Torture and Eroticism: The Female Body In Horror And Art Films
By Ros Tibbs
Introduction
The horror female walks onto the screen, travelling down a hallway to inspect a strange noise. The camera follows her, capturing her chest’s heavy movements and the perspiration building on her slightly exposed skin because there is a strong chance she is coming from a sexual encounter. The scene is structured to build up like a tightrope as the tension grows until eventually the cable snaps. The viewers watch as the jump scare of a masked killer wielding a knife dominates the screen, and the horror female is brutally attacked. Her shirt is slashed open to expose her chest to be sliced at and her person is further violated by the weapon as she screams and writhes from the pain. Gathering contextual patterns from viewing a mass landscape of horror pictures, one could decipher a definite chance this character was barely a character at all; just a bodily vessel for torture that requires no development, depth or distinct personality.
Now, she is a dead body. Carnage, not a character.
The body is present in virtually every film. Whilst spectators may not initially recognise its potential significance, bodies can be employed and explored using elements such as camera movement, character performance and mise-en-scene, as a means of communicating ideas that resonate with psychological and social-contextual paradigms. An observation of the body in cinematic portrayals through a critical lens generates an intellectual coincidence between the body as a subject, film tools and an analytical backdrop, thus leading to being able to identify how directors offer diversity in onscreen representations of the body varying upon film genre and style. One overarching goal shared is that of channelling a mass landscape of cognitive associations as aligned with the traditional and expected iconography of said film classifications. From this, one can conjure roles of the body being thematically oriented; the director is writing and filming the body to convey values and ideology.
Developing ideas that come with this area of research is of interest to me as a researcher; the relevant questions concerning the body being either celebrated or degraded through films as a specific medium as key examples. Furthermore, a specific example of a genre that comes to mind is that of horror, this is because of how it employs its female characters through mostly their bodies in a manner that most critics concertedly agree is objectifying and demeaning. This can be detected from our previously mentioned horror female, whose body is employed the thematic values of torture and violence, not for intellectual discussion but instead just to appease horror fans who watch to see bodies build up high in violent displays. Horror women can be lacklustre in what they offer viewers, that is if offering well-rounded characterisation and journeys are what’s expected to be received. Looking back at classic horror stories that have set the foundation for the genre, it would be challenging to classify women’s bodies as having a higher purpose than being the receiver of mass amounts of torture, most of which is overtly sexualised and degrading. Women’s bodies in horror follow a frequent pattern: they’re expressed in revealing clothing, they engage in sex, and they attempt to run from a killer only to fail pathetically and meet a gruesome fate. Of course, with progression in the film industry and society as a whole, this code is becoming undone and women are becoming varied and developed in how they are presented to spectators, however, what has been previously and so heavily dominant in female representation still looms over any analysis of the genre.
From this I propose the thesis that a majority of horror exploits the female body in its representations whilst representing more complex ideas using men in body horror, creating a gender bias that derives between objectifying and intellectually stimulating and may not be too consistent in other genres. If one were to imply how the genre does this, I would suggest it is cinematic techniques are the central vehicle of representing the body and can hold specific objectives in portrayals, meaning there is medium specificity in how films portray the body in sexually charged representations.
Literature Review
Researching into how bodies are represented on the screen concerning celebrational and degrading portrayals led me through an insightful landscape of academic literature, all offering cohesive stances and perspectives on the matter as well as signalling gaps in the research.
