Representation within Media and Horror

In the media, we generally see gender as being very stereotypically presented which can mean women being presented through media as “objects” mainly sexually and emotionally orientated. Throughout media they are presented to be beautiful and much more emotional compared to men who are stereotypically seen as being much more tough and less emotional. They can be represented as part of a group such as a group of friends or a family, they tend to work and think of part of a team, they take the role of a helper they are generally never a leader.

Men are usually the heroes in typical media forms, they tend to take on the active roles whereas women tend to take on the passive roles, and there is a definite lack of female role models compared to the amount of male role models. We seldom know what types of relationships men have with the characters, as their roles are made out to be a lot more active, we focus on their actions a lot more.

Visibility in the media has always been an issue when thinking about gender representations. About 20 years ago the visibility of men to women in media was men outnumbering women 2:1. Proving males are much more dominant within the media. Women can be seen as sexual objects, in media we are often presented with women in the nude or wearing revealing clothes whereas we never really see men in the nude, showing the difference between male and female presentation.

The presentation of female visibility in horror films is different compared to other media forms. The main female protagonists can turn into the final girl and are therefore present until the end of the film. The visibility of women in horrors do still however remain quite low as more often than not they are alone and not working as groups which they often do in other media forms. 

Age can affect the presentation of women. We tend to see all variety of males: age, class, race whereas we tend to only see young females of white race, who are considered to be young pretty and sexy. Many film stars who are male tend to be a mixture of young and old such as Michael Caine and Matt smith, whereas we never really have any older women actresses who are exceptionally well known.

In advertising, A women's body is often exploited in a sexual way to sell products using the “male gaze” which is where the viewer is put into the place of the male’s eyes, usually to objectify women or to identify with the male. However, more recently we have seen changes in this, men have become objectified in media such as adverts. For example; in perfume adverts men are often seen as sexual objects e.g. in Calvin Klein adverts. A compelling argument could be as a female viewing this advert, are we meant to be viewing it using a female gaze?