Stereotypes – Languaged Life

Screaming, Crying, Hyperventilating: Gendered Expressions of Cry-Behavior in Horror

Kara Bryant, Nina Matloob, Sophie Reynoldson, Kayla Sakayan, Makayl Walsh

Deafening screams, fearful gasps, and streaming tears are all common characteristics displayed in one of film’s most prominent genres: horror. Horror films frequently portray situations like violence, villains, and monsters, naturally eliciting distress from the characters involved. Often, the characters exhibit various distress behaviors, including cries, shrieks, and screams. Given recent efforts to advance nuanced female representation in media, has feminism infiltrated the modern horror genre? A prevalent theme in classic horror has involved women being stereotyped as the submissive and helpless victim. Our research question analyzes how horror films perpetuate gender stereotypes through the portrayal of how men and women communicate distress. We created tallies for the instances of cry-behavior in 10 films ranging from 1960-2023. The results aligned with our hypothesis, which is that women exhibit more cry-behavior than men in horror films. In the films post 2000, the gap between cry-behaviors for women and men is smaller than in films made prior. This article discusses how gender ideals have been reinforced or uprooted, and the role of emotionality in horror films.

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Introduction

How do horror films perpetuate gender stereotypes of weakness through the portrayal of how people communicate distress? Analyzing how people communicate distress in horror films through cry-behavior, which is often linked to weakness, instability, and over-emotionality, (Bylsma et al. 2019) is a valuable way to measure how horror films underpin the notion that women are more emotional than their male counterparts (Brescoll, 2016). We aim to assess the portrayal of gendered stereotypes by identifying the difference between how men and women communicate distress in horror films and analyzing how these portrayals of gendered behavior have evolved. Through developing an awareness of the media’s subliminal messaging that socializes our views of gendered behavior, we can uncover how to combat the internalization and perpetuation of these stereotypes and cultivate a more feminist lens in film.

Background

Our target population for this study is men and women in horror films. This film genre has become synonymous with the victimization of women. Women are often the victims while men are usually the primary perpetrators of violence, illustrating strong gender imbalances (Manaar Kamil & Jubran 2019). Another stereotype that has been identified in horror films is that women who are sexualized are most often killed first, sending the message that females who express sexuality should be punished (Cowan et al. 1990). Women are portrayed as naive, clueless, and leading themselves to their murder (Manaar Kamil & Jubran 2019).

While much research has been done on women as victims in horror films, few researchers have examined the specific ways distress is portrayed in these films. This leads us to the aspect of communication that we wish to investigate: how people communicate distress through signs such as screaming, crying, and pleading to find the difference between how men and women are portrayed as communicating distress in horror films. Moscozo (2016) found that the horror genre may be shifting away from the defined stereotypes of women as submissive victims. Therefore, our aim is to assess if the ways gendered portrayals of distress in horror films have also evolved over time.

Methods

We hypothesize that 1) women will demonstrate more cry-behavior than men and 2) films made in the last decade (2013-2023) will show men and women displaying cry-behavior more equally than films from past decades. Each researcher watched two films defined by the “horror” genre, took notes, and tallied how the characters communicate distress and the frequency in which they do so. Five of these films were released after 2014, while the other five films were made prior to 2000. These films include: Psycho (1960), Carrie (1976), Halloween (1978), Scream (1996), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Happy Death Day (2017), Get Out (2017), Us (2019), Pearl (2022), and Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023). We agreed that these films embodied the cultural zeitgeist in their respective times, making them indicators not only of popular horror but cultural moments in film. Our sample includes films with lead characters both white and non-white to minimize race as a confounding variable. We included films led by men and women, with prominent characters of both genders represented.