My first source came from assigned reading for my Innovation and Writing module, titled Creed, Barbara. (2000). ‘The Cyberstar: Digital Pleasures and the End of the Unconscious.’ In: Screen. Spring, 41:1. pp. 79–86. This paper activated critical thinking about the cinematic devices that are employed the portray women’s bodies in a sexually charged manner, something that situated my research against clear and cohesive observations and interpretations of the material that occurs in on-screen body construction. Creed’s statement “In particular, Mulvey is interested in the way in which the female star is represented as a ‘perfect product’: her body ‘stylised and fragmented by close-ups, is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator’s look’’ was a catalyst for introductory ideas for my research, signalling texts and theorists to dissect as well as frameworks that have already been observed on the matter. This text moved towards an examination of digitally composed portrayals of the female body-the synthespian or “cyber star”- to thoroughly observe the relationship between on-screen body representations and audience processing and responses to them. This is evident in Creed’s “Knowing that a cyber star cannot die in the human sense must affect the way in which the spectator responds to her/his appearance, particularly the star’s beauty — a quality whose meaning always invokes its opposite, the threat of loss of beauty brought about by ageing and death”, which exemplifies how research into my chosen topic has already considered on-screen bodies that are made from advanced technology in film, not just how a director guides their female star. As a result of reading this text, I was able to construct cognitive connections between the tools utilised in constructing female bodies and the responses they generate in audiences, mostly ideas of perfection and something flawless. In evaluation, I asked myself how this relates to ideas of the uncanny as these portrayals may not be realistic, which could be a potential gap in the research that is now open to my own input.
Carol J. Clover provided the following source in Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film Author(s). This text didn’t completely align with the inferences I made from reading the summary yet it did offer some insightful and productive opinions on my topic. It examined interpretations of women and men’s bodies in the horror genre-a specific classification to my research- and how they work alongside one another. Clover offers the view that a woman’s body is a vessel for torture (a needed trope in the horror genre) and a man’s body is the outlet of such torture under a sexual analysis, stated in “The killer’s phallic purpose, as he thrusts his drill or knife into the trembling bodies of young women, is unmistakable”. Likewise to Creed, Clover solidifies his argument using cinematic features, again assisting in my research of how film as a specific medium represents bodies. Clover states “An analysis of the camerawork bears this out. Much is made of the use of the I-camera to represent the killer’s point of view. In these passages-they are usually few and brief, but powerful-we see through his eyes and (on the soundtrack) hear his breathing and heartbeat. His and our vision is partly obscured by bushes or window blinds in the foreground” which signals how horror codes are utilised to represent ideas around the female body being hunted by a killer. This aids my research concerning the specification of the genre. He further proposes that audiences are able to easily grasp this concept and understand the genre under it, as seen in “Audience response ratifies this design”, conveying how spectator perception is relevant to this portrayal’s execution. Overall, this aligned perceptions and expectations of women’s bodily presence in horror for me as a cognitive response. It situated my research against long-rooted traditions in on-screen body representations in horror and offered interpretations I can attempt to locate counteractions to.
My third source, “Torture the Women”: A Gaze at the Misogynistic Machinery of Scary Cinema by Sarah Hankins provided supporting knowledge on the theoretical tools needed to effectively execute my research. Hankins echoes Creed in her references to Mulvey’s explanation of the male gaze- the psychological engagement and interpretation of women’s bodies on film- stating how “Mulvey points to the “to-be-looked-at-ness” of women within cinema, the visual placement of the scenes, or mise-enscène, reflecting dominant ideological concepts that are unequivocally masculine” which leads to “the “othering” of cinematic women, which promotes the justification of visual display and consumption of the feminine form”. As a result of this, I identified how theorists can signal to film’s medium specificity with regards to its quality of moving images that can be designed to execute emotional or intellectual interpretations, something I wish to analyse further in my own research. This also provides background to my objectives of examining how on-screen representations of the female body are sexually driven and in turn, degrading. From this reading, I gathered specific examples of how horror channels women’s on-screen bodies and in turn, formulated them as comparisons between how other film genres do so. Hankins’ analysis of Perfect Blue’s mise-en-scene, “ a shot with Mima on the train is of particular importance here. Within the train car, her figure is captured from high, imposing angles, as opposed to the eye-level shots in Madeleine’s first presentation. Cinematographically, angles speak stories of power and agency, important since Mulvey identifies the masculine point of view as powerful and active” highlighted other cinematic tools used to construct and portray women’s bodies and therefore, added artistic merit to my research.
