Representation in the horror action trailer

Over the years representation in the Horror Action genre has greatly changed this is due to the changes within our society and what we see as positive and negative. To analyse this change I'm going to analyse two trailer one old and the other modern which will hopefully allow me to see a clear difference between them. I'll be focusing on a variety of stereotypes and how they are being represented in my two trailers however I believe that both trailers represent disability in a unique way so I will be slightly focusing on them more than other representations.

Trailer 1: The Shining (1980)

The first trailer that I'll be analysing is the Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. As the trailer starts we hear a monologue from one of the films characters talking about the hotel and how its previous caretaker had a mental breakdown and kill his family. This already paints as dark picture for the representation of the disability in the horror genre as it makes the audience believe that this could happen to someone in relief. This shows us one of the key mental disorders within the film and trailer cabin fever which is a term to describe when someone or a group of people are isolated from the society for an extended time and how they start to lose their minds as they start to distrust each other while others may wish to go outside even if they are forced to stay inside. Cabin fever can occur in many ways even in something mundane such as spending time in a cottage away in the countryside. This gives us a further negative representation on disabilities as it makes the audience believe this could happen to anyone and can be summed up in the trailer when one of the characters states 'Isolation of itself can become problem' while zooming in on Jack Torrance (The films antagonists) face showing us that he is slowly but gradually losing his mind.

Wendy panics as Jack breaks down
the door

Another representation that I can clearly see in the trailer is how gender is portrayed within the trailer which like disability is shown to us as being a negative representation. This can be seen throughout the trailer as the character Wendy Torrance is shown to be a stereotypical woman as see is shown to be weaker as we see her screaming and panicking hysterically while Jack breaks the door down with an axe in the famous Here's Johnny scene. This is a negative scene as she is shown to be weaker than any other character in the trailer we see crying as she fears for her life which happens to no other character except her which implies that she is the weakest character which is a negative stereotype of women as they were seen to be physically and mentally weaker than men suggesting they were inferior to men in every way. In addition to this scene we also have a scene which shows Wendy running away from someone why it is never revealed in the trailer it can be implied that it is Jack chasing her. This scene also shows women in a negative way as it shows her running away from Jack as it's the only thing that she can do as if she stayed to fight she would of most likely been overpowered and ultimately killed. Her role in the films conforms with Propp's character type of the princess which is a women who is feeble and useless which would end up placing her in dire situations which would require a hero to save her. However in the horror genre there are no heroes to save the princess which we see through Wendy as no one comes to help her escape Jack who is hunting her down so she has to survive by herself which but she is to weak to flee which eventually leads her to getting trapped in the bathroom while Jack breaks the door down making the audience believe she has meet her doom. Propp's character type for the princess also appears in the action genre only this time known as the damsel in distress. In addition the princess character also appears in the Horror genre through the victim character type which is nearly the exact same as the princess except the victim will usually be killed by the antagonist.

Wendy waking Jack up from his
nightmare as he falls off his
chair

However, we also see gender being represented in the trailer in a way which subverts traditional conventions. This can be in the trailer from 1:14 - 1:26 as we first hear Jack groaning but it slowly changes to screaming as we see Wendy run in where we find out Jack had a dream where he killed her and their son Danny Torrence. This scene subverts from traditional stereotypes as it shows a male character in a weakened as he is on the floor crying while the female character helps him up swapping the genders role which makes this scene very conventional for its time as it is showing the woman is in power.

Danny screaming

Another interesting representation in the trailer is how age is shown more specifically how children are portrayed. In the trailer I can see two major representations of children the first comes from Danny Torrence as he is shown throughout the trailer in a several different ways. We first see him asking his mother what she thinks of the hotel that they are going to be staying at for her to reply that 'it's going to be fun' and as soon as she says that we get a jumpscare of Danny screaming as the screen fades to white which could suggest that the is being attacked. It is common for their to be scenes in horror films where children are scared as it will normally be followed by a sting which would be them screaming as children will have higher pitched voices. The next time we see Danny is near the end of the trailer the scene I'll be talking about is when Jack is sitting on the bed and beckons Danny to come over to him an when he does Jack starts to caress him in a sinister way. This is a extremely negative representation of age as it suggests that a child can be easily manipulated by someone including people they are very close to such as their family. The reason that children are portrayed as being scary in the horror genre is because of what children represent, children are usually shown to be innocent and simple minded without having a care in the world about what goes on around them which is what adults are aware of. Because of this many adults view children in a way which makes them feel positive and nostalgic as they remember a simpler time where nothing matter. But when a horror film like The Shining comes out and conveys children negatively it clashes with how many adults view them and because of this confusion we fear them as people are afraid of what they don't understand.

