The saw series is one that had many negative connotations. Being one of the pioneers of the brand of horror known as 'torture porn', (along with Eli Roth's Hostel, to name one) Saw had gathered a cult following as well as disgusted people internationally. However, the Saw Series is a gem in modern horror due to its portrayal or women which doesn't sexualise them but gives them gender equality.
Many modern horror flicks are vastly different to what would've been considered horror 40 years ago. Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street along with other horror films of the 80s have greatly inspired modern horror films with the 'slasher' aspect as well as sexualising women. The slasher aspect in one that has carried into today's horror films although gore is portrayed more gruesomely and realistically. New horror films also find the need to include a number of sex scenes, particularly in the slasher genre. Along with sex scenes, women often expose their breasts for the audience's pleasure and entertainment. This nudity devalues women and objectifies them so much so the audience doesn't sympathise with their deaths and may find them comical.
Of course, I am generalising a great deal and their are a number of modern horror films that don't do this and attempt to build a movie purely on a suspenseful plot and characterisation.
Saw, written by Leigh Whannell and directed by James Wan (originally) was a film introduced to cinemas in 2003. The concept in which victims were put in traps by a serial killer due to their moral mistakes was fresh and captivated audiences globally. As one successful film always does, it spawned six sequels, which were unfortunately drawn out and the constant change of writers and directors attempted to keep the franchise fresh with shocking and disgusting traps thus it became not a horror franchise, but a torture porn franchise.
Despite its numerous sequels, the Saw series was able to portray women in a new light. They were given equal footing, and had as much chance to survive John Kramer's (alias, Jigsaw) games as much as the men. Some of the women placed in the games outwitted their male counterparts, demonstrating new found strength in horror films for women.
In the fifth installment of the now tired series, the female character Brit was shown to have a great deal of intelligence. The characterisation of the character portrayed a manipulating, clever, strong willed and independent woman. Brit became one of two final survivors of the game through outwitting and manipulating her opponents, two of which were men. This destroyed the stigma of women being ignorant and naive which is so often displayed in slasher films.
In my opinion, the Saw Franchise is also a rarity due to their lack of sexualisation of women. In the entire series, there is only two nude scene. One a man, one a woman. Both being nude of integral to the effectiveness of the trap they were placed in thus that characters being nude was not in anyway for sexual gratification but rather intended to confront the audience through the brutal nature of the torture being endured. In fact, the closest the film gets to portrayed women in a sexual light is through the first trap in the seventh installment in which it is revealed that the female placed in the trap was sleeping with the two men in the trap. Also it shows the sexual nature of the women, it again shows the manipulative and powerful side that has only been reluctantly shown in other horror films.
The characterisation of Amanda Young, AKA Jigsaw's apprentice, is another portrayal of gender equality in the Saw series. Amanda, primarily, is strong. She is arguably the strongest woman in the series. Not only does she have physical strength but she is also as clever as her male counterpart and teacher, John. She creates her traps which rival the original killers but she is notably unforgiving and brutal in nature illustrated through the inescapability of many of her traps. This unforgiving nature and psychical strength puts her on equal footing with John, demonstrating the great empowerment that Saw series has given women. Amanda could even be considered a synecdoche for women in her strength in this particular franchise.
Saw is a peculiar little gem of a franchise and if you are willing to look past the confronting goriness of the film, you will find a surprisingly decent film with themes of feminism if you read into it a little.
3/5
- Cassie
Watch if you liked: the Hostel Franchise (2005-2011); Vacancy (2007); the Hitcher (2007), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original [1971] and remake [2003]); Captivity (2007), The Collector (2009)
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