Monstrous Feminine & Final Girl

2 Key Female Archetypes in Horror FilmsWarning: Blood and Gore Next

Alien Eggs

Species• Searching for a mating partner

so she can become pregnant,Sil leaves bodies in her wake.

Dawn of the Dead, 2004

Monstrous FeminineMonstrous Feminine Barbara Creed – Barbara Creed –

Feminine Reproductive Feminine Reproductive Biology Made Monstrous Biology Made Monstrous

Stephen King on Carrie

• “If The Stepford Wives concerns itself with what men want from women, then Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of power, and what men fear about women and women’s sexuality . . . Which is only to say that, writing the book in 1973 and only out of college three years, I was fully aware of what Women’s Liberation implied for me and others of my sex. The book is, in is more adult implications, an uneasy masculine shrinking from a future of female equality.”

Monster, Victim, or Hero?

• “For me, Carrie White is a sadly misused teenager, an example of the sort of person whose spirit is so often broken for good in that pit of man- and women-eaters that is your normal suburban high school. But she’s also Woman, feeling her powers for the first time, and, like Samson, pulling down the temple on everyone in sight at the end of the book.”

“Final Girl” – Carol GloverSlasher Films – films that exploit women on one handand make them heroes in the end, on the other hand.Men, Women and Chainsaws, Carol Clover

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974

• Tobe Hooper (college professor)• $83,532 production, $30million gross• Unprecedented profit for indie film

until Halloween broke that record• Fake doc footage thought real, Ed Gein

Remake 2003

Halloween 1978Production cost: $320,000

Grossed $75 milliion in 6 years

Michael vs. Jamie Lee

Alien, 1980(We’ll come back to this)

Friday the 13th, 1980

• Jason vs. Betsy Palmer

Friday the 13th Part II

“Ginny”

Nightmare on Elm Street1984

Freddy vs. Heather

• Heather Langenkamp

Terminator1984

Terminator, 1984

Silence of the Lambs1991The Classy Slasher Film

What do the “Final Girls” Have in Common?

• Tom-boyish• Usually not sexually active• Specially skilled (e.g., mechanical)• Is at the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time• Becomes an adult by

becoming male (phallus)• Kills the slasher and

is last one standing in end

New Era “Final Girl”

T2: Judgment Day, 1991

• Sarah (Linda Hamilton) isn’t crazy. She’s ready.

Sarah Connor Action Figure Doll

Mother/Savior Androgyny

• A different kind ofrepresentation

Contrast 1979 – Ripley in theContrast 1979 – Ripley in thewrong place at the wrong timewrong place at the wrong time

1996 Ripley - Action Hero who chooses the 1996 Ripley - Action Hero who chooses the battle.battle.

1986 Final Girl Fights1986 Final Girl FightsMonstrous FeminineMonstrous Feminine

(external and internal)(external and internal)symbolic internal battlesymbolic internal battle

Champions Motherhood?

• A gruesome form of birth

Subverting Gender Norms

Vasquez 1986 Ripley 1992

The New “Final Girl”

• Intentionally takes on the challenge• Becomes a main action hero• Visible from the beginning, physically fit• We know about their lives & psychology • Being a Woman is Integral to Character

(being a mother, partner, etc.)• Sequals Allowed This to Happen

(move from traditional last girl to new last girl character)

Alien Movies Summary

• Alien 1979 (traditional last girl)• Aliens 1986 (superhero and mother)• Alien 3 1992 (gender subversion, rape)• Alien Resurrection 1997 (biotech violation)

Alien Resurrection 1997 How is this different?

Side Note:

• Thelma & Louise (1991) comes out during the transition.

Theme of Violation – Final GirlsThe Final Girls Must Be Sexually Violated to Be Heroic and Still Be a Women

Theme of Violation

• Ridley struggles against the monstrous feminine—(the monster is at times separate from her, at times internalized as a pregnancy or DNA, and at times phallic and violating—tonge, tail, etc.)

1991• Clarice Starling allows herself to be incest victim to Lecter in order to solve the crime and show her competence.This is how she becomes a “woman” (vulnerable, etc.)

Scream 1996

“Sidney” vs. her boyfriend . . . ?

Questions?Questions?

In your opinion, what ways In your opinion, what ways are “final girls” positive or are “final girls” positive or

negative characterizations of negative characterizations of women?women?