Gender Equality, but Make it White
How past troubles and white faces shape US horror.
First up on our horror journey is my home country: the United States.
Love us or hate us, we’ve contributed a lot to both the horror genre and to gender equality. Throughout the 70s and 80s, American horror was such a hit that it went international.
Towns in Ghana frequently held illegal drive-ins showing the latest US hits, complete with hand-painted movie posters. Several countries ripped off and remade “The Exorcist” for local audiences.
But underneath all the hype was a hurting and divided country. The 70s were fresh from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The Watergate scandal had just happened and the Vietnam war was worse than ever. In the 80s, we had McCarthyism, the Cold War, and a hardcore return to conservatism.
The funny thing about US gender equality is that it instills a sense of pride in womanhood while still upholding white patriarchal values.
Being too liberal had burned us, and that cynicism echoed through our horror movies.
In “The Exorcist,” a fatherless household devoid of religion becomes a breeding ground for possession. In “Halloween,” the chaste, studious virgin survives (through largely no feat of her own. She’s saved by a man who then kills her tormentor).
Flattering, right? Sexual agency will kill you. You can show your boobs to titillate your teenage audience, but expect a swift death. Be desirable and assertive, but virtuous. You can fight the bad guy, but let the man kill him for you.
The funny thing about US gender equality is that it instills a sense of pride in womanhood while still upholding white patriarchal values. It makes a pretty package, sure. Open it up and you realize that whatever was inside started rotting years ago.
As a Western white woman, I grew up largely ignorant of the problems gender equality avoided. I learned polished feminist history, scrubbed clean of the racism, transphobia and internalized misogyny of my presented foremothers.
The current message of US gender equality is detrimentally traditionalist: be white, be straight, and be aggressive, but not too much! Wouldn’t want to scare off the legions of interchangeable white men.
This is why I love our current horror trend. Right now, we’re seeing an influx of the unabashedly angry/unhinged woman characters. They’re tired of their abusers (“The Invisible Man”), angry at those with privilege (“Us”) and unapologetically voicing their grief and disdain (“Hereditary”) in a way I’ve never seen before.
And, bonus points, they don’t need to be raped or maimed for motivation.
I still want to know how Toni Collette got filming rights to arguments I used to have with my mother. I didn’t receive a single royalty for my pirated trauma. I’m pissed.
Films chosen: “The Exorcist,” (1973) “Halloween,” (1978) “Scream,” (1996) “Get Out,” (2017) and “Hereditary” (2018).
