Presenter(s): Maggie Murphy—Psychology
Faculty Mentor(s): Oluwakemi “Kemi” Balogun
Session 1: Human Behavior—I am Who I Am
The components within Horror Media has been a topic of study for decades . A major gap in the scholarship is how representations within horror media impacts marginalized communities negatively . Using the first-person survival horror game Outlast II, I ask how these tropes
accentuate the archetypes of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity as well as how they conventionalize individuals that challenge the gender binary . The cutscenes, dialogue, documents, and recordings collected will be analyzed, providing evidence for the forthcoming discussions about the representation of gender and queer communities within this game . Results show that the game emphasizes similar themes commonly found in horror media . These include: the “male protector” and “damsel in distress” archetypes, the violent mistreatment of women, framing sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) as grotesque, exclusion of primary female characters, stereotyping queer characters, and emphasis on hegemonic masculinity, a term coined by Connell (1987) . This case study will provide further evidence for ongoing research on horror media and its use of the gender binary, stereotypical male/female roles, and exclusion of non-stereotypical gender non-conforming or queer characters .