Beyond the Damsel in Distress: The Evolution of Female Representation in American Horror films

Introduction

Alfred Hitchcock once famously quipped, “Torture the women!” ((Hitchcock was talking to an interviewer about the finale of The Birds (1963): “I always believe in following the advice of the playwright Sardou,” Hitchcock remarked. “He said, ‘Torture the women!’ ... The trouble today is that we don’t torture women enough” (quoted in Spoto, 1983, 458).)), a remark dismissed at the time as dark humor, yet one that reveals a deeper, troubling pattern of misogyny embedded in the history of horror cinema. Though said decades after the genre’s early development, Hitchcock’s words reflect an enduring trope: the routine depiction of women as targets of violence and suffering. Horror films, as Noël Carroll defines them, are narratives designed to evoke fear, disgust, and dread through encounters with threatening, often unnatural forces that challenge everyday norms (The Philosophy of Horror, 1990). Crucially, the genre is rooted in transgression: it thrives on the violation of cultural taboos and the exposure of what society represses. As Robin Wood asserts, “the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses” (Wood, 1986). In this light, the victimization of women in horror is not incidental but foundational. Female characters are frequently subjected to suffering and punishment, their pain used to drive plot, evoke fear, or reinforce moral lessons, but also to captivate and unsettle its audience (Hankins, 2020).

Glenn G. Sparks and Cheri W. Sparks explored why violent films captivate audiences, suggesting that viewers derive a distinct and multifaceted pleasure from witnessing onscreen violence. Similarly, Rikki Schubart likens the experience of watching horror films to the enjoyment of “play-fighting” (Schubart, 2007). She argues that horror offers a safe space to confront disturbing or traumatic scenarios without facing real-world danger. Additionally, horror films may provide a form of catharsis, allowing viewers to release repressed fears, anxieties, or frustrations in a socially acceptable context. By confronting fictional threats, audiences can indirectly process real-world uncertainties and taboos. This emotional exercise can be both thrilling and therapeutic, offering a temporary escape while reinforcing a sense of personal resilience and control.

From its earliest incarnations, the horror genre has consistently positioned women at the center of fear, as primary victims upon whom terror is enacted. Classic films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) and Nosferatu (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922) were instrumental in shaping the visual and thematic language of horror. These German Expressionist works, with their distorted sets, shadowy aesthetics, and psychological intensity, deeply influenced American horror cinema, particularly early Universal films such as Dracula (Tod Browning, Karl Freund, 1931) and Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931). These films helped establish a lasting narrative formula: women are depicted in states of vulnerability and fear, often serving as the main witnesses to the monstrous. Within these stories, female characters do more than simply endure terror, they become the emotional conduit for the audience. Their reactions, whether recoiling from the grotesque, succumbing to the eerie allure of the supernatural, or screaming in helplessness, shape the viewer’s own emotional experience. Their suffering functions both as spectacle and as a signal, emphasizing the horror and eliciting affective responses. In this way, the relationship between the masculine-coded monster and the female victim is not incidental but central, each defined and reinforced by the presence of the other, forming a foundational dynamic that underpins the structure and emotional power of the genre.

However, over time, this portrayal has evolved, and women have increasingly been depicted as active participants in their own fate, from the heroines who confront supernatural threats to the villains who embody the horror itself. This shift in representation not only reflects changes within the genre but also mirrors broader societal transformations regarding gender roles, power dynamics, and the evolving perception of women’s agency. Exploring these shifting portrayals provides insight into how horror reflects, challenges, and sometimes reinforces societal norms and fears surrounding women.

1. The Early Days of Horror (1920s-1960s): The Evolution of the Victim and Damsel in Distress Archetype under the Influence of the Hays Code

1.1 Women at the Heart of Early Cinema: Pioneers, Protagonists, and Power

The silent era of cinema, defined by its innovation in both storytelling and technique, flourished in the 1920s and early 1930s: filmmakers enjoyed a remarkable degree of creative freedom, particularly in their portrayal of women. Female characters in early horror films were not exclusively confined to passive or morally sanitized roles; they could be complex, commanding, and even dangerous. Women appeared as protagonists, antagonists, and femmes fatales, often wielding considerable influence over the male characters around them (Lewis, 2021). These characterizations reflected the central role women played in shaping early cinema: the film industry was a bold, experimental space that included, and often depended on, women’s voices both behind and in front of the camera. Pioneering filmmakers like Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber broke ground as directors and screenwriters, while actresses such as Mary Pickford extended their impact beyond the screen, co-founding studios like United Artists and asserting creative control over their work. According to recent findings from the American Film Institute (Tangcay, 2023), women occupied a larger share of roles as writers, directors, and producers during the silent era than at any other point in the first century of American filmmaking. Between 1915 and 1925, screenwriters like Frances Marion and Anita Loos were responsible for writing nearly half of all silent films. At the same time, Lois Weber became the highest-paid director in the industry, male or female, leading some to describe the period as a “manless Eden”, a rare moment in film history when women’s creative authority was both visible and celebrated (Malone, 2023).

