In order to gain an understanding of our female character, 'The Temptress' - who is a prostitute that kills her male clients- and to create greater depth to our character profile we had research into the typical representation of female prostitutes within films. Slasher films tend to explore human nature and how we react to murder, violence and sex with the antagonist- the Temptress within our opening- challenging and pushing the boundaries of human behaviour. Therefore this research will help also so that we can successfully explore the subversion of the genre of slasher to have a promiscuous female killer.
We initially decided to look into a film favourite of ours, Pretty Woman to gain inspiration for our film opening of how prostitutes are depicted through their clothing and how they behave. The film was originally intended to be a cautionary story about sex work; however the film was redeveloped to become a romantic comedy.
Within the film the prostitute, Vivian
Ward, meets the business man Edward Lewis as he asks her for directions, she then charges him $20 for driving him in his car to the hotel. He then offers to hire her as an escort to accompany him on a business trip for $3000 and for a new wardrobe. Eventually the protagonists fall in love- following the conventions of a typical romantic comedy, presenting prostitutes more like a 'damsel in distress' figure.
Therefore we decided to look at the film American Psycho, a dark comedy/ slasher released in 2000. The film centres on Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, who is a wealthy investment banker with a psychopathic alter ego.
Within the film Bateman - the male killer - takes home two female prostitutes, he is presented as controlling and dominates the soundscape with his commanding mode of address. Whereas the prostitutes are submissive and are shown to be vulnerable through the high angle shots, which foreshadows Bateman's later violence towards them through the ominous dark point of view shot as he opens a drawer. This is paired with the non-diegetic eerie static sound as it is revealed that the drawer contains weapon like and violent items including a hammer, scissors and pliers as he reaches ominously for a hanger telling the prostitutes "we're not through yet".
This highlights the attitude to prostitutes that they are objectified and treated solely as a means to satisfy sexual desires as well as disposable to fulfil Bateman's psychotic violent desires. This follows the idea that as he has the money he holds the power, whereas the prostitutes need the money so are submissive; therefore we wanted to explore the idea by subverting it, giving the prostitute the power within our film opening.
In terms of costume I found that within both films the prostitutes tend to wear dresses or skirts in block colours e.g. red, black or white to emphasise their femininity and sexuality as well as a heeled shoe; therefore this is useful to consider when deciding on the costume for our antagonist, Temptress.
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