Introduction
As an avid fan of all sorts of book, film, and video game franchises, it often strikes me that the media I consume tends to be very male-oriented. Generally, I find that protagonists in action and horror media tend to be men supported by a cast of mostly men and that their antagonists are male as well.
Isn’t this old formula getting a bit boring? Personally, I think it’d be cool to shine a spotlight on women in these genres—perhaps as protagonists, but especially as antagonists. I’m all for supporting women’s rights, but I also support women’s wrongs—after all, who doesn’t love amazing female villains?
In this post, I’ll analyze several female antagonists and point out exactly what makes their characters so interesting. My analysis will be guided by what I learned from Brave Sperm and Demure Eggs by Pamela Nettleton. Her piece made me consider the ways that medical media inadvertently or intentionally paints women and their bodies to be hostile, dangerous, or obstacles between men and their goals. I’m conducting the analysis described above considering Nettleton’s article, as I would like to understand if there are any similarities between the way women are depicted in the media she studied and the media that I will analyze.
As a note, this post will contain serious spoilers for The Evil Within 2, the Ring franchise, and Persona 4. It will also contain slightly spooky and grotesque imagery.
The Matriarch (The Evil Within 2)
The Evil Within 2 is a survival horror video game where you play as former detective Sebastian Castellanos and attempt to rescue your daughter from a nightmarish digital world where she’s being held captive. You need to play this game, so I’ll try to keep how much of the finale I’m spoiling to a minimum, but the final boss of the game is a creature called The Matriarch.
Sebastian Castellanos faces down the Matriarch
The Matriarch is a corrupted version of a woman that Sebastian used to know, but heartbreakingly enough, his history with her is not enough to make her back down and let him rescue his daughter—she certainly doesn’t pull her punches.
The Matriarch is painted as a motherly figure. She fights Sebastian because she feels a maternal connection to his daughter and refuses to let him take the child to a place where she cannot protect her. Her most prominent weak point in battle is her womb, and she ‘births’ spider-like creatures to fight Sebastian. Both the player and Sebastian do not want to fight her, but they must—the player must defeat her to move on in the game, and Sebastian must kill her to save his daughter. Her body is an obstacle we must push through to win. The Matriarch is connected to reproduction and is an obstacle in a man’s path, and in that way, she relates to what Nettleton observed in her article. These features, combined with her connection to the protagonist, make her a heartbreaking and incredible antagonist.
Samara (the Ring franchise)
The Ring series is iconic not because of its (honestly unremarkable) protagonists, but because of its creative and unusual antagonist, Samara Morgan, who has a penchant for crawling out of people’s TVs and killing them.
Samara Morgan in the woods outside of her well
Samara is an interesting horror movie antagonist because, unlike many other villains, her killing is largely indiscriminate. While Michael Myers or Freddy Kruger are portrayed in their own franchises as being fond of harassing women or sexually active teens, Samara only targets folks who have, largely by chance, watched a certain videotape. She doesn’t care if her victim is young or old, a virgin or promiscuous, or anything else. She kills just to kill.
Samara’s portrayal in the first Ring movie is fascinating. The protagonist, Rachel Keller, and her son, Aiden, end up watching Samara’s haunted tape and have just seven days to do research and find out how to stop her from killing them. Though Rachel initially views Samara as evil, throughout her investigation she begins to soften towards her—it appears at times that Samara was simply a girl that was tortured and mistreated by her parents, and that her spirit is lashing out simply because it has not been correctly put to rest. However, later in the movie and in its sequel, it is revealed that Samara is not lashing out because she was mistreated—she had always been evil, and she continued being evil after she died.
The case of Samara is interesting because I cannot find many connections between the way that she is portrayed and the way that women are portrayed in Nettleton’s article. While women are stereotyped as hostile and dangerous in Brave Sperm, I don’t believe the danger that comes from Samara relates to her gender. While The Matriarch was hostile because of her maternal instincts, Samara is evil just because she’s evil, not because she is maternal or feminine. Furthermore, I don’t think that Samara is an obstacle to the goals of men like The Matriarch is, as she attacks folks indiscriminately. Seeing this, I think that it is evident that Samara does not adhere to the female stereotypes that Nettleton discovered in Brave Sperm.