Horror and The Female Body
Genre is significant in this discussion: a wide taste and interaction with films would assist in compiling knowledge of how and where a genre’s coded conventions are designated in use. An active film viewer would easily identify how a horror film places a female body in a tight close-up as a means of reducing the character to her body before she either engages in sex or is violently murdered. When searching for prominent examples of the horror genre mistreating and degrading the female body, some of the most infamous and “classic” additions to the genre as a whole appeared, signalling to this presentation operating as a significant trope. In typical slasher narratives, women come under tormenting and horrific encounters involving their person being violated by the male serial killer.
A horror that exemplifies this alignment of female bodies with violence is John Carpenter’s slasher classic Halloween (1978), a film that is praised for solidifying and popularising horror slasher codes, such as the final girl and sexual acts being met with death. The film exemplifies the latter with its infamous opening scene where a young Michael Myers watches his sister Judith as she is still nude after having sex and thus, vulnerable, before brutally stabbing her to death.
The imagery of this scene- a tight shot of the victim’s chest as it is penetrated by a knife- is echoed later on in the film when a now 21-year-old Michael Myers approaches and strangles a nude girl called Lynda to death, her naked chest is as focused on as the phone cord she is murdered with. Both of these kills align in that the victim is an unsuspecting, innocent and attractive young girl who has just engaged in sex, only to be viciously killed with her exposed chest on screen the whole time.
These kills are replicas of the horror female scenario provided previously, a scene blueprint where death is aligned with female nudity, a directorial choice that conjures the scenes with a humiliating and shameful tone. The women are subjected to a grisly end in a powerless manner that incorporates their sexual nature through the addition of nudity, a visual aspect that exists because it is “appealing to the male desire for female pain and objectification” (Lemon, 2020). My research into this topic brought my attention to how Clover asses this in her work Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Genre in which she outlines how every female victim in the sub-genre can be coined as “a beautifully sexually active woman” (1987). This solidifies how horror as a genre cannot severe violence against women’s bodies from elements of sex, thus, conjoining the female body to degradation under brutal attacks and murders.
Women’s bodies are thoroughly explored and interpreted in the horror sub-genre body horror; a category of films that is notorious for manipulating the human body to appear grotesque, making it a violation of the spectator’s psychological state. Two prominent examples which abide by the element of a clear gender binary separation are Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) and Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). The first thing to note is that both of these films primarily subject a male to a horrific bodily transformation that deteriorates their person, however, women serve as secondary victims who suffer just as much as the male. This can be made evident in Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which follows an unnamed man gradually transforming from flesh to metal. Whilst the man visually suffers from this brutal change, he ensures a woman does too, as his girlfriend is forced to endure him attacking her with his genitalia which has transformed into a power drill.
The sequence serves as a blend of body horror and sexual violence, the echoing of physical penetration is a clear signal of the act of rape and this conveys the body horror elements of bodily violation in a metaphorical sense. The brutal attack can be interpreted as evidence that women’s bodies are so designed to be victims of torture in horror fiction that they have to still endure it even when it is a man undergoing the bodily transformation, something that has been noted as “feminists have often pointed to the women victims who suffer simulated torture and mutilation as victims of sadism” (Williams, 1991). It testifies to how male directors will still find ways to degrade female bodies onscreen in disturbing sexual violations, further emphasising how horror and its subgenres struggle to portray women’s bodies in a manner that frees them from objectifying and violent tones.
