Location: www.dayofthewoman.com

Date: Series begins on February 1, 2015

Organizer(s): BJ Colangelo

Contact: brittnahjade@gmail.com

Website/Social Media Links: www.dayofthewoman.com
@bjcolangelo

Description: Feminist horror writer BJ Colangelo will be providing a series focusing on horror films that follow the definition of “feminism” that may not immediately be thought of.  Analyzing female characters, female writers, female directors, and the male allies that support the cause through their work, Day of the Woman: a blog for the feminine side of fear will fill the month with analytical pieces on films overlooked for their feminism.

 UPDATES:

February 2, 2015 – UNEXPECTEDLY FEMINIST HORROR FILMS PART ONE: EVERLY (2014)

“Promoted as “DIE HARD in a room,” director Joe Lynch’s thrilling shoot-em-up flick EVERLY would seem on paper to be just another run-of-the–mill misogynist action/horror film.  The story follows the titular Everly, a prostitute who works for a brutal criminal overlord named Taiko.  When it is discovered that Everly is being traitorous (by trying to bring down his organization) he promises that by the end of the night (sometime around Christmas) she will be murdered.  He sends his men to torture, rape, and kill her, but Everly does everything in her power to fight back, and try and make it out alive.  Prostitution, violence, rape, and torture are some of the quickest “go-to” storytelling tactics in a woman-hating film, but EVERLY is unexpectedly an incredibly feminist film.”

Read the full piece by BJ Colangelo here—>  http://dayofwoman.blogspot.com/2015/02/unexpectedly-feminist-horror-films.html

February 3, 2015- UNEXPECTEDLY FEMINIST HORROR FILMS: JOHN CARPENTER’S ‘THE THING’ (1982)

“John Carpenter arguably created his masterpiece with THE THING. Although it remains within the science fiction subgenre, THE THING also falls within the same realm as a monster movie or a body-horror film. Considering the main antagonist of THE THING, is non-human and the rest of the characters are male, many people forget that THE THING is also a great example of feminism.  By definition, feminism the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.  Emphasis on EQUALITY.  The patriarchy (or a male-dominated society) doesn’t just hurt women, it hurts men.  John Carpenter’s THE THING is an excellent film to analyze masculinity in a patriarchal society.”

Read the full piece by BJ Colangelo here—> http://dayofwoman.blogspot.com/2015/02/unexpectedly-feminist-horror-films-john.html

February 13, 2015– UNEXPECTEDLY FEMINIST HORROR FILMS: FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

“Before everyone’s favorite hockey mask wearing mutant son began terrorizing Camp Crystal Lake, his Mommy Dearest was the original slayer of sinful counselors.  The cable knit sweater wearing killer was a mother scorned, hoping to avenge the unnecessary death of her precious son Jason.  Pamela Voorhees was dealt a rather difficult hand.  Enduring a pregnancy at the age of sixteen while residing in a trailer with a verbally and physically abusive man, her son would later be born hydrocephalic, forcing her to home-school him while she herself was still a child.  When you really put it into perspective, she had a child at sixteen without the assistance of MTV or her parents.
Sixteen year old girls are some of the most self-absorbed individuals on the planet, and she was responsible for raising a deformed and learning disabled child.  Jason was her entire world.  Growing up without the support or interaction with anyone other than his mother would cause a lot of psychological issues for both Jason and Pamela, and it was after his death that she began to hear the voices telling her to kill those responsible for his untimely demise.  We know this now after twelve movies, a series of novels, a line of comic books, and countless other forms of media.  But what about the original FRIDAY THE 13TH?  Without any of this back story, finding out the killer in the film that started a franchise was actually a woman was shocking for its time and still remains as one of the most “Oh shit” reveals in horror history.  While using a female reveal as a shock treatment is not the most equal of treatments, the fact that the killer remains genderless (aka-equal) until the final moments helps make FRIDAY THE 13TH unexpectedly feminist.”

Read the full piece by BJ Colangelo here—> http://dayofwoman.blogspot.com/2015/02/unexpectedly-feminist-horror-films_13.html