From: lindgren@sics.se (Thomas Lindgren)
Subject: Re: Morality- Alarming results
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Jul27.183105.14703@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 14:53:05 GMT


In article <1992Jul27.183105.14703@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:
    [amongst other things]
>   (Indeed, the "slasher film" genre appears to be designed
>   with this end in mind, using fairly sophisticated techniques that are
>   exactly what you'd do if you wanted to create a psychological
>   conditioning program intended to train people to associate violence
>   against women with sexual pleasure.)

In a film crit journal here in Sweden (Filmh\"aftet), someone made the
case that slasher movies do NOT promote misogyny or violence against
women. Let's see if I can recall the relevant points, when viewing the 
archetyphal slasher flick:

* The killer is often shown as sexually ambiguous, impotent or
	sexually deficient in some way (e.g., the killer in Silence
	of the Lambs, the Leatherface figure of the Texas Chainsaw
	Massacre films and others) and thus NOT much of a role model.
	(Nor seen as such by the viewers.)

* The viewers empathized with the heroine of the movie,
	regardless of (viewer's) sex.

* The canonical ending involves the One Surviving Teenage Girl battling
	and defeating the evil killer, at least temporarily (as in
	the Friday the 13th movies? Halloween too, perhaps?).

* The number of male victims of the killer was generally GREATER than the
	number of female victims. I do not recall whether males or females
	killed were shown longer, in greater detail, etc., even if this
	was covered in the article.

I can't quite remember the set of films studied, but I seem to recall that
the films were the more-or-less well-known ones. (As exemplified by the
ones mentioned above.)

Disclaimer: I haven't really seen any slasher films myself! But the
article was interesting enough for me to remember at least as
much as I've written above. I think some of the articles in Filmh\"aftet
also appear in journals in English and so may be accessible to the
interested cineastic soc.singler. Possibly even the one I've tried
to summarize.
    Any errors and misrepresentations in the summary above are due to 
the faulty recollection of this author.

>   Trygve 

OK, so perhaps this is a bit beyond the pale of soc.singles. (And pretty
vague to boot.) To inject a bit of personal opinion, I think -- whether
the results of That Article are accurate or not -- that there are more
likely candidates for `sex-forcing' attitudes than slasher films. The vast
body of trash violence action movies for instance, where that mindset
seems to lurk a tiny bit below the surface of the story. (E.g., what
roles do women appear in? How do they act w.r.t. violence? Etc.)

	Regards,

		Thomas

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Thomas Lindgren, UPMAIL, thomasl@csd.uu.se, lindgren@sics.se
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Thomas Lindgren				thomasl@meryl.csd.uu.se
Computing Science Dept.,		Thomas.Lindgren@csd.uu.se
Uppsala University			lindgren@sics.se

	"I can call procedures in the vasty kernel."
	"Why so can I, or so can any program. But will you
	 return when you do call them?"
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