Final girl

The final girl is a trope in horror films (particularly slasher films). It refers to the last girl or woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.[1] The term was coined[2] by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992).[3] Clover suggested that in these films, the viewer began by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experienced a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film. While predominately serving as the heroines of their films, later examples of "final girls" such as Mandy Lane in All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), are revealed to be villainous in nature.[4]

Usage of the term

The original meaning of "final girl", as described by Clover in 1992, is quite narrow. Clover studied slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s (which is considered the golden era of the genre) and defined the final girl as a female who is the sole survivor of the group of people (usually youths) who are chased by a villain, and who gets a final confrontation with the villain (whether she kills him herself or she is saved at the last minute by someone else - i.e. a police officer), and who has such a 'privilege' because of her implied moral superiority (i.e. she is the only one who refuses sex, drugs and other such behaviors, unlike her other friends).

However, the term "final girl" is often used, especially in recent years, in a much broader sense, applied also outside the slasher genre, and to females who are not morally pure, or even who survive together with other survivors, provided the other survivors are not the main focus of the struggle. The stereotypical virginal girl contrasted with her girlfriends' promiscuity is largely out of use today. Furthermore, slasher films have declined in popularity in recent decades, being replaced with science fiction horror in the 1990s, and supernatural horror in the 21st century. In fact, it has been argued that the most common female character trope of the 21st century horror is the Dysfunctional Mother female character.[5]

Trope concept

A common plot line in many horror films is one in which a series of victims is killed one-by-one by a killer amid increasing terror, culminating in a climax in which the last surviving member of the group, usually female, either vanquishes the killer or escapes. The final girl trope has evolved throughout the years, from early final girls most often being damsels in distress, often saved by a strong male (such as a police officer or a heroic stranger), to more modern final girls who are more likely to survive due to their own abilities. Lila Crane, from Psycho, is an example of a female survivor (according to Clover's definition not a final girl due to lack of moral purity) who is saved by a male (also named Sam Loomis) at the film's ending, and Laurie Strode from Halloween is a final girl saved by someone else. On this basis, Tony Williams argues that, whilst 1980s horror film heroines were more progressive than those of earlier decades, the gender change is done conservatively, and the final-girl convention cannot be regarded as a progressive one "without more thorough investigation".[6] Furthermore, in many slashers, the final girl's victory is often ambiguous or only apparent. The fact that she is still alive at the end of the movie does not make her a victorious heroine. In many of these movies, the end is ambiguous, where the killer/entity is or might be still alive, leaving the viewers uncertain about the future of the final girl (a notable example is Jess (Black Christmas) (1974). Tony Williams also gives several examples of final girls in the heroines of the Friday the 13th series such as Chris Higgins from Part III. He notes that she does not conclude the film wholly victorious. Chris is catatonic at the end of the film. Williams also observes that Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter does not have a final girl, despite Trish Jarvis surviving at the end. Williams also notes that final girls often survive, but in the sequel they are killed or institutionalized. A notable example is Alice (Friday the 13th) who survives Friday the 13th (1980 film) only to be killed in the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 2. Derek Soles argues that the tragic destiny of such final girls represents an expression of patriarchal society where capable, independent women must by be contained or destroyed.[7] In more recent films, this has started to change, with the final girl no longer being always doomed, a notable example being the Scream series.

According to Clover, the final girl in many movies shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, and avoids the vices of the victims like illegal drug use. She sometimes has a unisex name such as Avery, Chris or Sidney. Occasionally the final girl will have a shared history with the killer. The final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film, moving the narrative forward and, as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and vigilance. Another trope of slashers (particularly in the 1980s) is "death by sex", where sex scenes are shortly followed by violence, with the participants being murdered in gruesome ways.[8] More recent horror movies challenge more of these tropes. Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the words of Jes Battis, "subverts" the final girl trope of B-grade horror films.[9] Jason Middleton observes that although Buffy fulfills the monster-killing role of the final girl, she is the opposite of Clover's description of a final girl in many ways. Buffy is a cheerleader, a "beautiful blond" with a feminine first name, and "gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster".[10] Sidney Prescott in Scream also survives despite having sex.

