The Kids Aren't Alright: 'Breaking the Cycle' in Horror
TWs: reference
to child abuse, abusers and films that depict abuse - no graphic details of
abuse.
Contains spoilers for the following films: Sleepaway Camp, Audition, Silent Hill.
Contains spoilers for the following films: Sleepaway Camp, Audition, Silent Hill.
One of the reasons I love horror is its ability
to present real, everyday fears through the lens of the absurd. Some might see Paranormal Activity as a daft romp of
privileged white folks in peril, others are drawn to the narrative of society’s
dismissal of women’s emotional experiences. The
Exorcist features a mother’s brutal fight to have concerns for her child
taken seriously, while The Shining depicts
alcoholism and violence within the claustrophobic hub of family. 28 Days Later… explores the oppression
and commodification of women, whilst Teeth highlights the alienation that
women can feel from their bodies, and reminds us to be cautious of even the
nice boys. I could go on.
Children feature widely in horror. From
John and Pearl in Night of the Hunter,
little Andy in Child’s Play, Danny in
The Shining, Samuel in The Babadook, Victoria and Lilly in Mama, the Losers' Club in It to Carlos and friends in The Devil’s Backbone, children are
ideal fodder for the macabre as they make excellent victims. They have little social
power and rarely have a voice in the world of adults: they are small, weak,
imaginative and ‘innocent’[1].
And despite their vulnerability they are also wily, brave and creative enough
to defeat the monster. They are the underdogs. We are happy to see child
characters in peril as long as they emerge at the end of the ordeal in one
piece, very much like the virginal final girl of the slasher trope.
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| Samuel in The Babadook |
Interestingly, horror films tend to shy away from depicting the abuse of children even though sexual
violence against adults is fairly commonplace (albeit far more so against women
than men)[2].
Freddie Krueger, the quintessential child-botherer from A Nightmare on Elm Street, was an abuser[3]
prior to becoming a dream-stalking monster, yet this element of his pathology
is glossed over in the films. Stephen King’s It briefly touches on Beverley’s abuse from her father yet favours the supernatural threats to the child characters. Even the brutal Marytrs – which includes harrowing scenes of violence against women
– suggests that young Lucie’s tortures are physical rather than sexual. Perhaps
the stalking and threatening of children is the palatable proxy for abuse in film, often
taking place in dark bedrooms or school corridors whilst parents look away. Yet considering horror’s propensity for all manner of corporeal
atrocities, especially gratuitous violence and rape, it is surprising that
sexual abuse against children is rarely depicted.
The depictions of abuse that do exist in
horror are troubling. In Ringu and The Ring, the abused Sadako/Samara emerges
from her well as a grotesque, broken-backed monster to inflict suffering onto
others. Mistreated children in Lights Out,
Fragile, Case 39 and The Devil’s Backbone are turned into shadow-lurking
demons to hurt the living. Tormented Alessa returns to slaughter the Silent Hill cult as a merciless,
barbed-wire wielding witch. In The Human
Centipede II, emotionally-stunted sadist Martin recalls the words of his childhood
abuser before carrying out his own atrocities. Sleepaway Camp’s Angela slashes her way through teens and adults
alike following a deeply traumatic childhood. The charming antagonist in Hard Candy claims that he was a child victim when justifying his abuse of others. Asami’s molestation is a direct
antecedent to the torture of men who wrong her in Audition. Portrayals of serial killers in film often follow a similar pattern:
Hannibal Lector profiles Buffalo Bill as having abuse in his past in The Silence of the Lambs, and Dolarhyde’s
grandmother ‘created’ his murderous alter-ego, The Tooth Fairy, through years
of abuse in Red Dragon.
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| Sadako in Ringu |
With regards to representations of abuse,
these films share several problematic elements. Firstly, the abuse of a child
is often a trigger for the horror (eg the development of the monster) rather than the horror itself, which downgrades the impact that abuse can have. Victims
also tend to represent the narrow, dominant dimensions of their culture (white/Japanese,
able-bodied, middle-class), when we know that abuse transcends race, social
status and ability[4]. Most damagingly, these films also
perpetuate a damaging misconception - that those who are abused as children
grow up to become abusers themselves.
