Most of the posts I’ve read have to do with how the movie Halloween, and society in general, treat men and women differently, but not much regarding women’s relationships with each other. Halloween is a valuable window into the twisted psyche of our social mores and how they effect the ways in which generations of girls and women interact with (or ignore) one another.
Firstly, because this point seems to be missing in the blogs of my peers, it is interesting to note that in the murder that opens the film, the camera is in first-person perspective with the killer. This trains us early to identify and sympathize with the murderer, and indeed to show us what it feels like to abuse and violate a nude woman. Also, since all of the female victims are nearly nude with sexual connotations at the time of their murders, we the audience are taught to sexualize violence and brutality against women. One could argue that this particular film is sure to be no ones sole source for socialization, but similar images, if taken daily since birth, of the forceful male and the glamorized, beautiful victim, begin to effect the way we view ourselves and each other.
The film paints for the viewer a clear picture of two groups of women, commonly referred to as the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy. First, let’s explore the “bad girls” : Judith, Annie, and Lynda. Judith has little personality to speak of, being the first victim, but what we do glean from our limited interaction with her is that she is sexually promiscuous, and that seems to be enough to justify ending her life. Next we come to the assertive Annie, who picks herself out as a target when she shouts at Michael as he drives by, “Hey, jerk! Speed kills!” only to be warned by the pristine and innocent Laurie that, “Someday, you’ll get us into deep trouble.” This seems to suggest that Annie’s behavior precipitated her own murder and the murder of her friends and was, in other words, “asking for it.” Lynda too is portrayed as a morally bankrupt, one-dimensional party-girl who dies as a result of her own actions. Indeed, had she never met up with her boyfriend, she might have lived.
The “good girls” are predictably less interesting. The nurse who’s car is stolen by Michael is submissive and bossed by the doctor and almost immediately relinquishes control of the vehicle when threatened. She lives by giving the aggressor what he wants. Secondly there is the virginal Laurie, who we learn is so chaste because, “guys think I’m too smart.” Laurie runs, impotent and squealing, to the neighbors house begging for help, but won’t go so far as to enter uninvited, via the large picture window to call the police. We later see Laurie cowering, whimpering in the closet and only fighting back, rather pathetically, at the last possible opportunity. Laurie is ultimately saved by a man who looked like he had just crawled out of his own grave. The message of this is clear: Women cannot be relied on to overcome male forces, only other men can save them. A dried-up carcass of a man is still more powerful and valuable than a young, healthy female, and women’s only avenue to power is by their proximity to male power.
The horror film Halloween, when viewed from this perspective comes off as a clumsily didactic morality play that is ruthless in it’s judgment of women. By suggesting that “good girls” are boring sticks-in-the-mud, and “bad girls” will, by association, “get you into trouble,” it expresses much not only about double-standards for men and women, but social conventions that divide (and conquer) women as well. Because women’s choices are limited by this mindset, they see each other as enemies and can be dismissed, by men, women, and society at large, as “too good” or “too bad” they are deprived of the unique perspective provided by intra-gender dialogue with women from other walks of life.
-Mae Wood
Very astute, Mae. I hope you are planning on going to grad school some day. I think you bring up a good point about the first person perspective of the camera in the beginning. Although I think that the film does much to distance us from Michael from that point on through repeatedly telling us how he is the devil incarnate, pure evil and inhuman, etc. I think there may be an attempt to get us to identify with Laurie, as well. But we’ll talk about it.