Have womens' role in horror films changed over time?

Horror films always have a female in them but for what reason...sex appeal?intelligence?comedy value?witt??
have their roles changed, for example compare the role of Nancy in Nightmare on elm street to Clarice Starling in Silence of the lambs??
any opinions?

[ferretchucker]

somewhere, a few months ago, we had this conversation.


In my opinion, women started out as damsels in distress, but now they have a bigger role. NOES, F-13, every halloween film. They seem to get more sympathy because, this isn't my personal views, they're seen as weaker and more vulnerable. And nearly every director (Not Rob Zombie), want their protagonist to have sympathy.

[Zombi]

Women seem to be "getting out of the kitchen" way more when it comes to horror. just look at that movie "high tension", chick killer, 2 strong girl characters, and it was an actual decent film with plenty of gore. as being of the woman race, i dont really care about the role in which they play because i think the whole spaghetti horror trend was great, women always getting pwned in the face with sharp objects... in the case of high tension tho, i don't think it was about intelligence/sex appeal or like sympathy. i think it was just a choice. no background no nothing. i think we have to stop OVER analyzing films sometimes because the answer can just be "It just happend to be that way"...

of course roles have changed but thats just life, watch, within the next couple of years were gonna have like women presidents talking behind each others backs instead of initiating world peace :D

[ferretchucker]

I think at one point however, a writer must've gone "There are so many women being the victims in horror films and men saving them. Let's switch it around and see how it goes."