The sexual abuse of adults and children is framed
by feminists “as an act of power, violence, and male domination”[5].
Children are vulnerable to victimisation due to their lack of social power,
with girls doubly vulnerable as a result of their gender, while ethnicity,
ability and socio-economic status further widens the power imbalance between abusers
and victims. It is difficult to accurately measure the prevalence of child
abuse but current estimates suggest it is far from uncommon: from 1 in 20
children in the UK (NSPCC), to one in nine girls (RAINN) to 17% of girls and 4%
of boys in the USA (Crimes Against Children), with girls 1.5-3 times more
likely to be abused than boys[6].
It is believed that only one case in every eight is reported (ONS) so
statistics vastly under-represent the scope of abuse. Whichever estimate you
favour, it is hardly a fringe issue.
In the attempt to make sense of why people commit
sexual offences, the ‘cycle of abuse’ theory was developed and has gained
traction in recent decades. Although there is little concrete evidence to
suggest that victims of abuse become abusers in adulthood, this myth is
widely believed by the public and professionals alike. ‘Breaking the cycle’
features prominently in recovery literature, yet in reality abuse is not a ‘cycle’;
with the majority of victims being female and the majority of abusers being
male, the assumption that abuse breeds abuse cannot account for this gender
inversion.
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| Santi in The Devil's Backbone |
The idea of a ‘cycle’ also focuses on
individual victims and overlooks the wider, social factors that create an environment where sexual violence can take place, such as the sexualisation of women and
children, toxic masculinity and male privilege, especially within institutions
and family structures. We know that abuse can have chronic, long-term effects
yet we also know that many victims overcome these difficulties and have
meaningful, loving lives. The idea of a ‘cycle’ focuses on identifying and
preventing future risk and overlooks the ways that victims cope and
develop resilience, perpetuating negative ideas that victims are weak, powerless and somehow to blame for their abuse. Medicine, psychiatry and therapy all adhere to the medical
model of diagnosing and fixing the ‘faults’ of victims more so than recognizing their strength and ability. This downgrades and
‘others’ victims, making them less deserving of sympathy and more likely to be
blamed for abuse or their responses to it.
Horror reflects these problematic assumptions.
Framing victims as rageful, violent, out-of-control monsters both demonises them
and overshadows the impact of their abuse: we sympathise with Angela’s ostracism,
with Alessa’s pain and Asami’s loneliness until we see them as vengeful, twisted killers,
then our sympathy switches to the ‘innocent’ people that they are harming. In
contrast, very little consideration is given to the people who abused them. Victim-abusers in horror are often female despite the
rarity of female abusers in reality, which obscures the gendered nature of this kind of violence. Female victims are also more likely to be extrapolated into supernatural
ghouls who are both physically and morally monstrous, rather more human monsters like Buffalo Bill, the Tooth Fairy or Martin. It could be argued that the raison d’etre of horror is to present us
with alternative, frightening realities yet stereotypical portrayals of
victimisation perpetuate the devaluation of women and the pathologising of
victims already pervasive in society.
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| Angela in Sleepaway Camp |
The ‘cycle of abuse’ also exonerates those
who rape and abuse. It reinforces the idea that abusers are damaged, sick individuals
rather than regular men, even when research tells us that 90% of abusers know
their victims and are usually family. Many, but not all, abusers claim to have experienced
abuse themselves (30-80%) but even if all abusers have violence in their
past, this is not the same as all victims becoming abusers. The idea that abuse
is ‘inevitable’ and that molesters have little control over their actions excuses criminal acts and erases the many victims who are loving and empathic and no threat to children.
We like to see our world as neat and
logical. Despite the popularity of random evil such as Michael Myers, Patrick
Bateman, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
or The Strangers, we also like our villains to have tangible
motivations. Perhaps this makes the idea of violence a little less random – and
therefore more predictable and less threatening – but it comes at the expense
of victims. In films, we typically see the monster attacking the innocent before
the monster’s back story is revealed, by which point we have already labeled
them as ‘evil’ and not worthy of sympathy. Our desire for justice and order often overshadows the need to understand the complexities of human behaviour,
especially within a social context. Would we enjoy horror as much if we had to
stop and consider the monster and their justifications, or society’s role in
creating them? I would argue yes but it certainly complicates our notions of
a ‘just’ world, and would force us to face uncomfortable untruths about the ways that society enables and excuses abuse, which may be far scarier than anything the
cinema screen can show us.