Izanami (Persona 4)
Izanami-no-Mikoto and her brother/husband, Izanagi-no-Mikoto are two demons in Persona 4 that are based on deities from Japanese mythology.
To very briefly summarize their mythology, Izanami and Izanagi are credited for creating the islands of Japan as well as several other deities. Izanami died whilst giving birth to a fire deity, and Izanagi, feeling sad at her fate, went to the underworld to try to rescue her. Izanami persuaded the deities of the underworld to let her go, and said she’d leave the underworld with Izanagi on the condition that he didn’t look at her. However, he did, and seeing that his wife was a rotting corpse, he abandoned her and trapped her in the underworld. Furious, Izanami stated she’d kill 1000 living things every day that he kept her trapped, and Izanagi stated that he’d simply have 1500 more be born in their place.
Izanami’s pure facade
In the game, Izanami masterminds a series of murders in the protagonist’s town, causing death like her mythological counterpart promised to do. Her husband, Izanagi, fights on the side of the protagonist, who is always male. In the ultimate battle of the game, the protagonist kills Izanagi by using her husband’s power to defeat her.
The Protagonist and his friends fight Izanami’s true rotten form
Defeating Izanagi is a wonderful moment in the gameplay, as she starts a series of events that lead to the protagonist’s friends and family getting injured. However, in her character I can see similarities with the stereotypes that are outlined in Brave Sperm. Despite being the ultimate antagonist of the game, Izanami does not do much for most of the story—she sits demurely like the eggs in the media Nettleton observed and lets others do her work for her, giving them the power to kill but not laying a hand on anyone herself. Nevertheless, when the protagonist finally battles her, she becomes dangerous and hostile, much like the female body in Nettleton’s article. Only by conquering her body can the protagonist and player achieve their goals and win the game. In this way, her body is merely an obstacle for men to surpass.
Conclusion
By looking at how The Matriarch, Samara, and Izanami are portrayed in their respective media, it is clear that many female antagonists are stereotyped in similar ways to the eggs and female bodies described in Nettleton’s Brave Sperm and Demure Eggs. The Matriarch and Izanami’s antagonistic characterizations seem to tie to their femininity—The Matriarch’s maternal instincts and Izanami’s existence as a scorned wife made them want to fight the men that opposed them, making them into obstacles that men need to surpass. Samara is an interesting exception from the stereotypes I observed above, as she does not seem to adhere to any of the stereotypes outlined in Nettleton’s work at all. In any case, these women were excellent villains, and I really think more media should feature antagonists like them.
This was an interesting article! I do think female antagonists make a story/game much more exciting where these women are embracing the power that they have, even if it is to terrorize the main protagonist, and Nettleson’s article kind of captures this. Actually, one of my favorite female antagonists/protagonists is Cruella de Vil (from the movie, not the book) because of how evil, cunning, and chaotic she is and how she doesn’t back down from upsetting society.
I definitely had the same questions like a week ago. When the last AOT episode dropped, (I won’t spoil it) there was a line that said something like “ohh this girl who was kind of important throughout the whole series is actually the most important person.” I remember thinking “well, if you thought that why did this series had focused on so many male characters and make it a “shōnen manga” (a category of Japanese comics targeting adolescent boys)?”. However, it is interesting that how we chose to take different approaches to the same topic–in a way. In my post, I look at female characters who were ostracized due to their exceptional qualities like beauty, intelligence, and intellectual curiosity. Even though these qualities are probably what would make a female character a super cool antagonist / or a protagonist, I do believe that it is highly possible that people would find that idea very unfamiliar.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post! It was so different and something that I would have never thought of myself. I love anything horror related so I really enjoyed the connection made the reproduction article we read for the course. I am very interested in learning more about the ‘Matriarch’ antagonist that you first talk about. It is interesting to see that she is targeting men and that she is coming in between a father and his child. Just like in the descriptions of the reproduction article, he must conquer her and defeat her in order to get to his child. I would have totally never made that connection myself. I agree with your analysis of the other female characters as well.