The long and short of it

My name is Janina and I like movies.

Currently, I’m obsessed with horror films and the genre’s depictions of women. This blog is a way for me to explore feminist scholarship and perspectives around a genre that doesn’t get enough credit.

The long and short of it

I haven’t always been into horror movies. When I was 9, I was so traumatized by a jump scare that for the next couple of years, I couldn’t walk around my apartment without at least three lights on at any given time. Somehow, I shook off the fear in high school, which is when I started watching horror again.

But it’s only recently that I became fixated on women specifically within horror film. And I think it’s because women aren’t afforded enough opportunities to be seen as gross, disgusting, or absolutely repulsive (see a personal favourite: Possession).

Why women in horror?

I find the way horror as a genre, its conventions, and its vast characterizations of women really compelling.

There are works where the women characters are props, totally objectified. There are films that make the women into monsters instead of the victims. There are characterizations of badass women as thinly-veiled men. The well really is so deep for women in this genre, both the bad and the revolutionary.

Why film theory?

To be honest, it’s because I’m a cinema studies student. I live for that stuff.

But it’s also because, in general, theory both informs and grounds my practices of viewership when it comes to movies.

 

Scholarship, complemented by contemporary criticism, lets me delve deeper into movies. I always resurface with a deeper understanding and appreciation for a work, a director, a genre, etc.

And because my focus is on women and their treatment within a genre as exploitative and gory as horror, I’m trying to discover and work through more feminist perspectives. It will help me explore my own inclinations towards such violent and extreme content.

Nasty women?

Women can be nasty, if they so choose! So let her be nasty!