Women filmmakers capture the fear of 2020
SOMETIMES WOMEN REPRESENT FRAGILITY AND innocence in horror movies, symbols of purity worth saving; what would King Kong have been without his tiny captive inamorata Fay Wray? Other times they’re sympathetic companions or spokespeople for misunderstood monsters. But their allure goes further and deeper than that—especially when it’s women who are doing the looking.
Today the term is thrown around more loosely than its originator, filmmaker and film theorist Laura Mulvey, intended. Even when there’s a man behind the camera, the lens doesn’t always simply cater to man’s desires. Women love watching other women; we identify, we admire, and sometimes we feel a frisson (or more) of desire. Other times we recoil, though that may
