What is “status quo”? It
is defined by Webster dictionary as the existing state of affairs. That means
that it is nothing more than the way things are in a normal situation. Most people
choose to think of the status quo as the norm. It is simply the way things are
normally. Horror films take the status quo move away from it. The purpose of
horror films are the take an audience member outside of his or her comfort zone
and out of their status quo. There is a connection between the monster,
protagonist and the status quo. This connection can be seen through looking at
gender roles and the view of the family. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great
example of gender roles and the nuclear family being stretched.
In the film, the role of
gender is shown in two ways: conventional and unconventional. The conventional
gender roles can be seen in the relationship between Kirk and Pam. The film was
made in 1974 while there was a movement where teens were moving away from the
ideas of the nuclear family and into ideas of free loving and free thinking. Kirk and Pam are the perfect example of this. Kirk
is the strong masculine man while Pam is a more complacent woman who relies on
Kirk for protection and confidence. She is seen wearing a backless shirt which
would show her connection to the new movement of free thinking teens.
The counterpart to them are Franklin and Sally. They are siblings so obviously the relationship between the two of them is different. The relevance their relationship has pertains to the gender relationship between the two them. Franklin is confined to a wheelchair. He has an inability to do many things without the aid of someone, and in this movie, that someone is his sister. The gender role is switched, Sally is empowered over her brother because of a simple ability, the ability to walk. This ability is what actually gets her saved in the end over her brother. “The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights—or outgazes—her assailant is unthinkable in the films of De Palma and Hitchcock. Although the slasher film’s victims may be sexual teases, they are not in addition simple-minded, scheming, physically incompetent, and morally deficient in the manner of these filmmakers’ female victims” (Clover 84). Clover says this talking about his idea of the Final Girl. In most horror films preceding this, the blonde haired girl would inevitable die. But in Texas Chainsaw Massacre the blonde girl beats out her aggressors and survives in a sure-death situation.
The counterpart to them are Franklin and Sally. They are siblings so obviously the relationship between the two of them is different. The relevance their relationship has pertains to the gender relationship between the two them. Franklin is confined to a wheelchair. He has an inability to do many things without the aid of someone, and in this movie, that someone is his sister. The gender role is switched, Sally is empowered over her brother because of a simple ability, the ability to walk. This ability is what actually gets her saved in the end over her brother. “The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights—or outgazes—her assailant is unthinkable in the films of De Palma and Hitchcock. Although the slasher film’s victims may be sexual teases, they are not in addition simple-minded, scheming, physically incompetent, and morally deficient in the manner of these filmmakers’ female victims” (Clover 84). Clover says this talking about his idea of the Final Girl. In most horror films preceding this, the blonde haired girl would inevitable die. But in Texas Chainsaw Massacre the blonde girl beats out her aggressors and survives in a sure-death situation.
Another unconventional
view in this film is the view of the nuclear family. The murderers are a
strange group of people that make up a family. You have a grandfather, father,
and two sons. Just looking at this there is no nuclear family there at all.
When looked into deeper, you can make the argument that there is one. Leather Face,
one of the sons, is shown as a woman. When they are at the dinner table,
Leather Face is wearing an apron and is serving dinner. The father is just as
he seems, the father. He is the man of the house and just as he would be in a
normal patriarchal household. He is protecting the boys from the dangers that
they are not aware of, like getting caught. The father is the most public
person in the family as he owns a gas station. Then there is the son who in
this movie is the hitchhiker. He is the most immature one of the group proving
that he is the child in their nuclear family. Carol J. Clover said, “If the
killer has over time been variously figured as shark, fog, gorilla, birds, and
slime, the victim is eternally and prototypically the damsel. Cinema hardly
invented the pattern” (Clover 79). This oddball
version of the nuclear family is a different choice for a monster. They show
that in the times the nuclear family is under threat.
In this movie, all is returned to normal and the audience
gets a feeling of relief when Sally is riding away in the back of the pickup
truck. Her connection to her monsters is broken and therefore the status quo is
reached.
Work cited
Clover,
Carol. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Horror, the Film
Reader. Ed. Mark Jancovich. Psychology Press, 2002. 77-86.
No comments:
Post a Comment