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Thoughts on Sady Doyle’s Interview
“Horror is a soothing genre.. It’s upfront about how scary it is to be a woman.”
I was sold the moment I read this headline, and even moreso when I saw the picture of Medusa under it. Medusa got a bad rap, but that is another story.
I have been a feminist for years but I have been a horror fan even longer. I’ve slowly sussed out why I became a horror fan. Horror gave a terrified, and I don’t use that phrase lightly, terrified little girl the means to explore being afraid in a way that inured me to the feeling. I was consistently frightened as a little girl by men that I honestly feel hated women, or at the very least feared them in a way that made attacking them and tearing them down the biggest thing they did day to day. And any time I stuck out or didn’t defer I was attacked both emotionally and physically.
And that is what got me into horror.
Why horror is important to me now is exactly what Sady Doyle talks about.
“I find that horror is almost a soothing genre, because it’s very validating. It’s often not that far [removed] from reality. It uses dream logic to tell its story, but it’s still one of the few genres that’s really upfront about how scary it is to be a woman and how much violence goes into a woman’s life.”
Whenever people talk about feminism in horror they immediately talk about final girls, and I don’t want to talk about them. Final girls gave me my start, it gave me a means to see myself in a film, which was a great start. But final girls are for men, honestly. Purity, character building through suffering, young, nubile, beautiful… They are everything men want them to be. They are little horror surviving dolls, at least until the sequel comes out.
I saw a funny tweet the other day,
a tweet and a comment…
“Modern feminism is an attack on men.”
with the reply “Not all men.”
Haha, right?
Rotten Tomatoes recently had to change their policy on allowing reviews of movies before they come out theatrically. Apparently men hate women starring in, directing, or being the primary subject matter in movies so much that they will provide review after review, before they have even seen the movie, on how much they hate the movie, the star, the director, and the system that allowed that movie to be made. They hate Social Justice Warriors for daring to say that women, and gays, people of color, or of whatever difference from them, should be treated with the same respect as men.
Which brings up another little fun online quote.
“If women want equality, we should be able to hit them.”
The hatred and abuse is constant.
Being female brings a constant attack every day.
I was raised from infancy surrounded by physical and emotional abuse.
The first time a man touched my genitals and asked me if I liked it, I was 8 years old.
I was 12 or 13 years old the first time a man commented and yelled at me on the street
I have consistently been just a little afraid walking places by myself or riding the bus alone.
Many times men have used close proximity to touch me or rub against me in public.
I have been harassed online and in person by men my entire life.
All of these experiences are power plays, and based in anger and a want to hurt others.
Women deal with men’s anger every single day.
We are angry, we are afraid; we want to choose different paths, different roles. And horror movies talk about this. Even when it’s made by a man to say, ”Isn’t she fucking horrible!!” we grab it and claim it and say,
“OH MY FUCKING GOD YES, THAT IS MY ANGER, THAT IS ME, THAT IS MY HATRED AND FEAR AND THE CORNER THAT I HAVE BEEN SHOVED INTO!!”
The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar, Ex Machina, Stepford Wives, Under the Skin.
And then you have the ones we make and it’s filled with our anger and rage or even our depression.
The Babadook, Raw, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Jennifer’s Body.
Because there is horror that exists for girls that aren’t chaste. There is horror out there that exists for women. And it tells our stories like nothing else that I have found. So I watch horror, I watch it and rejoice, and rage, and cry, for the stories of the women on the screen. And I feel a little better for a little while, and sometimes that is as good as I can get.