Men,women and chainsaws

‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’ Reading What did Clover mean by the ‘female victim-hero’?

In Clovers publication she says that a character such as Carrie is a victim-hero (hero implying some degree of monstrosity in the case of this specific use) in the way that she is the victim of her monstrous peers and also a monstrous hero due to how she risen in order to defeat the forces of monstrosity through her becoming monstrous.

Why does Clover say that males relate to the final girl in horror films?

Clover writes that in horror films the final girl is the one being oppressed by both their peers and the typically supernatural/inhuman villain. The male audience will relate more to the final girl due to them knowing what it’s like to be bullied by their peers and they will also be separated from the male villain due to their inhuman aspects for example in Halloween, the male audience will relate more to Laurie’s social situation more than Michael’s childhood trauma and supernatural abilities.

Why does Clover suggest that horror research is problematic?

Clover says that horror research is problematic due to how much variance there is in the horror genre in regards to the amount of sub genres that exist and how they vary to such a degree that they all have specific types of people that go to see them, as such Clover had to look at American Cinematic Horror rather than the genre as a whole.

Who does Clover suggests makes up the typical horror audience?

The suggested makeup of the horror audience is as follows: young men; male-female couples; Solo “rogue males” and groups of adolescent girls. Clover notes that there seems to be a male bias in terms of the majority of a horror films audience and this is also backed up by the publications known as fanzines as they seem to also target a male audience. When it comes to video rentals the results comply with the ones for horror film screening with a male bias being 4:1 when it came to rentals, of course these results were from a small pool of rental shops and as such are merely suggestive rather than concrete and the question of whether the men are the only ones watching the tape when they bring it home.

What are the two ways identified by Clover in which audiences identify with the characters?

The two ways identified by Clover were primary (with the camera) and secondary (with the character of empathetic choice), Clover notes that the two interact in ways which benefit each other, with the camera being able to produce empathy in how it presents a character and the empathetic choosing of a character by the audience allowing the camera to manipulate the audience emotionally for a desired effect.