Female Objectification In Stephen King's Carrie

Great Essays
Vampires, werewolves, and monsters of all kinds have been prevalent in the horror genre, but the monstrous-feminine is comparably different. Whereas male monsters shock and terrify the audience through violence and bodily transformations, the female monster is horrifying in relation to her sexuality. The horror genre has frequently perpetuated patriarchal ideologies with scenes objectifying women using the ‘male gaze’ and punishing women for any kind of sexuality. Brian de Palma’s 1976 film adaption of Stephen King’s novel Carrie is no different. Although marketed to young women, Carrie is fraught with female objectification and fetishization with an overall lack of progressive female characters. It would seem having a female protagonist as …show more content…
Laura Mulvey notes Freud’s term ‘scopophillia’ in relation to objectifying women on screen, because of the pleasure in looking and “taking other people as object, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (6). Mulvey calls this the ‘male-gaze’. In a film with almost exclusively female characters, it seems the male-gaze should be abolished with female subjectivity, but De Palma manages to include it taking on the gaze himself through the camera lens. Particularly in the shower scene, the male-gaze is seen when the camera pans through the locker room roaming over the naked bodies of the high school girls. The scene plays out like a misogynistic fantasy of young female bodies on display touching each other through the steam-filled lock room like “ethereal creatures, nymphs at the water pond” (Lindsey, 35). The audience is removed from the scene by lack of diegetic sound and put into a voyeuristic point of view taking pleasure and power over the passive female characters. The next shot is of Carrie sensually washing her body and touching her breasts, but the shots cut up her body into tiny sexualized pieces thereby fetishizing her body. Alternatively Peirce’s version of the shower scene takes out the nudity and projected male fantasy to portray a more realistic version of a female locker room from a female perspective. Instead the scene shows Carrie’s vulnerability and isolation as she carefully undresses and uses the open shower, when no one else is around. The scene is juxtaposed by as shot of the clamoring girls in the locker room changing and interacting without any sexualized connotation. Peirce’s shower scene provokes deeper meaning into the emotional state of Carrie and the reality of high school females without objectification or

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Susan Minot's Lust

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Written in 1984, Susan Minot’s short story “Lust” is a tale about a young teenager’s sexual encounters and its effects on her female psyche. In a clutter of unorganized paragraphs, the narrator expresses her sexual history and feelings towards these sexual encounters. She focuses on the gender roles that are the complete opposite of what would be expected during the feminist movement of the 1970’s and the 1980’s, implying Minot’s personal views on the effectiveness of the movement, as well as talking about the pressure and expectations of women by society and how those expectations show signs of lust, not love. Right out the start, Minot creates a very nonchalant tone for the narrator.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Binary gender roles, and their perceived differences, are very prevalent in most cinema, but perhaps none are so stark and telling as those in torture porn. In his article, “The Problem of Saw: ‘Torture Porn’ and the Conservatism of Contemporary Horror Films”, Christopher Sharrett describes the role of the predatory captor as it relates to gender.1 Males almost always occupy the role, playing the part of vigilante as a “cruel but necessary father” who believes it is his duty to teach his moralities to his victims (34). Lockwood also points out voyeurism as a key characteristic of male captors, drawing attention to the focus the films give to the captor spying on the intended victim before their capture in some torture porn films (43).2 When…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Summary: In “(Un)safe Sex: Romancing the Vampire,” professional copywriter Karen Backstein, explores the interest of vampire movies in the 21st century and changes made to keep the genre relevant. Backstein believes society and humankind are evolving and rapidly changing, vampires are also evolving so that they can survive and continue to interest people in popular culture. Modern vampires, Backstein notes, work to control their impulses so as not to harm the ‘heroine’, who is strong, resourceful, and smart (38). In her essay, Backstein begins by explaining what exactly vampires in popular culture have become.…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The constant stereotyping of women in novels such as Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, fuels sexism in readers by insisting that expression of femininity equates to a lack of power. Although, power is not everything, and not every woman is in a position of power, it is important that young women see women doing important things and being in positions of authority.…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Other films that focused on the gaze, sexual objectification and active women are Sex and the city, Magic Mike and The Blue Lagoon. Freud in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality argues that the gaze is a “function of desire,” one that successively creates desire in the gazer (Zolfagharkhani and Ramezani, 2012 p2). Furthermore, Zolfagharkhani and Ramezani defined gaze as remarkable and distinctive position among human’s senses from the old times. They also stated that “vision is not limited to what we see or look at, but it refers to both inner and outer results of looking” (Zolfagharkhani and Ramezani, 2012 p1). These views classifies the act of gaze as powerful and important action that can amount to unpredicted results.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lobster Night Analysis

