Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The plot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, directed by Tobe Hooper, is everything that I imagined it to be before watching. A gory, objectifying and somewhat predictable story of young people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What I found very interesting about this film is how much of it is linked to the ideas that Carol Clover discusses in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Throughout the first chapter "Her Body Himself," Clover examines common attributes of the slasher genre, and so many of them directly apply to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One attribute Clover focuses on is the concept of the "Final Girl." In this film, the final girl is Sally. Like Clover explains, we see Sally for most of the film. Her suffering and fight against Leatherface is the longest and most drawn out of all the characters. Although I do not believe she is depicted necessarily as a "tomboy" or less feminine than the other female character, Pam, Sally definitely has a harsher personality and is, more obviously, wearing more clothes than Pam. Despite her less feminine depiction, she still is brutally tied up, captured, and chased by three men.
I think another piece of this film that is important is the "other girl." In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there are only two female characters which really illuminates the dichotomy between the "Final Girl" of slasher films and the other girls who are eliminated before her. As I said earlier, the most noticeable difference between Sally and Pam is how Pam is wearing less clothes than Sally. There are multiple shots of Pam where her lower body is the focus as she is in shorts. Pam is the second character to die by the hands of Leatherface. It is intriguing that her murder is so much more drawn out than the other character's. She is also killed in a much more tortuous way than the male characters so the audience if forced to witness her kicking, screaming, and crying. Her murder takes the time of minutes while the others take seconds. One quote from the reading by Linda Williams I find to really relate to Pam's character is explaining how "sadomasochistic teen horror films kill off the sexually active 'bad' girls, allowing only the non-sexual 'good' girls to survive" (Williams 8). Pam's character is killed off so dramatically and early on because she represents female sexuality much more than Sally does.
I found this movie to be somewhat entertaining to watch (it was especially helpful to watch with some friends in this class over facetime), but I was definitely shocked at how apparent the gender issues brought up in both of the readings were throughout.
I found this movie to be somewhat entertaining to watch (it was especially helpful to watch with some friends in this class over facetime), but I was definitely shocked at how apparent the gender issues brought up in both of the readings were throughout.
YES! I mentioned the same thing in my post that you wrote about in your second paragraph here-- it is really surprising how closely the ideas in the book followed the film! Obviously, the ideas in the book were based off of slasher films like this, but TCM followed her ideas so closely that it's hard to imagine that the other movies she mentioned would even feel like a different movie (I have seen seen some of the movies she mentioned and they didn't really)!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing you mentioned was the difference between Sally and Pam. I noticed this too, and it's so obvious that she is going to die based off of the way she was presented to the audience. As Clover said, "sexual transgressors are scheduled for early destruction". She is (apparently) obviously sexually active, going off of her exposed back and legs, the shots of her from behind and below (namely the one at the gas station) , and the fact that her and her boyfriend ran off to, I don't know, smash or something? Nothing says "I want a meat hook in my back" like a backless shirt, amirite? And on the other hand, Sally's long white pants (white being pure, virginity) is a clear sign that she is our Final Girl.
Agreeing with both you and Karin. I was calling it out as it happened, especially when Pam and her boyfriend went to go to "swim". LIKE PLS BE MORE OBVIOUS. hahaha. Also! Pam being especially tortured for her sexual demeanor as the other girl is a great catch. All of those booty shots had to lead up to something I suppose. I think that was especially apparent when Jeff opens up the freezer to find Pam STILL ALIVE. Like, wow, it wasn't enough to hang her from a meat hook, we had to keep her going, unlike her male counterparts. I even think the casting shows a contrast in Sally and Pam, apart from their clothing. Pam has "fun" curly hair which I think is a fetishized attribute vs Sally's straight light blonde locks which totally read virgin, just like her uber- fluorescent white pants.
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced that the "good girl / bad girl" dichotomy holds true in TCSM. We have no reason to perceive Sally as virginal (unlike Laurie in Halloween, whose lack of sexual knowledge is repeatedly brought up) and the film seems to suggest that there is a sexual relationship between her and Jerry. If anything, Franklin is established as the virginal character of the group (most obviously in the scene wherein everybody else goes upstairs to the bedrooms of the house while he merely complains). Furthermore, Sally even attempts to use her sexuality to escape from the Sawyer family. As Clover writes, "when Sally under torture (Texas Chain Saw I) cries out 'I'll do anything you want,' clearly with sexual intention, her assailants respond only by mimicking her in gross terms; she has profoundly misunderstood the psychology" (196).
ReplyDeleteI also am curious as to what you mean when you claim that the film is objectifying. To quote the conclusion of Clover's essay, "One is deeply reluctant to make progressive claims for a body of cinema as spectacularly nasty toward women as the slasher film is, but the fact is that the slasher does, in its own perverse way and for better or worse, constitute a visible adjustment in the terms of gender representation" (221). The very act of having a female protagonist in a film aimed primarily at men in 1974 is shocking and, as Clover's article reveals, very, very complicated.
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DeleteI think your characterization of this film as being "somewhat predictable story of young people being in the wrong place at the wrong time" is the most accurate yet understated claim of all time. I also like your discussion of the final girl versus the other girl and can see from the discussion that it sparked that it something that we should explore in more detail as we continue to look at Clover's work.
ReplyDeleteI watched Friday the 13th the other day, and the similarities between the two films were so apparent, especially pertaining to this issue.
ReplyDeleteThe whole "young people being in the wrong place at the wrong time thing" seemed super clear", since they were all young kids isolated at a summer camp where again, everybody was like "DO NOT GO THERE YOU WILL DIE" but they ignored it because I don't know, young people kind of think they're invincible.
Also the main girl (final girl) was definitely characterized as virginal, especially compared to the first girl who died, since she literally was murdered right after having sex. She was playing strip Monopoly (lol) and was the only one fully clothed.