Santas e pecadoras: o estereótipo feminino nos filmes de horror slasher de Halloween (1978) a Pânico (1996)

Abstract

The research presented here analyzes how the construction of female characters in slasher horror films is influenced by social stereotypes, which are based on a patriarchal view of ideal female behavior. The subgenre in question emerged as a response to the liberalization of themes and behaviors on the big screen that occurred with the end of the Hays Code in the 1960s, a system of rules that regulated what could or could not appear thematically and visually in films commercially produced in the United States. However, even though they apparently opposed the Code, slasher films, in most cases, reinforced the conservatism that it propagated, especially in the treatment given to female characters. To understand this, we first seek to understand the roots of the subgenre by tracing a historical path that goes from Psycho (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960), considered precursors of slasher films, to Scream (1996). After this, we seek to understand how stereotypes arise and their relationship with clichés, based on what is presented by Ruth Amossy and Anne Herschberg Pierrot. From this, we analyze the relationship between female stereotypes and cinema and how women present themselves from the male gaze (male gaze), a term conceptualized by Laura Mulvey, but also discussed by E. Ann Kaplan. Finally, we propose a division into categories for female characters in slasher horror films: the mother, the best friend/bitch(s) and the final girl (a surviving girl who is or becomes the protagonist, a term coined by Carol J. Clover). The decision to not focus solely on the protagonists in the analyses is because it is necessary to make a comparison with the other women presented in each narrative, since these characters often serve to reinforce the stereotype that serves as the basis for the creation of the protagonist by personifying their own stereotypes. While the final girl represents an ideal of behavior that values virtue, chastity, maternal instinct (sometimes), respect for the law, the women that surround her in the narrative represent other feminine facets that are often placed in contrast to the protagonist.