STEREOTYPICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THRILLER/HORROR

Stereotypical Representation of Thriller/Horror

Quite often representations have been pre-established in Genre films such as Horrors and Thrillers. Certain representations have now become stereotypes or Archetype. An example of a stereotypical character that has been used many times is Dracula. Dracula has always has the same stereotypical look in a variety of films or books that he has been featured in. The character has been stereotypically the same since Bela Lugosi's version in 1931 in regards to his Age, Gender, Social class and costume.


The Representation of Gender/Ethnicity 

Cultural Bias: Hollywood has always been 'white' centric, for example, Actors/Directors have always been Male and Caucasian with Black, ethic, minority actors only playing minor roles. Certain actors like Will Smith/Morgan Freeman have broken the mould. In the Thriller genre, it has always been common to have a White/Male protagonist in the key roles. It wasn't until the 1990's that it began to change. For example, in the film Se7en (1995) Morgan Freeman played a smart, intellectual, senior, methodical detective. This had always been represented as a 'White' actors role, but his role as Detective Somerset in the film 'Se7en' was ground breaking, which continued in many Films/TV dramas, such as 'Wire' and 'Luther'.


Gender Bias: In the Thriller genre, Females have predominantly played the victim role, or the femme fatale (the seductive vamp, that cannot be trusted). Since the 'Silence of the Lambs' (1990) and the role of Jodie Foster playing FBI Rookie 'Clarice Starling' the representation of women in Thriller/Horror has been fair more challenging.

Heterosexual Bias: Having a homosexual/lesbian protagonist is almost entirely rare even in liberal Hollywood. The idea of a leading male detective, in a film, being openly gay is unheard of. Indeed one of the criticisms of the famous author of the Hannibal Lector books; Thomas Harris is that nearly all his antagonists such as serial killers have homosexual tendencies, and sexual deviances, and that this is a negative stereotype he has helped form.