bodies, anger, ageing, sexuality, grief and desire into the actual source material of terror, painting the raw realities of what patriarchy, misogyny and blatant dehumanisation does to women. Such is seen in the new film, Obsession, with Inde Navarrette’s performance of the disturbing Nikki, who becomes obsessed with a guy after he wishes for her love. However, on a deeper level, the film comments on how patriarchy and its agents shamelessly override women’s autonomy and independent thought while putting “Be careful what you wish for” into perspective, as what a supposedly desirable woman has to be is sanitised, seized and supplemented. Dire consequences, but nonetheless you deserved it, Bear. The real horror was his willingness to control her mind, heart and body.
Modern horror has undergone a change from the woman as a screaming victim to a walking problem. Previously, women in horror were put into an iron maiden box: the virgin, the slut, the hysterical mother, the dead girlfriend. Notice how all these categories are defined by the woman’s relation to the man. Fundamentally, you either had to be morally pure, sexually punished or psychologically destroyed.
Historically, horror has relished in punishing women, but Scream flipped that script. Horror tortures girls for literally anything, from wanting to have sex to having a personality. In Scream, Sidney does not behave like the traditional, helpless girl in horror. While Ghostface is just a walking stereotype of every horror cliche ever, Sidney defies traditional horror and does what she needs to, intelligently and forcefully, to survive.
Now, women do not merely defeat the monster, they become the monster. Mia Goth’s X trilogy depicts aging, sexuality and female visibility as literal horror. Pearl is terrifying, but also tragic – a woman taught that youth and beauty is her only source of value and it comes with a fast-approaching expiration date. Hereditary makes motherhood messy and imperfect (which it is), Midsommar makes an example of a suckish boyfriend, and The Substance takes the pervasive pressure to stay young, pretty and desirable and turns it into a biological crime scene.
Yes, women deserve to be vile, disturbing, enraged, and bloodthirsty, because the acts they commit are not the real horror. The real horror is the patriarchy stripping them of dignity, independence, autonomy and the right to exist. Contemporary horror paints women as angry, ambitious, sexual, grieving, ageing, complicated – and sometimes completely unhinged while recognising that the real scare is the societal enforcement of gender roles and beauty standards. The real terror is the misogynistic abuse and violence against women. This is just their very valid, very warranted reaction.
Visual: Gabriella le Roux