One of the basic premises of Clover's theory is that audience identification is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of the slasher film. During the final girl's confrontation with the killer, Clover argues, she becomes masculinized through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer. The phenomenon of the male audience having to identify with a young female character in an ostensibly male-oriented genre, usually associated with sadistic voyeurism, raises interesting questions about the nature of slasher films and their relationship with feminism. Clover argues that for a film to be successful, it is necessary for this surviving character to be female because she must experience abject terror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. The terror has a purpose, in that the female, if she survives, is 'purged' of undesirable characteristics, such as relentless pursuit of personal pleasure. Certain films, like The Witch (2015), can be said to subvert traditional expectations of a final girl.

Examples of final girls

Mari Collingwood

While the 1972 version of the character has been viewed as more of a victim, the 2009 incarnation of the character has been observed to follow the "final girl" archetype. In Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study,[11] Alexandra Heller-Nicholas notes that that 2009 version of the character manifests traits of the trope, stating:

"The most obvious shift towards a more generic horror structure, however, manifests in the "final girl" elements of Mari's character that are absent in the original. In 2009, Mari is not interested in drugs and argues it (although she finally succumbs). She fights back consistently throughout her attack; she deliberately lures Krug to her parents house as a way of possibly getting help; and Krug himself even observes at one point that she is a "cool customer." The film celebrates Mari's determination to survive, and the fact that this Mari lives and the 1972 one does not inadvertently acts as condemnation of the earlier version. The 2009 Mari was a fast swimmer and could get away (she was still shot, but only in the shoulder). But the 1972 Mari was physically unable to escape, and thus her "punishment" was death. Sara Paxton's Mari in the recent The Last House on the Left is not killed, and this presents the possibility that she herself was able to enact her own revenge, a dramatic act that would have significantly moved the film from being a rape revenge film where her parents act for her, to one where the raped woman seeks vengeance on her own behalf."
"The depiction of Mari after Krug and his gang leave her (assuming she is dead) is a clear genre-marker, as she climbs out of the dark water at night to stumble home Creature from the Black Lagoon-style. This depiction of her as a vacant monster continues throughout the rest of the film. Mari is not so much a rape survivor as she is the walking dead, whose only function is to provide her parents (specifically her father) with a motivation for violent and spectacular vengeance. Even in the scenes where John performs emergency surgery on their living room coffee table, Mari's face is mostly turned from the camera. It is less about her reaction and trauma than it is the impact her traumatized body has on her father."

Jess Bradford

An early example of a "final girl" can be found in the film Black Christmas (1974), where Jess Bradford, played by Olivia Hussey, is a well-developed character who refuses to back down against a series of more or less lethal male antagonists.[12] Jess is technically not a final girl according to the narrow definition, due to lack of chastity, but being a sole survivor of an early major influential slasher she is often analyzed together with final girls.

Sally Hardesty

Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), created by Tobe Hooper and portrayed by Marilyn Burns, has been regarded as one of the earliest examples of the final girl trope.[13]

Laurie Strode

According to Clover, Laurie Strode (from Halloween, Halloween II and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later & Halloween Resurrection and Halloween 2018) is another example of a final girl. Tony Williams notes that Clover's image of supposedly progressive final girls are never entirely victorious at the culmination of a film nor do they manage to eschew the male order of things as Clover argues. He holds up Strode as an example of this. She is rescued by a male character, Dr. Samuel Loomis, in the ending of Halloween.

Ellen Ripley

Before the release of Alien 3, Clover identified Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise as a final girl. Elizabeth Ezra continues this analysis for Alien Resurrection, arguing that by definition both Ripley and Annalee Call must be final girls, and that Call is the "next generation of Clover's Final Girl". In Ezra's view, Call exhibits traits that fit Clover's definition of a final girl, namely that she is boyish, having a short masculine-style haircut, and that she is characterized by (in Clover's words) "smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance" being a ship's mechanic who rejects the sexual advances made by male characters on the ship. However, Ezra notes that Call fits the description imperfectly as she is a gynoid, not a human being.[14]

Christine Cornea disputes the idea that Ripley is a final girl, contrasting Clover's analysis of the character with that of Barbara Creed, who presents Ripley as "the reassuring face of womanhood". Cornea does not accept either Clover's or Creed's views on Ripley. While she accepts Clover's general thesis of the final girl convention, she argues that Ripley does not follow the conventions of the slasher film, as Alien follows the different conventions of the science fiction film genre. In particular, there is not the foregrounding in Alien, as there is in the slasher film genre, of the character's sexual purity and abstinence relative to the other characters (who would be, in accordance with the final girl convention, killed by the film's monster "because" of this). The science fiction genre that Alien inhabits, according to Cornea, simply lacks this kind of sexual theme in the first place, as it has no place in such "traditional" science fiction formats.[15]

