“The Male Gaze in Slasher Films”

Slasher films are very easy to interpret as anti-woman for many reasons. If we take Halloween (John Carpenter 1978), for example. The movie begins with a teenage girl completely undressed, as a little boy brandishing a knife enters her room and stabs her to death after witnessing her "making out" with her boyfriend. This happens again and again throughout the film. Our antagonist witnesses a woman being comfortable in her sexuality (or even just comfortable in her body) and then brutally murders her as a result. 

But he doesn't just murder (or, try to murder) confident women, he also tries to murder intelligent women. Our main character in Halloween 1978 is a very intelligent girl and is comfortable in her academic prowess; she often says she doesn't want to date and is unconcerned with relationships. And so, our antagonist relentlessly hunts her down. In this universe (like most slasher film universes) you can't be a flirtatious, sexual woman nor a modest, prudent woman. Both are opposite ends to a scale, and the male gaze hates both. So, the antagonist is written to murder any and all women the male gaze doesnt approve of. If you're thinking that there couldn't be another version of womanhood that is frowned upon, you're wrong. Using the same example, Halloween 1978, we also meet a mother and a nurse, both of whom are murdered without a second thought. Again, two ends of a scale that are frowned upon: a stay at home mother and wife, and a single, career driven nurse. The male gaze see both of these as negatives and, again (no surprise) they're murdered.

Now, it could be construed that these examples only ring true in this particular film, but we see it again and again throughout slasher films. We see it in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974, Black Christmas 1974, Tourist Trap 1979, etc. We even see evidence of this in Hitchcock's classic Psycho 1960. Confident, strong, independent women being killed by male antagonists for no reason other than they were women.