"Female Menace" In Hollywood Horror Film

This thesis deals with social gender awwareness of Hollywood Movies in light of feminist inspectation of Hollywood horror films , aiming to explore"female menace"as proposed. Horror film sweeps the world, and as an important type of film, the status of Hollywood horror film remains unchallenged by similar products of other countries, which is the reason why this thesis chose Hollywood horror film as a reseach object. Thanks to my long-time concern with female charaters in Hollywood horror film, the thesis mainly elaborates on these female parts with an aim to make an feminist interpretation of Hollywood horror movies based on such aspects as its history, social gender awareness, mental implications of female roles and horror effect in these movies.The thesis is comprised of five parts:Introduction sorts out current research situations of Hollywood horror film from both home and abroad, with an focus on those studies in feminist perspective.Chapter 1 gives a discription of and brief comment on variant deliminations of horror film from both home and abroad,meanwhile, this chapter also covers the hundred-year history of Hollywood horror film and touches upon the horrific female characters.Chapter 2 discusses strong socical gender awareness in Hollywood horror movies by way of horrific female characters. As we know, Hollywood horror film is a metaphor of and allusion to Amercan social mentality and trends of thoughs in that Hollywood horror movies demonstrate male anxiety of American society and social problems brought about by feminist movements by demonizing female characters and depreciate maternal physical bodies.Chapter 3 mainly touches on the mental implications of horrific female characters and horror effect from two modes of female"menace", at the same time, refecting upon horrific female images.Based upon the above research , conclusion gives a tentative suggestion , i.e. exploring into female topics in horror movies from perceptual knowledge to rational analysis, thus constructing research theory and methodology of horror film by combining the analysis tools of sychoanalysis ,feminism and social-cultural background, while drawing an insight from the study of movie-audience.