Ginny Field

The character Ginny Field (from Friday the 13th Part 2) has often been viewed as an example of the trope. In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, Barry Keith Grant stated that, "Ginny temporarily adopts Mrs. Voorhees's authoritarian role to survive. Although circumstances necessitate this, she clearly uses her enemy's strategy to become a phallic mother herself. This posture really questions the positive image of the Final Girl." He then called her "not victorious" when she called out for her boyfriend at the end of the film saying that it was done in a "non-independent manner".[16] John Kenneth Muir references Ginny in Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1, saying "Amy Steel is introduced as Ginny, our final girl and heroine, and the only person who seems to have an inkling of the nearby danger. She's more resourceful than Alice and nearly upstages even Laurie Strode during the film's tense finale, wherein she brazenly dresses up as Jason's dead mother and starts barking orders at the confused serial killer."[17] In Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle, Richard Nowell said "The shift in characterization of the female leads was also trumpeted during Ginny's self-confident entrance (Amy Steel) in Friday the 13th Part II. Where the makers of its predecessor introduced Alice as she prepared cabins while dressed in denim jeans and a shapeless lumberjack shirt, the sequel's conventionally attractive lead is established immediately as combining masculine traits with feminine attributes. Ginny exits a battered VW bug in a flowing fuchsia skirt and a low-cut t-shirt."[18] Ginny's adoption of the monster's own strategy, in Part II, brings into question whether the final girl image is in fact a wholly positive one.[6]

Sarah Connor

Sarah Connor was a timid young woman for the most part in the first film, The Terminator. She learned of the Terminator from Kyle Reese, and that he had come for her. By the end of the film, when it was down to her versus the Terminator, she had become a tough-as-nails heroine, and defeated the Terminator by luring it into a hydraulic press, where she crushed it. By the second film, she had become a hardened warrior, in danger of losing her humanity.

Nancy Thompson

The character Nancy Thompson (from A Nightmare on Elm Street and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), has often been regarded as one of the most influential horror movie heroines. In his book Horror films of the 1980s, John Kenneth Muir[19] references Nancy Thompson, stating the following:

"As written by Craven and performed by Heather Langenkamp, Nancy is a rarity in the horror genre: an intelligent and insightful youth who is capable of connecting the important things in her life. Only Nancy can recognize the link between worlds for what it is, and look below the surface of reality because she is already trained to do so, through family history. Nancy is prepared in her battle with Freddy because, one senses, she has already detected the dark truth lurking beneath the affluent surface of Elm Street. She has suffered her parent's divorce, her father's absence, and her mother's alcoholism...Nancy is even compared explicitly to Hamlet...in that Hamlet stamps out the lies of his mother, an act which Nancy will repeat during the course of the film..."
"So the key to defeating her Freddy...is something that goes against Nancy's most prominent characteristic. She must turn her back on the dream demon. She must take back all the energy she gave him...This is Nancy's crisis: knowing when to dig for truth and confront the lies, and when to turn her back on the corruption and lies she has discovered..."
"The final girl must actively take steps to protect herself and vanquish evil. For example, Nancy buys a survivalist, self-defense manual and in the conclusion of Elm Street, baits Freddy into chasing her. She then runs him through a punishing course of booby traps...Unlike Laurie, whom Halloween depicts as a victim of unchangeable 'fate,' someone who must mount a defense on the fly, Nancy is armed for battle and ready to rock."