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Again, she submits to the male authority’s desire, Noonan is hero and victim and Stacy returns to her marginalized role as “a babe” (35) whom everyone wants to get a piece of—the objectified, sexualized woman, easily trapped and controlled by male…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the confronting documentary, Audrie & Daisy, film makers Bonni Cohn and Jon Shenk depict a completely biased and illusory stance on the aftermath of two teenage sexual assault victims. A range of conventions are expertly used, positioning the viewers to believe that the government and social media have, to an extent, influenced the victimization of Daisy Coleman, and the tragic suicide of Audrie Pott. Through the perpetuation of socio-cultural values and stereotypes inherent in American high schools, the employment of certain film techniques, specifically special effects, and a discerning use of language choices through editing, Cohn and Shenk have carefully manipulated the audience to sympathize and agree with their views regarding the…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The article, ‘Film Bodies: Gender, Genre & Excess’1 by Linda Williams explores whether the forms of sex, violence and emotion found in the genres of pornography, horror, and melodrama (specifically the woman’s weepie) respectively, are as gratuitous as my film scholars and critics believe them to be. Setting out to disprove this idea, Williams’ investigates and compares the form, function, and system of the three genres. Ultimately, William’s central claims reveal the value in the supposed excess of these three genres that benefit a spectator in a variety of ways. Seeking to argue her idea, Williams’ firstly uncovers why elements of these genres are regularly deemed as excessive. This is presented with the contrast of Classic Hollywood and…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Many people in today’s world are used to only one way; the way they grew up. People tend to judge each other and act cruel to them if they differ from what they are used to. They make it seem like the person that is different is the monster, but it is themselves since they treat each other cruelly. In The Monster by Stephen Crane, Henry Johnson is viewed as the monster because he got his face severely burned. His face got burned from saving little Jimmy Trescott, from a burning house, now the town’s people see him as a hideously dangerous monster that no one wants to be around.…

    • 1342 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of feminism is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” While this definition should be the goal for humankind, feminism also encompasses many other problems with society that cannot be explained through one simple definition. One of these problems happens to be the stereotypes associated with women. For example, in the American 1950’s, an almost normal way of treating women was simply by brushing them off in intellectual conversation, believing women were only valued for their maternal instinct. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden reaffirms similar stereotypes to this, including weakness, stupidity, and the objectification of a woman’s body for sexual…

    • 1264 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1921, Florence Cathcart, a notorious author and paranormal hoax exposer from London is invited to an elite boys boarding school in the countryside to investigate alleged sightings of a child ghost. Cathcart is an educated woman from a wealthy family who will disprove anyone who questions her professional credibility. Her investigation at the school uncovers a whole part of her past she did not know existed. Through The Awakening, we are exposed to gender portrayals and roles that are typically found in horror films. A slight reversal of traditional gender portrayals in horror movies is displayed in Cathcart, but when faced with fear itself, everyone is subject to being overwhelmed with fright regardless of gender.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For example, viewers learn of an affair with a married man and her tendency of sleeping with men with little emotion and for purely sexual purposes. At one point in the film, the lead female character demonstrates a tendency of hypersexual behaviors through questioning, “what kind of sex isn’t casual” and engaging in a sexual relationship with an orderly. Stereotypes about hyper sexualized women are further implicated when the main character enters a budding relationship with another female patient. Although a shared kiss between the two seems innocent, it is a pivotal scene in further misrepresenting the sexual desires of mentally ill women. The film, based on the novel by Susanna Kaysen, was directed and produced by males.…

    • 1292 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Acknowledging the contradictions between Legally Blonde’s fixation with an attractive appearance and feminism, according to Dole (2007, p. 63), feminist commentators do not agree that Elle would be a suitable role model. O’Leary states that the film, ‘becomes a subversive tool for motivating young feminists’. Columnist, Ellen Goodman, argues for many second-wavers, if a difference can be seen between the ‘new Hollywood message that women can be dolled up and successful’ and the earlier message that you’re only successful ‘if you’re a doll’ (cited in Dole, 2007, p. 63). While Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality maintain sisterhood values and liberation. Gracie’s feminism is shown to be actively destructive, instead of being useful for women, possibly crueller than patriarchy.…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This movie exemplifies many gender roles, gender inequalities, and discrimination against women that are present in today’s society. If one were to watch this movie and recognize the theme of gender and see the gender messages that are apparent, then much valuable information can be gained from this movie rather than just pure entertainment. This movie accurately reflects society’s beliefs that women are inferior to men in all aspects, but with particular emphasis on sports and physical activity. The movie is based off the stereotypical belief that in order for a woman to even be considered as equal to a man that she must dress up and pretend to be a man. It exaggerates the social norms that men are the dominate sex and that women are totally dependent on men.…

    • 2223 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sexism And Homophobias

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I sat in my film class, my head against the desk, salvaging what was left of my attention span. The class was silent and dark and we all looked toward the screen somewhat attentively. We were watching saturday night fever, a film known for the way that it mirrors the 70s. For the teachers in the room the film oozed with nostalgia and the disco slipped people into a trance of foot tapping. Personally, my toes were prepared for anxious curling through the sexism, racism, and homophobia already fermented in the film.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays