The concepts of gender and horror have long been
intertwined. Gone are the days where women can’t do anything but scream and be
murdered in the shower by a cross-dressing, mother obsessed serial killers. Now
women in horror can fight back and not just be sex objects or annoying
characters to be killed off, an example of this would be Shelly Duvall in the
Shining as an example for both cases. Amelia in the Babadook first refuses to
accept that her, son has seen the creature and doesn’t believe that it’s after
them. She is a prime example of the old horror trope, that she is an ignorant woman
that refuses to believe the supernatural horror that is attacking her and her
son. Amelia realizes that her son’s fears are real and manifesting upon her,
when after she rips up the book, it rematerializes in front of her, after she
rips up the book and even burns it. Amelia then becomes the possessed host for
the creature that’s been tormenting her, and he makes her kill her dog, like
the book predicted. Amelia’s son uses her possession against her and makes a
trap for the Babadook in the cellar, making Amelia vomit the monster out of
her. This gives rise to Amelia getting the courage inside of her to stop being
defenseless and break the stereotype of horror female, and confront the demon
to save her family. Amelia banishes the demon from her home but later it’s revealed
that she has the demon captured in the cellar, so it can’t hurt her anymore.
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