We coded “cry-behavior” in these films based on the characteristics outlined by Gračanin et al. (2014), including tear production, distress vocalizations, and sobbing. Our group defines distress vocalizations as: shrieks, screams, and gasps while excluding “grunts” as they are more closely identified with pain than distress. We all watched a scene from the film Scream (1996) and individually coded it. Afterwards, we compared our results to ensure our method for identifying cry-behavior was consistent before tallying cry-behaviors in each film. For example, we concurred that a continuation of hyperventilation for multiple minutes counts as one tally, but a sudden gasp during that period would count as two.

Results

Women in horror movies exhibit more cry-behavior than men. Women demonstrated cry behavior 252 times across older and newer films. Men demonstrated cry behavior 64 times. Thus, in the 316 times cry-behaviors were exhibited in all of the films combined, women represented 79.75% of cry-behavior while men accounted for 20.25%.

New horror films (those made in the past decade) present more cry-behavior than old horror films (those made before the year 2000) across both genders. New horror films demonstrate 134% more cry behavior.

Women in horror movies created before 2000 demonstrate cry behavior significantly more than men. In the 135 times cry-behavior was demonstrated in Psycho, Carrie, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream, women accounted for 122 of those instances, and men only 13. Thus, women represented 90.37% of cry behaviors while men represented 9.63%. Women in horror movies created after 2000, specifically within the last decade, continue demonstrating more cry behavior than men. There were 181 demonstrations of cry-behavior in Get Out, Happy Death Day, Us, Pearl, and Five Nights at Freddy’s combined. Women exhibited cry-behavior 130 times and men 51 times, or 71.82% and 28.18% respectively.

Discussion

Overall, the results support our hypotheses. Women in horror films across past and present decades exhibit significantly more cry-behavior than men, confirming our first hypothesis. Nonetheless, even though women exhibit more cry-behavior than men, the gap is smaller in films produced in the last decade. This highlights strides towards a more equal/feminist lens in films and confirms our second hypothesis. These findings are indicative of how horror films perpetuate stereotypes of women as excessively emotional and weak. Our findings also support the topic of men being conditioned to restrain their emotions as a signal of masculinity. Interestingly, films created in the last decade had more instances of cry-behavior across both genders, which may indicate the audience’s appetite for greater emotional intensity in the films they watch. However, this may also be influenced by confounding variables such as the average runtime of films increasing in recent years.

Overall, female characters typically exhibit cry-behaviors in times of distress and danger, reinforcing the stereotype that women are overly emotional, weak, and unstable. Women display the most cry-behavior in the form of sobbing, screams, gasps, and pleading. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) plays into the trope of women expressing cry behavior in moments of vulnerability and weakness when they are attacked while bathing, sleeping, or cornered in isolation by the killer. In Psycho (1960), the only time a male character exhibited cry-behavior was while they were being chased and dressed as a female.

Films from the last decade display the lead female character as a killer who is motivated by her fragile and excessively emotional state. In Pearl (2022), Pearl is the sole perpetrator of violence in the film and conveys a range of emotions from rage to sadness; however, her capriciousness may contribute to stereotypes of women as unable to control their emotions since she tends to kill on a whim of rage. Most of her cry-behavior was coded for sobbing. Similarly, in Carrie (1976), the main character first expresses cry-behavior in connection to her femininity when she gets her first period in the female locker room. She exhibits cry-behavior when being targeted by students and her religious mother for her submissiveness and changing female body. Once Carrie becomes the tormentor, her cry-behavior ceases as she watches her classmates cry and scream. In contrast to modern horror films such as Pearl, Carrie gains autonomy once she sheds her emotional disposition.

The situations where cry-behavior is exhibited shift from responses of distress, to expressions of strength in modern films. For example, in the film Happy Death Day (2017), the main character, Tree, exhibits cry-behavior in states of frustration and anger rather than expressions of helplessness and defeat. In Us (2019), the lead character, Addy, is depicted as excessively emotional by her husband who complains that she overreacts. Nonetheless, Addy exhibits strength when she fights the killers. Addy utilizes cry-behavior most frequently during physical encounters, such as stabbings, beatings, and burns, a response to overcoming physical pain rather than fear. Her children exhibit cry-behavior while being held by Addy, which supports how Addy maintains strength and resilience despite the pain.

