Stereotypical Masculinity In American Horror Story: Coven

It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.

Over the years, views on women’s roles in society have drastically changed. The gender differences highlighted in Deborah Tannen’s excerpts from You Just Don’t Understand emphasize the differences between women’s desire for intimacy and men’s pull towards independence. By this theory, men tend to drift in the direction of power and self-reliance, which are characteristics of action television shows and movies, whereas women immerse themselves in romance and family oriented media. While The Game of Thrones appeals to males through the fast-paced storyline, the characters of Arya Stark, Sensa Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen break away from Tannen 's stereotypes and empower women watching the series through the ladies’ demonstration of survival and independent judgment, even among formidable males. As a result, both genders are equalized, but women are ennobled in the process.

Throughout the years, different forms of literature  have generally shown women as weaker than men. They have played archetypes such as the mother archetype or the lover which have traits less desirable than the roles that men would take. These archetypes tend to limit their personalities and they become characters that are solely there for inconveniencing the hero. Stereotypes for women have affected these archetypes, but throughout history many people have made efforts to change these archetypes and make them more desirable. Even though archetypes for women have been shown as weak, it has changed throughout the years.

Modern media has a massive audience with more than 115 million American household families owning a television (NewsWire). Everyday viewers devote time to watching programs and are intrigued by the attractive actors and the situations they encounter. Although these characters and their lives seem to be unbelievably attractive, many of the shows have stereotypical gender qualities. Regina George in Mean Girls frequently portrays qualities that are often seen as ideal ways for women to live, though a closer look reveals the limitations with these ideas.

Throughout history the role of women in society has changed. For example in “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard”, which took place in 1785 to 1812, women were seen as virtuous. In “The Devil in the Shape of a Women: Witchcraft in Colonial New England ” which took place in 1600s depicted women who didn’t fit into the social order as eden, evil. Social order in the 1600s showed males having primal power over political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. However when a women went against the social norm, for example being a widow in this patriarchal society, they were considered abominations. For instance, Karlsen’s novel when a women did not fit in, she was considered a witch. This allowed for a widespread

With the shift of gender roles in American culture, comes the shift in how Americans portray characters in certain television and media shows. While the cultural norms and beliefs change as a country, so do the way people perceive the roles of males and females. In the 1950’s, it was normal for a female to be working on and at the home, taking care of the kids, and doing the tedious chores around the house. All while the male is at work, making the money to support the family. In today’s time, with many advances in women’s rights and cultural acceptance, these roles are not so specific to a gender.

This leads to women being labeled witches more than men because if anything goes wrong in the village, it is her fault for being odd and not following social norms. Think of poor Mother Sawyer in The Witch of Edmonton. At one time, she was married and her husband took care of her. She fit into society but her husband passed and she no longer had male protection. She immediately becomes suspect for all the wrongs in her village.

Furthermore, similarly to Jack Torrance in The Shining there is a sense of a masculinity in crisis concerning Thad which makes Stark a projection of the masculinity Thad wishes to possess, rather than a portrayal of mental illness. The first murder Stark commits is focussed on the male figure with ‘his clothes thrown into a snarly ball under the coffee table. [Dodie] saw the bloody hole at his groin. His testicles were still where they belonged; his penis had been stuffed into his mouth.’ (p.77) This is important because the victim threatens to reveal Thad’s pseudonym earlier on in the text which places Thad in a position of vulnerability.

Horror movies throughout history have been known to have their cheesy storylines or continuous bad acting. Especially horror movies. People nowadays could easily spot the flaws in a film and judge them drastically in reviews. Yet, little do people notice the ongoing discrimination between genders. Horror films tend to portray males and females substantially differently because of stereotypical views. There seems to be a pattern in which each gender takes a certain role in a movie continuously. Females are shown to be “objects” such as sex and emotional symbols, while males are shown as strong or powerful and moreover as the main bad guy. Although some of the newer edition films of the horror genre are displaying each gender more and more equal throughout the ongoing years, the gender discrimination dilemma still exists and can be seen by the statistics in the movie industry in general.

The Alpha male is a common character type in horror films, he is the sporty one who tries to take on the roll of the leader of the group he also tries hard to look tough and masculine. Ways he attempts to do this include picking on other characters, not showing emotions and taking risks. He is commonly goodlooking,narcissistic, sexualised,muscular, tall, unintelligent, ignorant,strong, a womanizer, confident,arrogant, obnoxious, loud or tough. He fits the jock stereotype. Throughout his time alive in the film he tries his best to keep his tough guy persona on, this usually dosent help him at all and leads to his demise as it more often not the Alpha Male that tries to fight off the villain to show off as well as protect his friends when

Tying in the argument of masculinity, throughout the history of horror movies, women have shown more masculine characteristics. The final girl killing her aggressor has become more of the movie norm over the growth of the final girl trope from the 1970s to today. Clover points out that, “present Final Girls who not only fight back but do so with ferocity and even kill the killer on their own, without help from the outside” (Clover 37). Arguably the grittiest horror movie final girl, Nancy from the first Nightmare on Elm Street, progressed the final girl trope from surviving the attack to killing the perpetrator. Nancy, after all of her friends are killed, knows the killer is coming for her next.

It is inevitable that society has made a stereotype for the definition on what it means to be a man or a woman, it was stated and believed a long time ago and has just moved through life, generation after generation. Society believes that men are the workers and providers and essentially the strength of the family, and women take more of a nurturing and caring role. From this, a man’s physical strength is portrayed as being strong and brave at superior and horrific times, yet through literature like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it shows that they can end up weak. There are many times in William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, where the acts of “reverse-gender roles” are being detected in terms of what

Furthermore, the portrayal of the nuclear family structure in the narrative emphasises the idea of masculinity in crisis. As Robin Wood states ‘they repeatedly endorse domesticity as right, natural, and inevitable while expressing the most intense resentment of it in vindictive fantasy.’ The family is an important theme in The Shining and it is represented as the conventional nuclear family which we are first introduced through the Grady family. Ullman regrets that ‘during [his] first winter [he] hired a family instead of a single man.

In American society, there is an obvious gender hierarchy in which men are viewed as strong, powerful, and valuable while women are viewed as weak and timid. Women face this challenge every day, and more prominently when they are trying to go against the hierarchy. Regardless of how many social norms or “power ceilings” that women break, they constantly face messages that perpetuate stereotypes, which reinforces this gender hierarchy. At the same time, men are also facing similar, gender-related pressures. Because men are on the top of the social hierarchy, there is an expectation that they be strong, brave, and confident. This causes an undue burden on the men that are unable to fulfill these gendered expectations.

In politics, power is a crucial component, and having authority over others is critical in legitimizing that power. Women consistently lack agency and power, especially in political spheres. Fantastical worlds, like HBO’s television series Game of Thrones (GoT), portray women in roles of empowerment, but their power is contingent on men and on their own sexuality. Despite gaining positions in political power, women only attain that power or can only use that power in the realm of men and masculinity. This essay argues that women in Game of Thrones, as political and non-political actors, are only powerful to the extent to which it roots from archetypical masculine characteristics and to which it advances their storylines from a man’s standpoint. To do so, I will first contrast political power and apolitical power, namely in terms of female participation and involvement. Next, I will examine HBO’s Game of Thrones in relation to its portrayal of female empowerment and of stereotypical gender roles. This paper will then distinguish notable Game of Thrones female characters as political powerful and apolitically powerful actors. This paper will conclude with an analysis of how Game of Thrones magnifies women’s roles in political power while also generalizing women as powerful only in regards to their sexuality.