Horror films in particular offered a rare space for daring portrayals of women. Female characters were not relegated to passivity; instead, they often stood at the center of the narrative, sometimes as victims, but just as often as powerful, even monstrous figures. In The Cat and the Canary (Elliott Nugent, 1927), the female protagonist Annabelle West is portrayed as helpless, yet she also displays wit and resilience as she navigates a haunted mansion and uncovers the mystery. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Victor Fleming, 1931), Ivy, a working-class woman, becomes both a victim and a symbol of transgressive female desire; her sexuality and vulnerability disturb the male moral order and ultimately lead to her demise. Similarly, Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932) presents women as central targets of scientific and sexual experimentation, reflecting deeper anxieties about female autonomy and embodiment. While these films were all directed, and primarily written by men, women did contribute behind the scenes to early horror. For example, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) was co-written by Clara Beranger, a prominent female screenwriter of the silent era, and The Mummy (1932) originated from a story treatment by Nina Wilcox Putnam, whose concept helped define one of Universal’s iconic monsters. Earlier still, Alice Guy-Blaché, one of cinema’s first directors, explored gothic and suspense themes in works like The Ocean Waif (1916). These portrayals, of women as clever survivors, unsettling figures of desire, and subjects of male fear, were transgressive in that they disrupted traditional gender roles, challenged dominant moral frameworks, and reflected broader cultural tensions of the Roaring Twenties and early Depression era, a time of social transformation and evolving definitions of femininity.

1.2. The Damsel in Distress Trope

However, horror films at the time could also reinforce stereotypical representations of female characters. In The Phantom of the Opera (Lon Chaney, 1925), the female protagonist, Christine Daaé, is emblematic of how early horror films used the damsel trope to underline male dominance and female submission in both romantic and social hierarchies. While being ostensibly the object of both the Phantom’s obsession and Raoul’s affection, the female character lacks meaningful agency in the conflict that unfolds. Christine is abducted by the Phantom, a figure who both desires and controls her. Rather than confronting or resisting him directly, she is portrayed as fearful, submissive, and dependent on Raoul for rescue. The film thus constructs Christine as a passive prize over which two men struggle: her voice and beauty are central, but her will is not. Christine’s role as a damsel in distress reinforces the notion that women in horror exist to motivate male action, not to act themselves. Her value is rooted in vulnerability, which validates male heroism and sacrifice.

Dracula (Tod Browning, Karl Freund, 1931) holds a central place in the development of American horror cinema. Its influence is evident not only in its formal elements, such as the slow pacing, theatrical performances, and atmospheric lighting, but also in how it established narrative and ideological patterns that would persist in the genre. While it is often praised for Bela Lugosi’s performance and its role in popularizing the vampire on screen, the film’s gender politics merits closer scrutiny. Specifically, the portrayal of Mina Seward (Helen Chandler) reflects and reinforces a set of assumptions about women’s agency, morality, and vulnerability that limit her narrative function.

Mina is positioned as a passive figure, caught between Dracula’s coercive influence and the protective efforts of the male protagonists. Her transformation into a vampire is framed not as a choice but as a contamination, something that happens to her, necessitating rescue. The men around her, her fiancé Jonathan Harker, her father Dr. Seward, and Van Helsing, are not only more active agents in the plot but are also granted the authority to diagnose, manage, and ultimately resolve the threat that Dracula represents. Mina, by contrast, is largely excluded from these conversations and decisions, even though her body and mind are the sites on which the conflict plays out.

This dynamic reflects a broader pattern in early horror: the female character features as the symbolic ground for moral struggle, rather than a participant in it. The film offers no real opportunity for Mina to resist Dracula on her own terms. Even in scenes where she appears to express internal conflict, such as when she speaks of her attraction to Dracula’s power, these moments are quickly neutralized by the men’s interventions. Her recovery at the end of the film, marked by a return to her prior state, reinforces a conservative resolution, one in which the reassertion of normative gender roles is treated as a form of closure.

The film’s structure thus limits what can be understood as agency for its female characters. Mina’s importance is not tied to what she does but to what is done to her. The narrative treats her transformation less as an exploration of individual change and more as a problem to be solved by others. While Dracula helped define the visual and thematic contours of cinematic horror, it also codified a model in which women’s power is either suspect or erased altogether. Rather than challenging this model, the film ultimately affirms it.

1.3 The Hays Code (1934)

As the film industry grew more profitable in the late 1920s and into the 1930s, a combination of institutional consolidation and the enforcement of the Hays Code ushered in a new era, one increasingly dominated by men behind the scenes. Institutional consolidation refers to the growing dominance of a few major studios that centralized control over film production, distribution, and exhibition, effectively sidelining many independent voices, including women. While women continued to captivate audiences on screen, their creative authority behind the camera was systematically eroded. The narrative power they once held was gradually stripped away.

