My Proposal

Final Project Proposal Women and the Media: Hasnah Farraj
Proposal: For my final project I would like to write my own horror story. I have done a lot of research and found many themes in horror movies to use to structure my story.While I do not know what I am going to write, because of my research I do know that I want to have a human killer and not one that is supernatural.
 
“Resurrecting and Updating the Teen Slasher”. In this article, I have found that it argued how the movie Scream appealed to young teenage women in that it no longer followed ordinary methods for making and directing horror films. Valerie Wee, the author of this article, argued how Scream challenged how young women were portrayed in horror films and that Scream broke those conventions. For example, this article discusses how women were no longer seen as individuals who were marked for death if they had relations as well as that they were “boyish” and un-feminine, if they did not partake in them (Wee 45). The theme in this article was about how Scream became a horror movie for young girls and how it challenged how girls were meant to be portrayed in horror films. As well as challenge the “set up”, such as rules to survive in horror films(Wee 45). Another theme that this article discusses is how Scream no longer had the serial killer be a misfit or an un-human like monster, but someone who was very much human, who became evil (Wee 55). As well as that the movie could indeed have commented on all of the unfortunate high school violences that were occurring in the decade (Wee 55). Lastly Scream was also a movie with the theme of revenge. 

“The Scream Trilogy ‘Hyper-postmodernism,’and the Late Nineties Teen Slasher Film” This article spoke about many ideas one of them was about changing horror films to widen the audience and this is the same theme as the previous paragraph. This article also spoke about how the main heros, Gale and Sydney, survive and work together to fight against their attackers, showing an empowered message for young girls (Wee 48).
 
In Wee’s other article “Visual Aesthetics and Ways of Seeing: Comparing Ringu and The Ring” Wee talks about the similarities and differences of the films and how they reflect and comment on their societies (Wee 50). For example, she discusses how Ringu has “Samara” look the way she does because in Japanese tales, vengeful ghosts and spirits look almost deformed  and disfigured (Wee 52). The theme of this article was culture and film comparison (Wee 54).
 
In “Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film”  Aviva Briefel, discusses the differences between male and female monsters in horror films (Briefel 20). She discusses how the male monsters generally inflict pain on themselves before doing so on their victims, which causes the audience to feel more sympathy with the victims and not the actual monster (Briefel 18). Whereas with female monsters, that generally will have a background story as too why it is that they are a monster and/or why they inflict, or plan to inflict, pain on their victims (Briefel 22). This causes them to have some sympathy from the audience (Briefel 23). The theme in this article was the comparison between female and male monsters.
 

In “Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements Of The Contemporary Horror Film” Professor Isabella Pinedo discusses many themes and ideas of horror films. One idea and theme that she discusses is hyperpostmoderinsim in these films and how it challenges societies view points and order (Pinedo 19). Part of hyperpostmoderinsim is that settings, regularity and the concept of moral and immoral is questioned  (Pinedo 22).