Interestingly, modern horror also depicts female rage and instability as tools for female characters to weaponize. Rose, the female lead and perpetrator in Get Out (2017), does not exhibit cry-behavior in reaction to physical pain. She reacts with laughter and retaliates by inflicting pain onto others. Rose uses cry-behavior to weaponize her white femininity, playing into the stereotype of the damsel in distress to protect herself from who she believed were the police coming to “rescue” her. Modern films such as Get Out show how the female perpetrator might use her emotions to shift blame onto the male victim. In contrast to female horror representations, the male lead, Chris, does not sob when he is attacked. He downplays and internalizes his cry-behavior through gasps, hyperventilating, and shedding an occasional tear.

Conclusion

Although the representation of women as weak in horror films has lessened, women are still more likely than men to be depicted as unstable and excessively emotional. Modern horror films are beginning to undermine traditional notions of feminine vulnerability and have morphed emotional pain into either a catalyst for vengeful violence or fierce protection. As we work to unlearn societal understandings of emotion as a form of weakness, men demonstrate cry-behavior in times of distress. While improving, the gender imbalance of how men and women communicate distress in these films persists.

References

Brescoll, V. L. (2016). Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of emotion lead to biased evaluations of female leaders. the Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), 415–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.005

Bylsma, L. M., Gračanin, A., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2019). The neurobiology of human crying. Clinical autonomic research: Official journal of the clinical autonomic research society, 29(1), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10286-018-0526-y

Cowan, G., O’Brien, M. (1990). Gender and survival vs. death in slasher films: A content analysis. Sex Roles, 23, 187–196. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289865

Gračanin, A., Bylsma, L. M., & Vingerhoets, A. J. (2014). Is crying a self-soothing behavior? Frontiers in psychology, 5, 502. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00502

Manaar Kamil, S. & Jubran, H. S. Y. (2019). The representation of women in the horror movies: A study in selected Horror movies. Communication and Linguistics Studies, 5(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cls.20190501.13

Moscozo, R. D. (2016). Language in Postmodern Horror: Shifting Away from Stereotype to Heroine. Colloquy, 12, 66-86.

Mundorf, N., Weaver, J., & Zillmann, D. (1989). Effects of gender roles and self perceptions on affective reactions to horror films. Sex Roles, 20(11), 655–673. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288078

Three Stars is for Authenticity: Cuisine and its Impact on Yelp Reviews

Mae Altarac, Chloe Chang, Alyssa Cheung, Larissa Li, Tiffany Lieu

Societal expectations affect nearly every aspect of our daily lives, even extending as far as what we choose to include in restaurant reviews. Although the main purpose of reading reviews is to learn about the restaurant itself, researchers can also learn about patterns of stereotypes based on the content of reviews. In our study, we aim to explore whether the inherent biases in reviews are influenced by expectations of the restaurant’s cuisine and price point. The intersection between culture and restaurant reviews has been informally explored extensively on social media. For instance, TikTok user RocketJump (2022), in his viral video, made the claim that 3.5 stars is the ideal “sweet spot” for authentic Chinese food – potentially reflecting different expectations across cultures. Guided by three hypotheses, our research found that Chinese restaurants at higher price points were more likely to receive negative reviews than American restaurants while the reverse is true for cheaper restaurants. In addition, we found patterns in reviews indicating that Chinese restaurants tend to focus more on food quality than American restaurants, and that reviews for more expensive restaurants focused more on service in comparison to cheaper restaurants. Price and cuisine greatly affected lexical decisions when it came to reviewing restaurants, reflecting preconceived biases reviewers held.

