When looking at this question I decided to break it down and look at it in more detail; for example the way the word ‘women’ is used in the question shows there is an issue with gender within this film. It can clearly be stated that there is an issue with gender in The horror Of Dracula as throughout the film the men are always more higher up and more stronger than the women who are more vulnerable and likely to give in to Dracula’s seductions. It can also be said that this can be linked with the codes and conventions of horror and the typical representations that you get from characters within this genre; for example within this film you have the traditional damsel in distress who is always screaming and who the audience tend to want to be the next victim so that they don’t have to hear scream and cry anymore, in this case the damsel in distress in The Horror Of Dracula is Lucy.
The time that this film was made and the time that it was set in could contribute to the fact that women are represented as inferior sexualised beings as this is around the time that women weren’t the ones to work and only had to be there as a wife to the men who went out and worked for there living. In this film, the day and age it was set in could communicate the fact that women are being represented as sexualised beings as all they were needed for was relaxation for the alpha male who went to work and put food on the table for his family.
When you look at the word inferior you can define it as saying someone is beneath, mediocre or lower than you and say that the women are inferior to the men is making a strong point about gender and you would need a lot of points to back this up, however the horror of count Dracula does give you a lot of points as it is always the women who give in to the men in this film as Dracula is let in by the women so they he can feed on his prey. Where as the men stand up to Dracula and do not allow this as they put up a struggle with him and try to put an end to his life. This is one of the reasons that women are represented as more sub standard compared to the men in this film who like in other horror films seem to save the day and rescue the women from the antagonist.
Some people may argue against this statement saying that within this film there maybe evidence of women being inferior to men, however this is set in a time where most people thought this but this isn’t politically correct anymore as women and men are seen as equals in the society of this day and age. Furthermore the part about woman being sexualised beings in this film is not a point that you would like to argue against as it is clearly shown throughout this film that woman are sexualised beings as one of the characters has used a low cleavage in order to give evidence to this quote. Also when Dracula looks to strike again on his victims, he doesn’t have a struggle in doing this as the woman is sprawled out in a sexual inviting way on the bed waiting for him. This is contrasted with another one of the characters costume as she has her dress done write up to her chin, covering her body and neck and not leaving a piece of flesh to be seen by the human eye.
Finally coming to the final word within the question which is ‘sexualised’ when thinking of sexualised, things such as to have sexual allocations spring to mind as within the film you can clearly see that the women are vulnerable and that the men stand tall and strong and with hold from the clutches of Dracula where as the women they seem to struggle with holding off Draculas waves of hunting as they always seem to give into him so easily. The women can be seen as sexualised again in this film as they always seemed to be laying there just waiting for him to feed off their blood.