The implementation of the Production Code, also known as the Hays Code, in 1934 also marked a sharp turning point. Portrayals of women as sexually autonomous, morally complex, or transgressive were swiftly curtailed. Characters who had once embodied independence, rebellion, or danger were recast into sanitized, conservative archetypes: the virtuous wife, the innocent victim, the moral exemplar. The Code did more than censor content, it reshaped the industry’s storytelling power dynamics, narrowing the range of women’s representation on screen and reinforcing a male-dominated authorship of film narratives. The Hays Code explicitly promoted “correct standards of life”, emphasizing the sanctity of marriage and the home. As a result, women in films were largely confined to traditional roles as wives, mothers, and caretakers, with narratives that reinforced their duties to family and domesticity. Female ambitions that extended beyond these boundaries were often framed as misguided, dangerous, or disruptive to social order (Jeff and Simmons, 1990).

Under the Code’s influence, the “damsel in distress” trope gained prominence. While this archetype existed before the Code, it flourished during this era, portraying women as innocent and passive figures in need of male rescue. These characters were symbolic of purity and vulnerability, rather than strength or autonomy, and their value was often defined by their relationship to male protagonists. For example, in King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, 1933), Ann Darrow functions less as a character with interiority than as a figure whose helplessness justifies the violent spectacle around her.

Despite the Code’s limitations, some filmmakers found ways to subvert its restrictions. Through the use of subtext, allegory, and visual symbolism, they crafted more layered and nuanced portrayals of women, quietly challenging the dominant narrative. In Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942), for instance, the protagonist Irena is a Serbian immigrant who believes that if she consummates her marriage, she will transform into a panther and kill her husband. This fear, rooted in folklore and inherited trauma, symbolizes her repressed sexuality and deep cultural alienation. Irena’s inability to reconcile her desire with societal expectations of femininity and domesticity isolates her emotionally and physically. Although her story ends in tragedy, the film uses metaphor, her transformation as a manifestation of desire, to critique the oppressive constraints placed on female sexuality and identity. Her inner conflict between social expectation and personal instinct operates beneath the surface of the horror, adding psychological depth and ambiguity to a genre often associated with moral binaries. Nevertheless, the broader impact of the Code was to entrench a narrow, conservative vision of female identity, one that marginalized complexity in favor of moral simplicity and domestic virtue.

2. The 1960s-1970s: Women as Both Victims and Survivors

2.1 The Final Girl Trope

As the influence of the Production Code began to wane in the late 1950s and ultimately collapsed in the 1960s, a shift in cinematic representation took hold. Filmmakers gradually reintroduced complex, multidimensional female characters, echoing the bold storytelling of the silent and pre-Code era. This resurgence was particularly visible in the horror genre, where women reemerged not only as victims, but also as survivors, antagonists, and central figures with agency. The official end of the Hays Code in 1968, replaced by the MPAA rating system, reopened the space for more explicit content, psychological depth, and gender complexity in American cinema. Horror, once again, became a fertile ground for exploring transgression, especially regarding women’s roles. This post-Code era witnessed the gradual reemergence of female agency on screen, though often within newly codified tropes shaped by both feminist and patriarchal anxieties.

The 1960s and 1970s therefore marked a pivotal transformation in the representation of women in horror cinema. While female characters were still frequently positioned as victims, for example, Marion Crane in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), whose murder in the film’s first act is both shocking and emblematic of female vulnerability, or Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), whose body becomes the battleground for male control and demonic reproduction, this era also introduced a new archetype that would reshape the genre for decades to come: the “Final Girl.” Coined by film scholar Carol J. Clover, the Final Girl refers to the last surviving female character who confronts the killer and often outlives all other characters ((In Psycho (1960), Marion Crane initially appears as the central character but is shockingly killed off early, subverting traditional horror expectations. Her sister, Lila Crane, then takes on the role of the proto-Final Girl. Unlike Marion, Lila is persistent and brave, actively investigating Norman Bates’ eerie motel and uncovering his dark secret, embodying a shift toward female characters who are not just victims but agents of truth and survival.)). She is typically resourceful, observant, and morally distinct from her peers, traits that position her as both a survivor and a vehicle for audience identification. The Final Girl often takes an active role in defending herself and ultimately killing the killer. Clover characterizes her as “boyish,” watchful, intelligent, resourceful in a crisis, often virginal, and usually distinct from the rest of her friend group as the outsider. Audiences identify with her because psychologically, she is the most realistic character: she recognizes the danger and is the one who fights back (Clover, 1992).

Pour citer cette ressource :

Reda Boulkhiam, Beyond the Damsel in Distress: The Evolution of Female Representation in American Horror films, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), septembre 2025. Consulté le 07/11/2025. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/arts/cinema/beyond-the-damsel-in-distress-the-evolution-of-female-representation-in-american-horror-films