Session 9: Fear, Horror and Terror at the Movies II

Session 9: Fear, Horror and Terror at the Movies 2
Chair: Maureen Moynihan

Portrayal of women in Popular Pakistani Cinema: Atypical Perspective
Rabia Hussain Kanwal
Center for Psychological Research, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

The present study was carried out to find out whether and to what extent Popular Pakistani cinema has been portraying stereotypical roles of women. The sample was consisted of 50 participants including 25 university students (13 females; 12 males) and 25 professionals, age range 20-35 years, 25 males; 25 females respectively. The standardized questionnaire was developed on the basis of Pakistani movies had been shown in Focus groups as the focus group had been divided in to two groups. However, structured interviews were also conducted. The famous movies, selected from last six eras, were shown to the participants in order to collect opinions about stereotypical roles of women in popular Pakistani cinema. The results indicated that illiterate film makers have been misrepresented the perception of women from self-sacrificing, stereotyping, civilized, gracefulness into liberal, vulgarity, materialistic, clumsy, and corrupt features. In the early eras, Pakistani actresses’ dialogues, film story, dances, and body languages had been represented true picture of all socio-economical classes of Pakistani women while in the present era the women role in movies has been depicted as western women, commercialization, and piece of sexually pleasure and gratification so the true picture was left far behind. There could be fear that in upcoming years Pakistani cinema markets would become desolate and annihilate.

Will You Still Love Me in the Morning?’: Gender Representation and Monstrosity in Alexander Aja’s High Tension
Joshua Cohen
Department of English Languages and Literatures, University of Northern Colorado, USA

Current scholarship on the horror film in relation to gender focuses primarily on the representation of female as a source of monstrosity. Studies on early horror cinema indicate that these films present a kind of doppelganger effect that mirrors patriarchal society’s fear of female sexuality and difference. Studies on later horror films, particularly the slasher genre, focus on repressed feminine sexuality as a source of monstrosity. While studies such as Carol Clover’s development of the Final Girl have helped portray the heroine of the story as female, her emphasis still focuses on a depiction of feminine sexuality as a source of horror.
Although many of the films produced in the horror genre lend themselves particularly well to such analyses, Alexander Aja’s 2003 slasher film High Tension presents a variation on the horror film’s traditional representation of female sexuality. While Marie the Final Girl is revealed towards the end of the film to be the psychotic killer, a reading of female sexuality as the source of monstrosity fails to perform a thorough analysis of the film’s depiction of gender. Instead I argue that High Tension presents an image of monstrosity that transcends the limitations and stereotypes associated with gender. With its conflation of both the killer and Final Girl, High Tension blurs the binary oppositions that exist between individuated masculine and feminine representations. In doing so, the film requires a spectator who observes not only the similarities but also the differences that the film shares with others in the genre. This paper draws on feminist as well as Lacanian and Kristevan psychoanalytic theory to analyze the methods that High Tension utilizes in order to comment on the state of monstrosity in modern society.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)

Transgressing Boundaries: Genies in Turkish Horror Films
Y.Gurhan Topcu
Film & TV Department, Communication Faculty, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey

After Atatürk founded the modern Turkish Republic in 1923, a number of radical reforms including the removal of Islamic practices from public life to create a secular and modern state were instituted. Western culture was taken as model for numerous subjects, such as education, laws, women rights. Those reforms differentiated dramatically religious thought from life. While most people supporting the secular reforms, tending to the West, the rest, particularly the rural ones, bound blindly up with Islamic thought. Governments, after death of Atatürk, conceded about secularism up till now. And finally in 2002 an Islamic based party, Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP), was elected. By 2007, AKP reinforced its position by raising the votes.
Even though AKP claim that they are not a threat for the regime, the laics concern seriously about their religious based actions in which AKP infuse to daily life step by step. While influencing the social life, the religious dynamics blur the boundary between those of secular and themselves. As Islamic movement getting strengthened, the laics feel threats on daily basis. The fear of being dominated by an Islamic regime expressed via various media one of which is cinema.
Horror films are considered as indicators of social fears by means of cultural representations. Horror films, particularly during crisis period, reflect fear and anxiety caused by stated conjuncture by metaphors. Although horror is one of the least made genre in Turkish Cinema, 4 within 90 years until 2004, 18 horror films have made between 2004 and today.
This paper argues that recent films have reflected the metaphors of the mentioned crisis period. Three films, Dabbe, Musallat and Semum, in which protagonists are possessed by genies which, in Islamic thought, are created by the god and live in a different plane of existence, are investigated. But, in those films, the genies possessed the humans by passing beyond their dimension. This paper examines the role of genies as fear figures which represent rise of religious movement that break out of its plane, to the public sphere after AKP government.