The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Introduction to Body Genres

In “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess,” Linda Williams describes body genres--films which interact in some ways with the body of the spectator. Williams focuses on what she deems as the low body genres--pornography, melodrama, and horror, on account of their saturated excess. The goal of these genres, Williams explains, is for the spectator to display “involuntary mimicry of the emotion or sensation of the body on the screen” (Williams 4). The ability for the films to create this bodily sensation in the spectator, as Carol Clover explains in “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,” is “the sole measure of their success.” These three responses are all associated with the term “jerk”--”tear-jerkers,”” fear-jerkers,” and of course the inclination to “jerk off” (Clover 189, Williams 5). With that being said, there is a good deal of intersectionality within these genres, blurring the lines between pornography, melodrama and horror. The common core between these films lies in “the bodies of women...function[ing] traditionally as the primary embodiments of pleasure, fear, and pain” (Williams 4). In this blog post, we will look at the ways in which female bodies figure onscreen in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, oscillating spectator identifications between the victim and the monster, and of course sex.

Women in Horror

“Torture the women!” cried Alfred Hitchcock...and they did. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Kirk, the first figure to die, walks into the murder house, stumbles a little bit down the front hallway, and is swiftly clubbed over the head by Leatherface. However, as Clover explains, “even in films in which males and females are killed in roughly even num- bers, the lingering images are inevitably female...the murders of women...are filmed at closer range, in more graphic detail, and at greater length” (Clover 200-201). Pam, the second figure to die is filmed from a low angle, in her short shorts and halter top walking up to the murder house, tripping into the feather and bone filled den, coughs, sputters and screams in extreme close up. She takes her sweet time getting up and out of there and almost immediately gets spotted by Leatherface, who picks her up by the waist, her naked limbs flailing. She then gets hung up on the meat hook, and watches Kirk get filleted. The ways in which Pam is presented are entirely gendered. From her tush in the beginning of the scene, to her naked skin being penetrated. Pam dies the slowest death in the film, eventually being flung in the freezer. It is important, however, to not forget the prevailing “final girl,” described by Clover as “the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again...She alone looks death in the face; but she alone also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (ending A) or to kill him herself (ending B) (Clover 201). In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Sally, the sole survivor of the killings, is the final girl. Sally runs, falls, screams, crashes through windows, and cries her way through the second half of the film. Sally is even metaphorically raped in the film, when the old man prods her on the floor of his truck with his broomstick and she yelps. Sally, who could succumb to her torture at any time in the film is able to prevail to the very end. Sally looks death in the face literally, when she is sat at the dinner table with the hitchhiker, the old man, Leatherface (wearing a literal dead face), and the semi-mobile corps that is grandpa. In the end, Sally has the strength to run once again, stopping a truck driver in the middle of the road, and being rescued.

Dual Identification with Victim and Monster

While the primary inclination of the spectator is to identify with the victim of the slasher film, Carol Clover points to the possibility of an oscillation between identification with the victim and identification with the monster-- masochism and sadism. Clover explains that while the victim represents “infantile fears and desires, our memory sense of ourselves as tiny and vulnerable in the face of the enormous Other,” the monster represents the other parts of ourselves, the projection of our repressed infantile rage and desire (our blind drive to annihilate those toward whom we feel anger, to force satisfaction from those who stimulate us, to wrench food for ourselves if only by actually devouring those who feed us)” (Clover 191). In essence, while we feel terrified by those who are different from ourselves, who are monstrous and sadistic, we are also monstrous and sadistic. Both identification processes are reversions back to our childhood selves. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the spectator when identifying with final girl Sally feels the arousal of her fear--you may even find yourself screaming “run, run, run!” However, when Kirk willingly stumbles into a clearly dark and creepy house with strange pig-like noises coming from the back room and animal skulls hanging from the walls, you might mumble to yourself “dumbass.” Total schadenfreude.

Sex and Death

Let’s talk about sex, baby! “In the slasher film, sexual transgressors of both sexes are scheduled for early destruction. The genre is studded with couples trying to find a place beyond purview of parents and employers where they can have sex, and immediately afterwards (or during) being killed” (Clover 199). Kirk ask Franklin, before wandering towards the murder house where the “swimming hole” is located. Since Pam and Kirk want to sneak off alone, it’s obvious that they’re trying to bone. Shortly after going to the swimming hole, Pam and Kirk are both killed. The two most sexually active members of the friend group are also the first to die. As is explained by Clover, “Killing those who seek or engage in unauthorized sex amounts to a generic imperative of the slasher film” (200). Franklin, who is the penultimate character to die can be seen fumbling with his penis when trying to pee (before rolling down a hill in his wheelchair). Franklin is clearly a castrated character, even being described by the narrator as Sally’s “invalid brother.” Most interestingly, and what I saw as the most grotesque scene of the film, is when Franklin is sucking and guzzling on a piece of sausage at the gas station, which is later revealed to be human meat. Franklin has literal “man” sausage in his mouth. Franklin is murdered due to his inability to be a “real man” with legs that could outrun a murderer or the strength to fight back. Franklin’s relationship to sex is also the cause of his demise.