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| The Strangers: “why are you doing this to us?”, “because you were home” |
It is interesting that the concept of
victim-abuser is often at odds with other film tropes. Many heroes have a tragic
backstory – think Batman or Eric Draven in The
Crow – yet rarely does this include sexual abuse. A close comparison would
be the ‘rape-revenge’ trope but even this narrative differs significantly,
traditionally depicting an adult woman living her life (normal, healthy,
unabused) before being subjected to horrific violation, regrouping and enacting
bloody revenge. The revenge is often shown as an attempt to restore the status
quo as much as being an eye for an eye. Although some rape-revenge films do
show the victim as permanently changed, it is mostly positive transformation such
as the heroic, strong and confident ‘avenging angels’ of American Mary, I Spit on Your Grave or Teeth.
Why should we care about the representation
of abuse in horror cinema? Representation matters and repeated messages become
integrated into our understanding of the world. Of course, we have the ability
to evaluate and reject the ideas presented to us by media but if we are
unaware of a representation’s simplicity or inaccuracy – because there are few
contradictory depictions to compare it with – would we know to question it? Despite increased public
awareness of abuse, myths and stereotypes around victims still prevail and this could in part be due to the 'pop psychology' we gleam from the media we consume. Many
women and men grow up with abuse in their histories, and as people often turn
to media to make sense of their lives, what messages would they take from films
that cast them as twisted monsters that hurt others? The rape-revenge genre has
its own problems but it does at least present alternative depictions of female
victims rather than quivering damsels or nameless, bloody bodies.
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| American Mary |
Personally, I would love to see more films
where victims are protagonists rather than villains, where the focus is on the ‘despites’ of abuse rather than the ‘becauses’ of it. It was hard to find an example of horror which does promote victims as tough and resourceful but one
film that touches on this idea is 2015’s Intruders,
which pits Anna, a woman struggling with agoraphobia, against three men who
break into her house. As the story progresses, we see that the traumatic cause of Anna's anxieties has also strengthened her into a force to be reckoned with. Although
Intruders is not a perfect antidote
to the victim-abuser trope, more representations of people - especially women -
overcoming their abuse rather than being permanently damaged by it would challenge
the dominant, negative narratives of victimisation. It might improve the way that
we interact with victims - both individually and as a community - and help us to understand the wider social
factors whilst breaking down the ‘taboo’ of having experienced abuse. Hopefully
the continuing rise of feminist horror will provide more nuanced and realistic portrayals
of violence and abuse, especially considering the number of us who may be
seeing ourselves reflected on screen. I would much rather see myself
represented as an Ana than a Samara*.
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| Anna in Intruders |
*Had I seen Gerald's Game before writing this post, I would have included Jessie alongside Ana as a powerful victim-survivor (see It's Always Gerald's Game).
References
Finkelhor,
D. (1994) The International Epidemiology of Child Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse & Neglect, 18, 5, 409-17.
Whittier,
N. (2016) Where Are the Children?
Theorizing the Missing Piece in Gendered Sexual Violence, Gender & Society, 30, 1,
95-108.
[1] Personally, I take issue with the tendency to identify victims as
‘innocent’, as this suggests that some are more deserving of victimization due
to attributes or actions.
[2] There are several films that deal directly with abuse – Deliver Us From Evil, Sleepers, The Lovely Bones, Sybil, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things –
but these tend to be documentaries, drama or thrillers more than horror.
[3] I avoid the term
paedophile, as this reinforces the idea that abusers are deviant and different
to ‘normal’ men. It also suggests that abuse is part of identity rather than
acts that people choose to commit.
[4] Of course, this lack of diverse representation in film is not
unique to depictions of abuse.
[5] Whittier, 2016, p.95
[6] Finkelhor, 1994