The Fly mirrors Tetsuo: The Iron Man by still finding a way to subject women to bodily torture despite focusing on male bodies primarily in the narrative. Cronenberg’s main character Seth falls victim to a grotesque physical change after an experiment has gone wrong which deteriorates his human body to that of a fly. His newfound love interest Veronica also suffers emotionally and physically alongside him, however, their suffering is separated by tone and objectives. To elaborate, Veronica’s body suffers physically in a dream sequence which displays her in labour with Seth’s offspring- a painful experience for female bodies- however, Cronenberg takes it a step further by having her give birth to a maggot as a result of Seth’s DNA mixing with that of a fly’s. Despite being a figment of her imagination, it cannot be ignored that Veronica’s body has undergone an unsettling experience. The sequence is just for pure shock value, as Veronica writhes in pain and then emotional distress as a result of what her body has just been subjected to.
Seth’s bodily violation only echoes Veronica’s physically, however, it is granted a higher purpose that relates to gender binaries. Since its release, readings of The Fly have credited Seth’s transformation as metaphorical of a range of concepts. These interpretations range from the understanding of ourselves and our own humanity, “Cronenberg is more interested in the metaphorical idea of loss of control, especially when it comes to the body” (Harris, 2021), to illness as it “was released at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic and was seen by many as a metaphor for the disease” (Valero, 2014). This is a testimony to my initial claim that while male bodies do suffer in horror fiction alongside females, they do so to be a vessel of intellectual stimulation and thus, their suffering amounts to something of value. This cannot be said for female bodies in horror which are just tortured for shock value after being used for sexual content, which is a restrictive design.
Overall, my inspection of the horror genre’s presentation of female bodies derived a cohesive thematic landscape, one that proves how women’s bodies are mostly only subjected to either sex or murder using narrative events and characterisation. A horror female body is frequently interpreted with a minimal amount of intellectual discussion following, which is due to how she is constructed and carried onscreen in a manner of shallowness rather than profoundness.
Horror vs Art
Perhaps if she were an art film female her body would achieve a more compelling and stimulating exegesis, because her director would employ her as a vessel for something that carries more weight. The body cannot be one thing in all genres of film and under a director’s expression. One genre’s style constructs the body under its iconography and manifesto separately from another and for my research, I looked to the art film genre to try to identify differences when compared to the horror genre and prove my hypothesis. Art films are known for their experimentation and deviation from film norms; this divergence tends to be one of an intense and emotionally charges display of art. This grants women the room to exist in a more intellectual and impactful realm, which is conveyed and elevated through how art film directors choose to represent them using film style. Female characters move on the screen differently based on this assigned genre, as enhanced by that genre’s standard techniques such as lighting, setting and character tropes. With these varied expressions come varied interpretations among spectators.
Gaspar Noe testified to this classification of the art film in his 2015 feature Love, a drama film that emphasises the female body in a sensual and stylised manner. The film is held together by its sex scenes, ones that are notable for being unsimulated, thus, we as spectators know that the pleasure we are watching onscreen is authentic. Noe’s exploration of the body and sex fittingly opens with one of these erotic sexual acts between two lovers; one male and one female, and their intimate expressions of love are frequent in the narrative. Unlike the horror genre, these sex scenes are stylised to be anything but degrading and are instead mutual, with an equal receiving of sexual pleasure for both parties. Noe submits to the art film manifesto in a romantic sense when arranging the style of these sex scenes, evident in the use of a romantic and slow soundtrack, a complete diversion from the choice of horror. Furthermore, the female body is displayed in medium shots and under illuminating and warm lighting, gelled with the colour choice of red in the bedsheets.
Noe incorporates the editing choice of a brief black cut every few seconds during the scenes, elevating them to holding a rhythmic pattern. All of these techniques combine to construct sexual scenes that are a display of intimate and stylised art. The female body isn’t just used for male gratification but is instead her vessel for her own eroticism, something made possible because “the sex is successfully depicted as art, coming across as gateways into the minds of its characters, whether the situation is meant to be romantic or haunting.” (Kojder, 2015). Noe directs his spectators to observe the bodies in an emotionally charged way, as Ebert cites “we look at bodies in motion, and see them as body parts first, and then people trying to get lost in each other, to give each other pleasure, and to remain lost in sensations” (2015) which testifies to the artistic impact created by Noe’s presentation of bodies. There is a further elevation in this representation of the female body as the women in Noe’s film assert their sexual empowerment by initiating and controlling the sexual acts and their bodies, evident in Electra communicating with her lover about what she wants to receive, displaying a cemented sexual agency.
