Textual Analysis - Scream (1996)

How is Gender represented in this Extract?

• Camera
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene
• Editing

Camera

Firstly, the camerawork in this opening is vital in portraying the vulnerability of the women. This is first shown with an establishing shot outside the house with the swing swinging by itself. The reason for this is that it shows she's home alone in a massive house in the middle of nowhere, a commonly used setting for a horror film. Also, it hints that someone is outside watching her because the swing was swinging and it was not windy as the trees were still. This shot can also be seen as a POV shot of the antagonist, Scream. The effect of this shot is to show that she's in danger and home alone, which is a given stereotype of a home-oriented women and that women are portrayed as inferior and weak. The audience feels sympathy for the women as she's innocent, who is in great danger and is almost inevitable to die, knowing that they are watching a horror film. This then relates to the point of women being vulnerable, and that they are still seen in society as inferior.




Furthermore, another shot used in the opening was a close up, this zooms in on the women emotions. We see the effectiveness of a close up when it's used after Scream said, " I wanna know who I'm looking at". The purpose of the close up here is because it comes after a significant part of the dialogue which reveals to the women that she's being watched, which as an audience we already knew. The close up shows that the women is now scared and worried, emphasizing on the weakness and vulnerability of women. The stereotype of females being talkative and not aggressive is also shown in this sequence, and the effect this has is again, makes the audience fear for the women as she's inevitable to die. Also, the effect of using a women in this scene is effective as it makes it more intense whereas if it was a man it wouldn't be as scary for the audience because most men would have got aggressive and would not of been scared by him, making the audience feel safe and no fear would have been created for the character.






Sound

Firstly, the sound is the opening sequence was extremely important in setting the horror atmosphere. The non-diegetic sound was important in adding to the tension and making the audience unnerved from the start. The first evidence for this is the music that is added when the institutions appear. The reason for this is to first illustrate that its a horror film, but also to set up the opening, which was straight after the slow, intense, creepy music, where the film titles appear with a scream noise. This is to represent the film title 'Scream'. This then connotes danger and the screams of innocent people which we later experience in this film, where they are being killed as the titles demonstrated, where they turned red whilst the scream noise appeared, this illustrates the death of the person. The effect this has on the audience is that it gives a massive insight of what the film is going to store. Therefore, they are already frightened and unease by a killer which they don't know who or where they could be. The scream was also a women, this links again to the point of females make horrors more scary if they are the victim as they are seen stereotypically more weak and less aggressive, therefore are inferior and very vulnerable.




The diegetic sound in the opening was also very effective. A piece of diegetic sound was the knife where the women pulled it out of the knife holder. The use of the exaggerated sound of the knife blade is to reinforce she is talking to a killer, but also connotes death, violence and danger. To add to this point, the knife sound is also made clear as it foreshadows the characters own death, due to being stabbed several times violently with a knife. This can also be supported by the speech, "to see what your insides look like", this speech also relates to the knife as it will be used to do this action, also this diegetic sound of speech connotes extreme violence as is know telling us he's there to kill her. The effect this has on the audience is that they are drawn to the knife, therefore always aware of the killer and are scared, also, they now fear for the women as they now she is unmatched with a killer where she is very unlikely going to get away alive. However, some of the audience may feel a guilty pleasure and want her to die due to her own stupidity and flirting with a stranger even though she has a boyfriend, where she tells him way too much information. This relates to the female stereotype of talkative which in this situation has ended in her death.






Editing

The editing in Scream was useful in connoting death. The evidence for this this is the Scream film title. The title was all ragged as if it was cut by knives as well as turning red when we hear the scream noise. The reason for this is to connote death and danger as well as foreshadowing several deaths by knives in the film. The editing of the titles being white is to represent innocence, such as the women, which when they edit the titles to turn red alongside the women's scream is to illustrate innocent people are going to be killed, mainly women. The effect this has is that it makes the audience feel in danger and also feel that women will be the main target as they are less aggressive and easy to trick due to the talkative personalities.


To add, another piece of editing used in this opening was a shot reverse shot. The evidence of a shot reverse shot was where the camera went back and forth between the women and the front door. The reason of this shot reverse shot is to represent that the killer, Scream, is behind the door. The evidence to then support this reason is the doorbell ringing. The use of the doorbell within the shot reverse shot is to then show again that the door is being used to represent Scream. The effect this has on the audience is that it keeps them unnerved due to the antagonist still being kept unseen, therefore makes the audience worry still where he could be. They would feel this way even more now because the women now knows she is about to be attacked and attempted to be killed. However, this can then be linked back again to a guilty pleasure of the some of audience wanting her to die because the women is portrayed as the stereo-typically dumb blonde, and has got herself into this mess so she deserves nothing less.




Mise-En-Scene



Moving onto the mise-en-scene, the use of the victim was cleverly used as it portrays typical stereotypes. The evidence for this is that the victim is a women that has blonde hair, blue eyes and red lipstick. The reason for this is that these features have the stereotypical characteristics of a dumb blonde. The red lipstick is used to sexualise her as well as her blue eyes to connote innocence. Then another piece of evidence to support this is that the creme jumper they have specifically chosen for her to wear is to connote more innocence and purity.


Mise-en-scene was vital in this opening at foreshadowing the main victims death. The evidence for this is when she's in the kitchen, the tracking shot used to follow her movements around the kitchen was very wise by keeping the knife holder with all the knifes in it, and manage to maintain it in the frame of the shot, however and wherever she moved. The reason for this was as I stated, to foreshadow the victims death, as she was brutally killed with a knife by Scream. Therefore, this knife is very good iconography.