By Nia Edwards-Behi
Put two horror fans in the same room as each other and they’ll undoubtedly find countless films to collectively gush over, sharing their love for a broad and persevering genre until the cows come home. Give a whole bunch of horror fans internet access and conventions and film festivals and you’ll end up with what’s generally known as ‘the horror community’, a whole bunch of different people with a shared love for horror coming together to squeal and shout about the films they love. Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Before those horror fans light a campfire and start singing kumbaya, though, the idiomatic cows do, indeed, come home, and suddenly, someone likes a film that someone else doesn’t. The great joy of any community of fans is the variety of opinion that emerges once the shared interests have been established.
It’s fair to say that one of the most contentious issues to arise in the horror community in the past five years is that of Women in Horror. I capitalise the phrase there because obviously women have always been around in horror; however, as a purposeful and organised movement, it has only recently emerged. Back in February 2010, the first Women in Horror Recognition Month took place, a grassroots campaign that I’m happy to say I was a part of. I’m one of those apparently rare beings who came to love horror relatively late in life, and my love for the genre flourished much alongside my time at university studying film. So while in 2009 the first early whisperings of Women in Horror Recognition Month were taking place, so I was writing essays about Last House on the Left, Paul Leni and Men, Women and Chainsaws.
Events as part of the campaign mostly took place in North America, and I wanted to bring part of the energy and enthusiasm to the UK so I put on my own event, Ghouls on Film, where I screened some horror films by women; little realising at the time the significance of world premiering Dead Hooker in a Trunk, I might add. Given that forty people showed up to this entirely independent, not very widely advertised, barely a big name in sight event was, to me, testament that there was interest in seeing some cool horror films specifically made by women.
The campaign has grown and grown in the past five years, with vocal support from those involved and those who have benefitted the most. The voices of those who found such a campaign irrelevant, unnecessary or somehow downright offensive have also understandably grown since 2010. Like Women in Horror Recognition Month or dislike it, there’s no denying the visibility and significance of the campaign, officially and unofficially.
What was and is the purpose of the campaign? Quite simply, to use the 28 days (get it?) of February as a concentrated way of celebrating and drawing attention to women working in the horror industry, and in doing so draw attention to the apparent under-representation of women in the field. This is something that had immediately appealed to me, as I was relatively new to the genre at the time and looking for more people a bit more like me who were passionate and involved in the field. I might add in the same breath, though, that I’m very lucky to have known some great women involved with horror from the outset, academically, industrially and as fans. When you’re still getting the ‘ew, horror’ and ‘but you’re a girl!’ reactions to telling people you’re a horror fan, though, the more important a feeling of sort of safety-in-numbers can be.
I suppose what the campaign doesn’t seem to have achieved, however, it to bring that aim to more mainstream attention. Sure, we can discuss Women in Horror Recognition month on our blogs and niche websites and know exactly who and what we’re talking about, but outside of that arena? Not so much – one need only see the Guardian’s salivating over Ben Wheatley with barely a mention of Amy Jump as evidence of that (not conclusive evidence admittedly, as the spectre of auteurism hanging heavy on British film criticism is a factor there too). I don’t think that this is necessarily a fair ‘criticism’ of the campaign; given its grassroots beginnings, that it has already grown so much is a real achievement. The campaign proper might seem to be groups of familiar names discussing familiar topics and supporting upcoming filmmakers – which is, I strongly note, commendable – but its greatest achievement is precisely what seems to also cause the most trouble: it gets people talking.
Yes, there are criticisms to be made of the campaign proper, from complaints about the timing of the campaign, to the way in which it’s run, to the fact it’s completely unnecessary. I’m not going to fully articulate the main complaints about WiHRM here because frankly I’m well aware there are queues and queues of people who are willing to do that – and have already done that – for me. But the criticisms have been broader than a few clashes of character during the month of February; they’ve extended to criticisms of the broader vocal support for female filmmakers in the genre that happens all year round. If this has been the case previously, it has been increasingly the case over the past five years, presumably due to the success of WiHRM in bringing attention to the issue. Again, some of these criticisms are perfectly valid; however, from my perspective at least, a great deal of the mud slung has been bitter and illogical. It is, though, natural that the increase should be noticeable, given, as I’ve said, the increase in people just plain talking about the issues at hand – and I’m not for a second saying that people shouldn’t be talking about it, whatever their point of view.