A further example of women’s bodies existing in a safer and more intellectual or emotional realm through art cinema lies in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013). This film, as given by the title, heavily explores female sexuality and so, the body. This is exemplified in the characterisation of the central voice, Joe, who shares her sexual encounters with the spectators. When compared to Noe’s Love, Nynphomaniac’s sex scenes have an absence of heavily emotive and sensual undertones as conveyed through the film techniques of lighting and choice of colour. Instead, Von Trier uses images and editing as a means of creating something more conceptual when representing the female body. The last sex scene of the film is spliced between two other visuals; a piano being played and wild animals, with the sexual acts placed in the middle between them. This demonstrates the art genre’s freedom in presenting images as supported by its deviance from film norms. A mainstream Hollywood picture would be restricted from presenting three heavily contrasting images together at the same time as a means of conveying ideas. The sexual shots comprise close-ups of Joe’s body as it is caressed and pleasured by her male lover, demonstrating intimacy alongside the prioritisation of female pleasure, thus, elevating the female body instead of objectifying it. The contrasting imagery playing alongside these shots generates the spectator to compare the female body during sex with these; the piano being played alongside Joe’s naked body laces the two together in an interpretation of both being a vessel of art. This conveys how art cinema can portray the female body in artistic and intellectual presentations, Joe’s body is placed alongside powerful imagery of the creation of music and natural freedom in the wild, in turn celebrating it rather than diminishing it.
I found a distinct variation in bodily representations when inspecting film genre and its diversity in coded portrayals, whilst the horror genre conjoins the female body with ideas of violence as punishment, the art genre presents it alongside intense expressions of love and passion. Noe’s representation of the female body designs it as an exploration of female sexuality, rather than exploitation, with her male lover being gentle and showing affection towards it, solidifying its celebratory take. Von Trier exemplifies presenting the female body alongside thought-provoking concepts and interpretations through his juxtaposed editing. The art film liberates its women and their bodies from the carnage and shock value-based violence, instead, it celebrates the female form for its sensuality and beauty as supported through artistic editing and lighting choice.
What Does Film Do Specifically?
Film has been analysed and interpreted throughout theoretical history to hold medium specificity, meaning it has its own “unique and proper area of competence…that was unique in the nature of its medium.” (Greenberg, 1940). When agreeing with this, one is agreeing that a film has its own distinct material that cannot be identified in other art forms and so this material can be designed to convey ideas and interpretations only film can create. In my approach to the female body in film, I considered what a film does specifically to depict representations of the body onscreen when compared to other art mediums such as sculptures or paintings. Delgado-Martin provided an introduction to this area in her assessment of Tamar Stone’s art, stating “women have long been the objects of mainstream social architecture. Their bodies have been moulded and framed, like buildings under construction. And in resonance with the same simile, like interiors, they have been decorated, disguising their original distinctive natures” (2013). This signals ideas of the female body in art as something to be manipulated for an alleged artistic purpose, a summary that is rather similar to some depictions of it in the medium of film.
The way that female bodies are “moulded” in sculptures and paintings requires a separate set of tools and skills to film, however, one could propose that they share a vision of the final product. A painting can emphasise specific parts of the female body, for example, it can be a full snapshot of a women’s back or her collarbone. The majority of paintings that show the female body feature representations that are created under conventional beauty standards, with women that are either delicate or sensual with their nude bodies on full display. The artists’ colour choice tends to be designed under the objective of contrast to highlight, with the nude and natural colour of the skin being contrasted against darker background colours to emphasise the overall body or body part. The brush leaves an imprint of the artist’s vision using a combination of colours and shades, in turn, leaving the observer with a specific depiction of the female form to interpret. As previously explored, filmmakers employ lighting and camera shots as their tools for constructing imagery of the female body. They can direct their lighting to either conceal or illuminate the body, even switching between the two. They can have the camera travel down it or remain fixed on one part, accompanied by a soundtrack as a means of elevating the emotional tone of the representation.