Sidney Prescott

Kearney points to the character of Sidney Prescott in the Scream franchise. One of the final girl stereotypes was that the final girl is supposed to be a virgin, but the Scream films challenged that by allowing Prescott to survive until the end - even after having sex.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rogers 2002, pp. 118,120.
  2. ↑ Totaro 2002.
  3. ↑ Clover 1992, pp. 260.
  4. ↑ Hutchings, Peter (November 27, 2017). Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538102442. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  5. ↑ Lauren, Cupp, (April 28, 2018). "The Final Girl Grown Up: Representations of Women in Horror Films from 1978-2016". Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  6. 1 2 Williams 1996, pp. 169–170.
  7. ↑ The Essentials of Academic Writing, by Derek Soles, pg 374.
  8. ↑ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838159409364261
  9. ↑ Battis 2005, pp. 69.
  10. ↑ Middleton 2007, pp. 160–161.
  11. ↑ Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra (2011). Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study. McFarland. pp. 92–93. ISBN 9780786449613.
  12. ↑ Piepenburg, Erik (22 October 2015). "In Horror Films, the 'Final Girl' Is a Survivor to the Core". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 October 2015.
  13. ↑ "Marilyn Burns: The First 'Final Girl' - Bloody Disgusting". bloody-disgusting.com. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  14. ↑ Ezra 2008, pp. 73–74.
  15. ↑ Cornea 2007, pp. 150–151.
  16. ↑ Grant, Barry (2015). The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292772459.
  17. ↑ Muir, John (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1. MacFarland. ISBN 0786455012.
  18. ↑ Nowell, Richard (2010). Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 210. ISBN 1441188509.
  19. ↑ Muir, John (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1. McFarland. ISBN 0-78645-501-2.

Bibliography

  • Battis, Jes (2005). "What It Feels Like for a Slayer: Buffy Summers and the Paradox of Mothering". Blood Relations. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-2172-5.
  • Clover, Carol J. (1992). Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-04802-4.
  • Cornea, Christine (2007). Science Fiction Cinema. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1642-8.
  • Ezra, Elizabeth (April 2, 2008). "Uncanny Resemblances: Alien Resurrection". Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Contemporary Film Directors. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07522-3. OCLC 171049674.
  • Harper, Jim (May 1, 2004). "The Heroine". Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies. Manchester: Critical Vision. ISBN 978-1-900486-39-2.
  • Kearney, Mary Celeste (2002). "Girlfriend and Girl Power". In Gateward, Frances K.; Pomerance, Murray. Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-2918-4.
  • McCracken, Allison (2007). "At Stake: Angel's Body, Fantasy Masculinity, and Queer Desire in Teen Television". In Levine, Elana; Parks, Lisa. Undead TV. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4043-0.
  • Middleton, Jason (2007). "Buffy as Femme Fatale: The Cult Heroine and the Male Spectator". In Levine, Elana; Parks, Lisa. Undead TV. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4043-0.
  • Rogers, Nicholas (2002). Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford: Oxford University Press. — Professor Nicholas Rogers discusses how the "final girl" aspect of the Halloween films undermines "the misogynist thrust of slasher movies".
  • Totaro, Donato (January 31, 2002). "The Final Girl: A Few Thoughts on Feminism and Horror". OffScreen. ISSN 1712-9559. Retrieved December 7, 2010.
  • Tropiano, Stephen (August 1, 2005). ""Like Totally Serious": "It was the bogeyman"". Rebels and Chicks: A History of the Hollywood Teen Movie. New York: Back Stage Books. ISBN 978-0-8230-9701-2. OCLC 69423080.
  • Williams, Tony (1996). "Trying To Survive on the Darker Side". In Grant, Barry Keith. The Dread of Difference. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-72794-6.

Further reading

  • Starks, Lisa S. (October 2002). "Cinema of Cruelty: Powers of Horror in Julie Taymor's Titus". In Starks, Lisa S.; Lehmann, Courtney. The Reel Shakespeare. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 128, 134–136. ISBN 978-0-8386-3939-9. OCLC 49383749.
  • Ndalianis, Angela (December 1, 1998). ""Evil Will Walk Once More": Phantasmagoria—The Stalker Film as Interactive Movie?". In Smith, Greg M. On a Silver Platter: CD-ROMs and the Promises of a New Technology. New York University Press. pp. 93–112. ISBN 978-0-8147-8081-7.
  • Jim Harper (2004). "The Heroine". Legacy of Blood. Critical Vision. pp. 31–39. ISBN 978-1-900486-39-2.
  • Driscoll, Catherine (August 15, 2002). "Distraction: Girls and Mass Culture". Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture & Cultural Theory. Columbia University Press: 232. ISBN 978-0-231-11912-2. OCLC 47790838.
  • Essay: Is the Final Girl an Excuse?
  • Teenie Kill & The Final Girl: Gender and the Slasher Film
  • "Final girl". TV Tropes.
  • Gender Roles within Scary Movies by Alex Boles
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