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| Consumer? |
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| Domestic? |
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| Familial? |
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| Sexual? |
"The final girl is a thriller and horror film (particularly slasher film) trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including Halloween[1], Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Hellraiser, Alien and Scream. The term was coined [2] by Carol J. Cloverin her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.[3] Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film." --Wikipedia, 07/04/2011
We watched three horror films over the course of this term, they were:
- Halloween (1978-Dir. John Carpenter)
- The Shining (1980-Dir. Stanley Kubrick)
- Eden Lake (2008-Dir. James Watkins)
We can see in the three films how the "final girl" is portrayed.
In The Shining and Halloween both the final girls are androgynous, as in the sense that they are not girly girls who will keep an eye on their appearance but will often cover up most of their body. In The Shining Wendy wears a long sleeved turtle-neck jumper and a very long skirt with tights, Laurie wears high waisted trousers and a monotone jumper, so we can see that neither of them vocalise's their sexuality to the audience.
However, in Eden Lake Jenny is put into a more voyeuristic view for the audience. She often is shown wearing her bikini whilst sun bathing, we are even put into the eyes of Brett staring at Jennies breasts through some binoculars but within her realising that she is being seen in this way she covers herself up so we are then made to feel perverse.
Whereas in Halloween Annie, Lynda and Judith are not cautious of who they are being seen by and in result of this are killed, Lynda is killed after she has had sex with her boyfriend because from the distraction of sex she is not aware of Mike Myers presence. Annie is killed after parading round in a shirt and underwear which Mike Myers was attracted to because of how he killed his sister Judith. Laurie however does not die in this film, she is baby sitting her neighbors so she takes on a familial role, she moves the narrative forward with curiosity, and out of all the women in the film she seems to be the most virginal and doesn't explore sexuality.
It is often come across that horror takes a conservative view on sex out of wed-lock, that if you have sex you WILL die, so whenever a androgynous female is presented you can usually tell that she will be the final girl.
In The Shining the first scene we see with Wendy involves her sitting in the kitchen at home looking after her son Danny, so immediately she takes on a domestic and familial role which she carries out for the rest of the film.
Now a counter argument for Wendy being the final girl is that she is very weak and frail and will be picked off first, but that is used to throw off the male audience as that is the predominant audience of horrors.
Even at the inn Wendy is doing all of the cooking, cleaning and keeping the inn in check and it is evident that she doesn't know how to defend herself properly because in the scene where Jack is threatening Wendy on the stairs she wields a baseball bat and lunges it at Jack. In no way in this film does she put herself in a vouyeristic situation as she covers herself up and doesn't show any sexual urges toward Jack.
In Eden Lake, we see quite the opposite with Jennie almost throughout the entirety of the film, even when she is running away from Brett's group she wears a low cut dress and she is running and wet, but we do see a small part of familialism in the movie as Greg's plan in the film is to propose to Jennie and she does agree when he is near death so this is also another time when she shows a family role, we also see it when she clutches the boy that she killed and starts crying, she seems to be holding him like a son.
The interesting thing is that Jennie (we assume) dies from the family of the young boys whereas the more androgynous virginal females (Laurie and Wendy) who took on a family role in the entire film survive.
Now a counter argument for Wendy being the final girl is that she is very weak and frail and will be picked off first, but that is used to throw off the male audience as that is the predominant audience of horrors.
Even at the inn Wendy is doing all of the cooking, cleaning and keeping the inn in check and it is evident that she doesn't know how to defend herself properly because in the scene where Jack is threatening Wendy on the stairs she wields a baseball bat and lunges it at Jack. In no way in this film does she put herself in a vouyeristic situation as she covers herself up and doesn't show any sexual urges toward Jack.
In Eden Lake, we see quite the opposite with Jennie almost throughout the entirety of the film, even when she is running away from Brett's group she wears a low cut dress and she is running and wet, but we do see a small part of familialism in the movie as Greg's plan in the film is to propose to Jennie and she does agree when he is near death so this is also another time when she shows a family role, we also see it when she clutches the boy that she killed and starts crying, she seems to be holding him like a son.
The interesting thing is that Jennie (we assume) dies from the family of the young boys whereas the more androgynous virginal females (Laurie and Wendy) who took on a family role in the entire film survive.
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