There’s no denying that the Soska Sisters and the relative success of American Mary became quite the focal point for clashing opinions (clashes I very purposefully stayed far away from at the time). While for some, the Soskas were and are horror’s brightest new stars, for many others their self-promotion and public personas were entirely objectionable. It seems to me that their success is not that much different from, say, the success of Adam Green with Hatchet, and his own public persona and interaction with fans. Yet – and by all means, I’m open to be corrected on this – I don’t remember the same backlash to his popularity. I’m by no means going to sit here and type under some self-illusion that I’m an unbiased commentator; however, given the ultimately niche nature of the kind of films we’re discussing here, what filmmaker wouldn’t shout as loudly as they could about a film that breaks out of that niche, even if only slightly? With American Mary’s relative success, the Soskas became figureheads for both sides of the debate. As a result, for me, many of the cracks in the naysayers’ side of the debate started to show more clearly. That prominent bloggers can argue that women filmmakers who ‘dress sexily’ and complain about not being treated equally are asking for such treatment speaks volumes of their lack of understanding of most of the issues that still need addressing in the debate.
While it’s true that the on-screen representation of female characters in horror has vastly improved throughout the decades, with women often overcoming the horror, or being the horror themselves, that’s not to say it’s without problems. My eyes grow strained from rolling at DVD cover after DVD cover that use a woman’s body to sell the film in a way which has absolutely zero relation to the content of the film, or, sometimes, when it does. Representation on screen is only part of the problem, of course, with the much greater issue being representation off-screen; that is, in the industry. Now, again this is a situation which has seen a great deal of improvement: I can easily reel off a list of names of women in the horror film industry with whom I’ve had even the slightest involvement in the past year. I can’t deny that I’m very proud to have been able to boast four films directed by women at last year’s Abertoir, as well as having been asked to be part of the great Women in Horror calendar alongside a great number of other talented women. However, much in line with the film industry as a whole – hell, much in line with industry, and business and, you know, society as a whole – the situation is far from equal or ideal, and until that’s the case anything that supports the progression of it is fine by me.
Regardless of what the various and myriad arguments for or against supporting ‘women in horror’, in whatever guise, as far as my opinion is concerned, Women in Horror Recognition Month barely scratches the surface of the issue, and the broader issue of the under-representation of women in the genre is merely a drop in the broader issue of the under-representation of women in mass-media full stop. If the spirit of Women in Horror Recognition Month does anything right, it’s that it celebrates talent and energy and passion. While the appreciation of any art is entirely subjective, celebrating those who create art and try to make things happen is, to me, a helluva a lot more important than superficial statistical tools like the Bechdel Test. Of course, ‘women in horror’ doesn’t solve every single problem of representation in the genre, nor does it seek to do so. Horror, again like much popular media, is an overwhelmingly white and straight genre, and no amount of hard work for the greater visibility of women in horror is necessarily going to change that. It does, however, fight its own battle, and theoretically and hopefully opens doors for a greater variety of representation in horror. Classic horror itself has always lent itself to telling stories that allowed minorities to be afforded some degree of sympathy, though often through the cyphers of sympathetic monsters who are ultimately destroyed – there’s a reason we often remember and love the monsters and not the heroes. But it’s really time we moved beyond metaphor.
To end on a personal note, I daresay that without the Women in Horror movement, my involvement with the genre would not be what it is today (judge for yourself if that’s a good thing or not!). My passion for the genre was well and truly cemented during the first Women in Horror Recognition Month and without that I’m not sure I would have persisted past ‘casual viewer’ as much as I like to think I have. Regardless of any real-world difference it may or may not make, I, for one, look forward to celebrating Women in Horror Recognition Month in its fifth year. More important, though, is continually taking that spirit of celebration and support to heart all year round.