The day after I killed a bit of time arguing the case for Women in Horror Month and a more inclusive view of horror over at Planet Etheria, something else happened.

First, I killed a bit more time on Twitter arguing with a horror blogger who, it emerged, is a pretty insightful film fan, aside from a strange prejudice against low budget films. But he masks this behind ridiculously misogynistic views.

(He likes the women in early silent horror films…. because they don’t speak…Boom-tish!).

I was supported in this fruitless endeavour by some kind Twitter pals. One was a Canadian screenwriter, who was immediately labelled both a white-knighting Aussie and a moronic fag (which insult is intended to be worse?).

One was a young feminist who was then called, you guessed it, a lesbian, but one whom nobody would want to sleep with. I suppose a celibate lesbian might be the most dangerous kind, because they have more time to read and practice their rhetorical skills…

But I digress.

The point is that this troll-ish fellow claims to care deeply about film, and yet drives away intelligent discussion by adopting a bigoted online persona. I would hope that it is only a persona, but, even so, it brings up an interesting point. Why?

There are evidently individuals in this scene - as in video game circles, as in numerous other scenes - who value anti-female rhetoric and are protective of the ‘male space’ they believe their area of fandom is and should remain.

Frankly, let them have their nutty ol’ treehouses if they want them. Let them tweet about them, and post pointlessly aggressive comments on blog posts, if they must.

But the horror genre is changing, whether they like it or not… Continue reading →