The Camera, The Witch, and The Folklore: The Blair Witch Project
As always, spoilers ahead!
Women are oft the most numerable sex on screen in horror films. Though it has become more common for women to show up as heroes in horror–a new-wave version of The Final Girl–women are historically the monsters or the victims of horror films. Carol J. Clover, the author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film — the bible for us gender critique-ers of the horror persuasion — aptly observes:
“The fact that female monsters and female heroes, when they do appear, are masculine in dress and behavior…would suggest that gender inheres in the function itself–that there is something about the victim function that wants manifestation in female” (Clover 12).
So though women populate horror more thoroughly, their function remains trapped within the male gaze; they should be considered villains, or their torture, chase, and murders should be as graphic as possible. Ultimately, screen time does not necessarily equate to female empowerment or positive representation.
Heather in The Blair Witch Project (1999) does not contend with the sexism of her peers, but…
