Are Horror Films and Pornos Misogynistic?

D.R. Scott's article on The Violent Sexism of Horror Movies and Pornography is wrong. I don't mean that Scott's opinion is wrong - no opinion is wrong - his article is factually wrong. It's wrong through and through. It's incorrect. Unright. I guess I'll explain myself now.

I'm a horror fanatic. A quick perusal through my online portfolio would make it clear that I'm a light-sensitive horror geek. I know the genre inside and out. D.R. Scott is not a horror fanatic. He does not know the genre inside and not. However, he feels comfortable deriding it and claiming that it's misogynistic slush for amoral deviants. How can someone who is admittedly not an expert on a certain subject evaluate it with such self-righteousness? Isn't there a saying somewhere that says you can't judge something you don't know about? I'm sure there is, and I'm sure that it's worded better than that.

Take it from an expert. Horror films are not sexist. They are not misogynistic. While I'm not an "expert" on pornography, I'm of the opinion that 99% of it is not misogynistic either. But I won't be discussing porn at great lengths. Scott contends that most victims in splatter flicks are female. This is simply not true. He singles out High Tension for some reason. More men are picked off during that film than women. He probably didn't notice because he went in looking for a grisly female death to be appalled by.

Some horror films are especially cruel to the male gender. Take Takashi Miike's Audition, for example. Dear God, we get it good in this one. The lead character is tortured by his schizophrenic girlfriend in ways that made many male viewers squirm in their seats. A number of Italian thrillers from the 60's and 70's designated women as punching bags (or pin cushions, rather). Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper could easily be misconstrued as a misogynistic giallo (a "giallo" is a highly stylized Italian slasher). The female cast members are brutally murdered in graphic detail, but this is just one film. Perhaps Fulci had some issues. His films do not represent the horror genre as a whole.

The dead man-to-dead woman ratio evens out in the end. For every The Gore Gore Girls (a film concerning a psychopath who targets strippers), there's a Dahmer (no female victims here). Even with woodsy slashers, the villain is almost always slain by the heroine. If a woman being dismembered on celluloid is symbolic of chauvinism, then why isn't the token "final girl" in most fright fare symbolic of female empowerment? When it comes to movies, you can find any message that you want to find. It just depends on what message you are looking for.

D.R. Scott also argues that horror films shouldn't be easily accessible. He compares them to pornos, stating that since pornography isn't available in mainstream outlets, horror films shouldn't be either. He says that horror films are usually rated PG (???), and that any kid with an accompanying adult can watch them. First off, the films he castigates in his editorial (The Devil's Rejects, High Tension, Wolf Creek, Cabin Fever, Saw) are all rated R. Secondly, if a parent thinks it's okay for their child to watch R-rated films, who is he to say that they can't? Not everyone shares his views. Hell, all of the actresses in the aforementioned spookshows don't share his views (I know this from reading interviews), and they are the ones ostensibly being "victimized."

I'll devote this paragraph to pornography. Again, I've watched enough of it to know…um, let me rephrase that. I've been told that it's not misogynistic in the slightest. These actors are consenting adults who don't see sex as something filthy and demeritorious. If anything, porn deifies women. Let's analyze Scott's accusations. He says that porn is clumsy…sex can be clumsy in real life, can it not? He says that porn is vulgar…does he not get the point of porn? He says that porn is simplistic…again, does he not get the point of porn? He says that porn is mean-spirited…this, I don't understand. How is it mean-spirited? Is it mean-spirited because those involved enjoy it and profit off of it? I'm lost. Amateur pornography shot with a handheld can be seedy, but that's common knowledge.

Debbie Does Dallas and A Nightmare on Elm Street are as misogynistic as your average Lifetime original. They should be viewed as entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.