Gays, Women, and Chainsaws: Queer Approaches to Characterisation and Identification in Contemporary Slasher Film and Television, 1996-2019

Sheppard, Daniel (2024) Gays, Women, and Chainsaws: Queer Approaches to Characterisation and Identification in Contemporary Slasher Film and Television, 1996-2019. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Text Daniel Sheppard PhD Thesis published_Final version_Submitted Sept 2023_Final Award May 2024.pdf - Accepted Version Download (1MB)

Abstract

Critics and theorists of the slasher film argue that gay male spectatorship is structured around cross-gender identification with the Final Girl (Greven 2011; Elliott-Smith 2015). This works on the assumption that the gay male spectator appropriates a feminine aesthetic, yet critics and theorists fail to interrogate why the gay male spectator might appropriate a feminine aesthetic, ignoring the stakes at play for women. Accordingly, Gays, Women, and Chainsaws examines how women and gay men are invited to watch the slasher film in similar ways, identifying with characters and narratives in accordance to their lived, cultural experiences. This suggests that spectatorship is not necessarily determined by identity politics, that which separates female and gay male spectatorships on the corporeal politics of gender and sexuality, as film and media studies often assumes. Rather, spectatorship is influenced by the heteropatriarchal discourse that dictates the lived, cultural experiences of women and gay men.

By subsequently considering how the politics and ideology of female representation informs both female and gay male spectatorships, this thesis interrogates how current understandings of postfeminist media culture are restrained by a normative gender binary. In doing so, the neoliberal logic of postfeminist media culture is further held to account, using a discursive approach to female and gay male subjectivity. Postfeminism is defined here in Angela McRobbie’s terms where feminism is assimilated into hegemonic ideology(McRobbie 2009). Here, postfeminism describes the illusion that the demands of feminism have been achieved because women can be empowered in their everyday lives, eliminating the need for collectivist action. As women (and gay men) are invited to identify with empowered female characters in postfeminist media culture, as well as assimilating a feminist politics, this thesis examines how gay male identification with these characters signifies ways in which a queer politics is being assimilated more broadly.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:	Date Event 29 September 2023 Submitted 10 May 2024 Accepted
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Gender, Sexuality, Slasher, Queer Authorship, Postfeminism, Queer Spectatorship
Subjects:	CAH24 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01-05 - media studies
Divisions:	Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > College of English and Media
Depositing User:	Jaycie Carter
Date Deposited:	16 Sep 2024 10:04
Last Modified:	16 Sep 2024 10:04
URI:	https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15837

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