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Introduction and Background

As our society becomes more globalized, intercultural exchanges have increasingly permeated people’s everyday lives. Some of the most prevalent sites for such exchanges are restaurants, for which popular review websites like Yelp provide a vast pool of data to study. Existing studies on Yelp reviews focus on factors within the reviewer that influence the content of the review. For instance, a study on Mexican restaurant reviews linked a focus on authenticity in the reviews with a desire to seem worldly (Gottlieb, 2015). While this research establishes motivation for users leaving reviews, there is little discussion about how these differences manifest themselves in reviews based on the cuisines of restaurants. Additionally, as a general trend, cultural restaurants are the targets of more othering language in reviews by people from outside the culture (Mkono, 2011). Within the broad category of cultural restaurants, Chinese restaurants, in particular, have experienced an increase in negative reviews since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (Kim & Kam, 2023). Since 2020, Chinese restaurants have become an increasingly necessary field of study to explore the effects of the pandemic on discrimination. This research project attempts to fill a gap in the literature by exploring the research question: Does the cultural identity and price point of a restaurant impact the consumer’s reviews of the establishment? Through analysis of reviews, we examine how word choice and content are guided by cuisine.

Methods

We compiled Yelp reviews from Chinese and American restaurants in Westwood in Los Angeles, California in a similar manner to existing studies (Gottlieb, 2015). In total, we selected eight restaurants to study: two Chinese restaurants and two American restaurants from the $-$$ range on Yelp, and two Chinese restaurants and two American restaurants from the $$$-$$$$ range. To maintain consistency and ensure sufficient data, we selected the most popular restaurants in these categories from Yelp’s database. By sampling from multiple price points, we aimed to mitigate the influence of price on any culturally-related disparities in restaurant reviews.

Data was gathered from a four-year period (2020-2024) to reduce year-to-year variations and outdated reviews. Furthermore, we focused on data from 2020 onwards as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown to have a negative impact on the reviews of many Chinese restaurants (Kim & Kam, 2023). Data prior to this time range could skew results due to discrepancies in perceptions of Chinese restaurants before and after the start of the pandemic.

Reviews were categorized as negative if they fell within the 1 to 2-star range on Yelp and positive if they fell within the 4 or 5-star range. Utilizing content analysis, a coder read through reviews and tallied all mentions of comments from each of the following categories: food quality, service quality, cleanliness, ambiance, and value.

For our main and second hypothesis, we controlled for the variable of price by aggregating and comparing reviews of Chinese and American restaurants within the same price range, either lower-priced ($-$$) or higher-priced ($$$-$$$$). To test the third hypothesis, we compared reviews from the four expensive restaurants with those from the four cheap restaurants with the selected sample.

Results and Analysis

Hypothesis I, which proposes that Chinese restaurants are more likely to receive negative reviews compared to American restaurants, is partially supported by our data. We compared the proportion of negative reviews for Chinese and American restaurants within the same price range, calculating this by dividing the number of negative reviews by the total number of reviews for each restaurant type. The results, shown in Figure 1, indicate that in the cheap price range, Chinese restaurants received a lower proportion of negative reviews (0.09) than American restaurants (0.24), contrary to our hypothesis. However, in the expensive price range, Chinese restaurants received a higher proportion of negative reviews (0.55) compared to American restaurants (0.22), which supports the hypothesis. With p-values of less than .05, both of these results are statistically significant. In addition, it is worth noting that American restaurants had a relatively consistent proportion of negative reviews across different price ranges, whereas Chinese restaurants saw a higher proportion of negative reviews at higher prices. This aligns with Roest and Rindfleisch’s (2010) finding that people are more critical of expensive restaurants, but our data indicates that this increased scrutiny specifically applies to Chinese restaurants but not American restaurants.

