Stereotypical Representations in the "Horror" and "Thriller" genres.

A stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image of a particular type of person or thing. An archetype, is a very typical example of a certain person or thing.


Horror: 
Focusing on Dracula, Bram Stoker write he original Dracula book in 1897. Since then, Mary Shelley took on some of the conventions of Stoker's Dracula book and also, Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula in the 1931 version of Dracula. 




Dracula does not really change in terms of his age, gender, social class and costume e.c.t. He is usually part of the middle class and is male. He is always around 40-50 years old, although this has varied throughout the years as Dracula has been re-made. Typically, Dracula is always white with an Eastern European accent and speaks broken English. 
In terms of his costume, he always has a black cloak and fangs. Usually, he lives in a castle on the mountains and occasionally, he turns into a bat. This adheres to the generic conventions of horror antagonists. 

Stereotypical Antagonists:
In many horror films, the antagonists are stereo-typically white, middle aged males. This is a very  recognisable representation, stereotype or a dominant representation. Some examples of these stereotyped horror antagonists are Freddy Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street, Mike Myers in Halloween, Jason from Friday 13th and the Clown from IT. 


Horror movies Heroines:
Females in being the heroines in horror films was rare when horror films first came about, however now-a-days, they are, in some cases, more popular than some of the horror films where the male lead is the hero. Usually single, white females virgins are the archetypal victims in the horror genre but their role in films has evolved from being the victim to the aggressor. Some examples of this are: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Underworld. 


Representation of Gender/Ethnicity in the "Thriller" Genre.

Cultural Bias:
Hollywood has always 'white' centric, i.e. leading. 
Actors and Directors have always been male and Caucasian with Black, ethnic, minority actors only playing minor roles. Certain actors including Will Smith and Morgan Freeman have broken this theme as they play the leading roles in all of the films they are in. 
In the Thriller genre it has always been common to have male, white protagonists as the key roles. The game changer for this stereotype was Se7en in the 1990s. 

Heterosexual bias: 
Having a homosexual or 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. Thomas Harris made nearly all of his antagonists, such as serial killers, have homosexual tendencies and sexual devices. This is a negative stereotype that he has helped to form.

Gender bias:
In the Thriller genre, females have predominantly played the victim role or the femme fatal (the seductive vamp that cannot be trusted). In Silence of the Lambs in 1990, the role of Jodie Foster playing an FBI agent is an example of woman rising above the stereotypical view that woman cannot play the leading role. The representation of women in Thriller/Horror films has been far more challenging. Some examples of these challenging roles are Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Underworld, the same as those that are horror movie heroines.