When identifying and comparing each art form’s medium specificity with regard to bodily representations, I found a separation based on fluidity and range. First of all, a painting is fixed and final in one image; a pose of the female body that the artist has selected, whereas a film can be fluid and represent a range of angles and images as a result of camera work and editing. To elaborate, the camera can move freely and capture a range of shots of the female form, at one moment it can be focusing on her hip and then her thighs or it can change between close-ups to medium shots, capturing the body in a wide landscape of visuals. A film’s editing can allow for an intellectual association, as displayed in Nymphomaniac, to create a wide range of interpretations. Unlike painting as an art form, film’s qualities signal the concept of an index as a signifier, meaning “a material trace that can be left without human intervention…the chemical impact of light on film” (Mulvey, 2006), meaning one can think of the film camera capturing something during filming as evidence that subject was there; a “footprint”. Therefore, the body as represented on film exists to spectators as proof that a physical being was in front of the camera, excluding CGI constructions, which separates film from painting as a painting of a body doesn’t always guarantee the body was in front of the artist. A further element of film’s medium specificity is that the body can be depicted in an overall and contextual narrative that is visually displayed, influencing spectatorial interpretations because the female body that is represented in front of them is coming from characterisation and previous plot events that can generate emotional alignment. Art in the form of a painting or sculpture is just one singular moment or image that exists without any context, thus, loaded emotional alignment is difficult to project for the painting spectator unlike for the film spectator.
Overall, film’s medium specificity in its’ unique trait of moving images that can be decorated and edited however one chooses assists in conveying meaning and sets it apart from other art forms such as paintings. The techniques that construct a film scene grant the filmmaker as an artist the freedom to manipulate the subject of bodies on the screen, such as repeating a certain shot of the body in order to emphasise its importance to spectators or changing the lighting that either illuminates or conceals it to lace the body with artistic credentials.
To conclude, film allows the female body to take many forms and interpretations, as endorsed by a specific genre’s codes and conventions which calls for a discrete compilation of film styles. Those who choose to display a woman’s body in the horror genre use its codes to align her with imagery of sex combined with death and thus, reduce any character she has to her body being a target of extreme violence. Art filmmakers contrast this, with portrayals of the female body that can be likened to art due to the predetermined selection of colours and lighting. These function to section the female form with emotive meanings that channel interpretations based on expressions of passion, in turn portraying the female body in a positive and empowering manner.
Bibliography
Creed, Barbara. ‘The Cyberstar: Digital Pleasures and the End of the Unconscious.’ In: Screen. Spring, 41:1. pp. 79–86, 2000
Clover, Carol, Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film, The Regents of the University of California, 1987
Hankins , Sarah, Torture the Women”: A Gaze at the Misogynistic Machinery of Scary Cinema, Copley Library Undergraduate Research Awards Copley Library, Fall 12–30–2019
Lemon, Grace, Female Victimization in the Horror Genre, Scene + Heard
Williams, Linda, Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess, Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 44, №4 (Summer, 1991), pp. 2–13 Published by: University of California Press
Harris, David, The Fly: David Cronenberg, Spectrum Culture, 2022
Valero, Gerardo, David Cronenberg’s “The Fly”, Robert Ebert.com, 2014
Kojder, Robert, Movie Review-Love, Flickering Myth, 2015
Ebert, Robert, Love Movie Review and Summary, Robert Ebert.com, 2015
Candela Delgado-Marín, « Tamar Stone’s Art: Rewriting the Female Body, 2013
Mulvey, Laura. Death 24x a Second : Stillness and the Moving Image, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central,