Representation in the Film

Stereotyping in films is considered to be negative in some ways, as it pulls on things that aren't necessarily true to the role but are easily spotted by an audience trying to get the know the characters. The female characters in particular are seen as victims and are mainly the first killed. This is because they are seen as weaker than men and cannot stand up for themselves and fight. This is something we wish to subvert in our film by including some more independent and strong-willed female roles, including a female antagonist. 

To look into representation in horror films, I looked at the opening scene from the 1996 film "Scream". The opening scene features Drew Barrymore as the naive teenage girl left home alone. This is very overused in horror films and is very cliched, however it lets the audience in on the fact that something unusual may happen. 

When you see girls in horror films, they are usually young, beautiful and quite naive. The stereotype of blondes, especially in film, is innocent and lacking common sense. This is shown in "Scream" by the girl continuing to answer the phone to the man she doesn't know. She continues to pick the phone up when it keeps ringing, and even gets into a conversation with the man she doesn't know. This is cliched yet lets the audience know that something is definitely going to happen to her as she is the ditsy blonde who doesn't have enough common sense to stop answering the phone. The audience knows not to pick up the phone - another cliche of horror films where the audience knows something that the characters don't - which is what makes the scene so tense and intriguing as they want to see what happens to her. 

However, she subverts stereotypes by going to lock the doors and the windows after realising who she is speaking to on the phone. This is subverting as she is trying to keep herself safe without the need for a male protagonist going to save her. She is doing something sensible and something that the audience would do as well, subverting the dumb blonde naive teenage stereotype. 

In our film, we would like to subvert stereotypes with a female antagonist and strong female characters throughout. Although we are going to have a male protagonist trying to figure out the murder of his friend, we open with a predominant focus on the female characters. The victim, however, will be a bit naive and oblivious to conform to some stereotypes of the genre in order to keep the audience interested in the rest of the film.