The Twins

Looking at other scenes in the trailer I can see another representation of age which is through the twins who appear near the end of the trailer. While their appearance is brief they convey a very strong stereotype in the horror genre. The stereotype is that children who appear in horror films are linked to the demonic and supernatural usually being possessed by the antagonist of the film. In the trailer while we don't see them being possessed it is applied through the monologue at the start of the trailer that they are ghosts haunting the hotel. Furthermore the camerawork makes them look even more sinister as it starts with a long shot of them standing at the other end of a long corridor the camera then suddenly cuts to a mid shot of the girls which allows us to get a closer look at their faces which shows that they are blank and expressionless the camera cuts again only slightly moving us closer to the twins. I believe this was done to scare the audience as they would fear that a jumpscare was going to happen as we were slowly getting closer to the girls so we expect that when we get close enough they are going to jump out at us. The twins are terrifying for a similar reason to why children are scarier in the horror genre as in the trailer they appear out of nowhere and when they are immediately on screen the camera focuses on hem making them seem very important this confuses the audience as they don't know what is going on and as this scene goes by so quickly it makes the audience question if it ever happened to begin with. Furthermore as they are twins the audience may not notice it at first only noticing that they have similar clothing but when the camera closes in on their faces and notice they look identical they will either realise they are twins or think that the film is doing this to mess with their mind which makes them fear the twins as they don't know what they are.

Trailer 2: Split (2016)

Two of the split personalities shown in the trailer the right
having the mind of a child

The second trailer that I'll be analysing is for director M Night Shyamalan's latest film Split. The trailer starts off with an equilibrium as it starts with some girls coming home from a shopping trip however when they are getting into their car they notice a mysterious man sitting next to them who proceeds to knock them unconscious. After this scene it's revealed that the man was told to catch them 'for a reason' but we don't know who is this person is. However later on we see the same person this time wearing women's clothes in addition he has lost the accent that he had earlier. This is where we first see that the antagonist has Dissociative identity disorder (DID) which means that he has multiple personalities called alters inside of his head and as shown in the trailer can have a different age, gender and accent. In the trailer DID is represented in a very negative way as it conveys people with the disability as being sociopaths who have no remorse and enjoy watching people suffer, sociopaths are also shown to be unable to interact with other people in society making them appear as being antisocial people. This is all confirmed in the trailer when we see the psychologist character say that Kevin (the antagonist's real name) has 23 different personalities living inside his minds.

Hedwig's picture of The Beast

One of the biggest negative representations of divisibility in the trailer is through one of Kevin's alters in the trailer only known as The Beast. We never see The Beast in the trailer with the only things to go on are pictures drawn by Kevin's alter Hedwig which convey The Beast as being an evil, monstrous entity which wants to be the dominant mind in Kevin's body which can be seen in the picture as the beast (left) is towering over small people who most likely represent the other alters and notice how it is holding one of them in its hands which could imply that it is slowly eliminating the other alters to ultimately become the strongest mind. This is a negative representation of DID as it makes it look like that people who have this mental disability are disturbed, violent people.
 

Girl attacks Kevin allowing her to escape

Another representation that I can see in the trailer is the representation of gender as all of the main protagonists are women. Furthermore they are all captured by Kevin and are placed in cells and throughout the rest of the trailer they are attempting to escape Kevin's clutches which can be seen later in the trailer as they are shown climbing into the air vents in an attempt to escape. This shows women in both a positive and negative way. Firstly the positives, throughout the trailer we see the girls doing whatever they can to escape such as the already mentioned air vent escape. we also see one of them attack Kevin allowing them to flee which then cuts to her picking up the radio and calling for help. This shows the audience that women are capable of holding their own in a fight even when they are fighting a physically stronger person even managing to hurt them this subverts from stereotypes as women were frequently shown to be weaker than men as I stated in the shining post. However, in this scene we see her outclassing a man in a fight which makes her look more powerful over him.

Girl convincing Hedwig to help
them escape

I can also see women being represented in a positive way in another scene in the trailer is when they meet Hedwig one of Kevin's alters who is a 9 year old boy. Because of this Kevin mind changes to that of a child which allows the girls to manipulate him into letting them out of the cell and helping them escape. This is a positive representation of women as it shows the audience that they can also be strong mentally as they can talk their way out of dangerous situation instead of only being able to fight their way out if problems. As you can see women are represented very positively in the trailer as all of the protagonists we see are female so if they were all shown to be weak and powerless against the antagonist who just so happens to be male would be seen as very controversial and unconventional especially since it was only released just over a year ago so many of its representations would reflect modern times. In addition, it also subverts but also conforms with theorists such as Angela Mcrobbie who stated in 2003 that women can be strong independent and  determined but can also use their sexuality to manipulate people to keep control of the situation. Now the girls in the trailer are shown to be independent as they all have to work together to escape with no help which also shows them as smart conforming to the theory. But, the girls also subvert from Angela's theory as we never see them utilise their sexuality to get them out of a tough situation except possibly when one of them demands Hedwig to help them escape but she doesn't do anything that could be considered sexual as she just straight up asks for help.

When my group creates are film trailer we will contain representations conventional to our films genre just to make them more entertaining to watch as if we did represent everyone accurately to the how they are in real life the audience may find the film to realistic and many people see film as a way to escape real life and immerse themselves in another world so the last thing a film would want to do is make you think of real life.