Figure 1. Proportion of negative reviews by restaurant types and price range Hypothesis II, which is that all reviews of Chinese restaurants will tend to emphasize

Hypothesis II, which is that all reviews of Chinese restaurants will tend to emphasize food quality more than those of American restaurants, is supported. Reviews were split into positive (4-5 stars) and negative (1-2 stars) and sorted into five categories: Food Quality, Service, Cleanliness, Ambiance, and Value. We compared the proportion of each category for both positive and negative reviews. Figure 2 presents the proportion of each category in positive reviews. Positive reviews for all four types of restaurants emphasize food quality the most. The proportions of food quality in positive reviews for both cheap (0.91) and expensive (0.91) Chinese restaurants are higher than those for cheap (0.8) and expensive (0.73) American restaurants. Figure 3 displays the proportion of each category in negative reviews. Proportions of negative reviews focusing on food quality are higher for cheap (0.89) and expensive (0.64) Chinese restaurants compared to cheap (0.39) and expensive (0.45) American restaurants. At both the positive and negative levels, the p-values are less than .05 and are thus significant.

Figure 2. Proportion of positive review categories by restaurant types. The solid lines represent Chinese restaurants; the dashed lines represent American restaurants

Figure 3. Proportion of negative review categories by restaurant types. The solid lines represent Chinese restaurants; the dashed lines represent American restaurants

Hypothesis III, which states that all reviews of high-end restaurants will place a greater emphasis on service compared to less expensive establishments, is supported. We compared the same sample of restaurants at the two different price points and calculated the proportion of reviews focused on service for all restaurants studied. As illustrated in Figure 4, expensive Chinese restaurants have higher proportions of both negative (0.38) and positive (0.62) reviews emphasizing service compared to cheap Chinese restaurants, which have proportions of 0.28 for negative reviews and 0.43 for positive reviews. The same pattern is observed in American restaurants, although the difference in proportions across the cheap and expensive American restaurants is not as pronounced. Nonetheless, with p-values all less than .05, these results are significant.

Figure 4. Proportion of positive and negative service reviews by restaurant types Discussion & Conclusion

Human perception and communication are shaped by existing stereotypes and preconceived notions of biases upheld by social groups. The results of our study indicate that, within the restaurant industry, the cultural background of a restaurant plays a significant role in determining the type of reviews it receives, particularly in the context of price. Our data suggests that consumers may hold different standards for high-end Chinese restaurants, potentially influenced by societal expectations that “authentic” ethnic restaurants will be “dirtier” (Gottlieb, 2015). Additionally, our data indicates that food quality is a dominant theme in reviews for Chinese restaurants, regardless of whether the review is positive or negative – suggesting that patrons of Chinese restaurants may prioritize food quality more when evaluating their dining experience. Moreover, the focus on service in reviews of high-end restaurants, regardless of cuisine, underscores the critical role that service quality plays in shaping consumer perceptions in upscale dining contexts (Aktaş Polat, 2022). With the proliferation of these reviews, the corresponding stereotypes about ethnic restaurants, cultural focuses, and expectations based on price level are continually reinforced and spread. Not only do these findings have implications for the patronage of restaurants, but they also impact how cultural institutions and groups are perceived and treated. Future research examining how these patterns and trends exist across dining establishments in different regions could increase awareness of social biases embedded within reviewing sites like Yelp, fostering a more culturally sensitive society.

References

Aktaş Polat, S. (2022). Analysis of fine dining restaurant reviews for perception of Customers Restaurant Service Quality. Journal of Tourism and Gastronomy Studies. https://doi.org/10.21325/jotags.2022.974

Gottlieb, D. (2015). “Dirty, authentic…delicious”: Yelp, Mexican restaurants, and the appetites of Philadelphia’s new middle class. Gastronomica, 15(2), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2015.15.2.39

Kim, E., & Kam, C. (2023). Othering in everyday life: Anti-Chinese bias in the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Opinion Quarterly, 87(3), 733–748. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad035

Mkono, M. (2011). The othering of food in touristic eatertainment: A netnography. Tourist Studies, 11(3), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797611431502

Roest, H., & Rindfleisch, A. (2010). The influence of quality cues and typicality cues on restaurant purchase intention. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(1), 10–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2009.08.007

Wong, F. [@rocketjump]. (2022, September 12). Why I only go to Chinese Restaurants with 3.5 star ratings [Video]. TikTok.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTLoh5Sqp/