The Final Girl
October 24, 2007 11:19 PM Subscribe
There's been a lot of discussion about the Final Girl,and while some champion the moniker, others decry her infantilization.
Interesting links, mikoroshi. I didn't realize that so many horror movies have a "final girl" as a plot device, but it seems very clear now... Hmmm.
posted by amyms at 11:53 PM on October 24, 2007
posted by amyms at 11:53 PM on October 24, 2007
Very interesting idea, I'd realized the plot device and concept existed, but the name is so perfectly evocative for an archetype. The Final Girl concept could be great if done well, and it's disappointing that there are so few movies that give her a chance to show resolve and competence: Ellen Ripley is the only clear and unambiguous example I can think of. Beatrix Kydow (Kill Bill) is kind of a Final Girl, but her motivation is reversed - she doesn't escape danger presented by other characters, she is the danger to the other characters.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:02 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:02 AM on October 25, 2007
yeah, amyms, i only recently found out the trope had a name
posted by mikoroshi at 12:04 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by mikoroshi at 12:04 AM on October 25, 2007
I don't find this assortment of links to be a very productive look at the facets of this phenomenon, which is overused in analysis often to the point of obfuscation of more nuanced gender problematics, as in, say The Descent. Positioning Ripley, Sidney and any other final girl in the same convenient category is reductive to begin with.
Other than that, all I have to say at this time is that DePalma is a tool.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:06 AM on October 25, 2007
Other than that, all I have to say at this time is that DePalma is a tool.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:06 AM on October 25, 2007
Betsy Palmer was the murderer in Friday the 13th. The Final Girl was Adrienne King.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:50 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:50 AM on October 25, 2007
One of the more important, if not groundbreaking, accounts/recuperations of the horror film from a feminist perspective is Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaw.
Does anyone make sense of this opening sentence? "Accounts/recuperations"? What?
posted by taz at 12:53 AM on October 25, 2007
Does anyone make sense of this opening sentence? "Accounts/recuperations"? What?
posted by taz at 12:53 AM on October 25, 2007
It's philosophy speak and honestly it would take awhile for me to explain clearly what's meant by it.
Take "account" in the sense of "an accounting of an event" and "recuperation" in the sense of "redemption"... I don't know if I'm making sense.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:07 AM on October 25, 2007
Take "account" in the sense of "an accounting of an event" and "recuperation" in the sense of "redemption"... I don't know if I'm making sense.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:07 AM on October 25, 2007
Well obviously taz, she means it's a detournment of the prevailing paradigm as both a negation and a prelude. Obviously. Ahem.
posted by Abiezer at 1:12 AM on October 25, 2007 [4 favorites]
posted by Abiezer at 1:12 AM on October 25, 2007 [4 favorites]
The academy is ceaselessly "recuperating" the "bad object" as a worthy example of its attention and curatorship.
Ain't it subversive!
This stuff is like my knees; so old they creak.
posted by Wolof at 1:17 AM on October 25, 2007 [1 favorite]
Ain't it subversive!
This stuff is like my knees; so old they creak.
posted by Wolof at 1:17 AM on October 25, 2007 [1 favorite]
Rather than infantilized, my understanding of Men, Women, and Chainsaws was that the Final Girl was generally masculinized. This was why she did not have sex or dress in revealing clothing. She also generally does not fit in with the rest of the girls and has a gender-neutral name (Adrienne, Ripley, Sidney, etc).
posted by Rock Steady at 4:26 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by Rock Steady at 4:26 AM on October 25, 2007
'Wolof's knees' is the 'new bee's knees', e.g, "taz is the Wolof's knees.
posted by Dagobert at 4:28 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by Dagobert at 4:28 AM on October 25, 2007
Thesis: The Final Girl exists not because horror movies are feminist, but because violent aggression is a male characteristic and the needs of drama demand a diametrically opposed protagonist.
Discuss.
posted by DU at 4:37 AM on October 25, 2007
Discuss.
posted by DU at 4:37 AM on October 25, 2007
generally masculinized. This was why she did not have sex or dress in revealing clothing
Mais oui.
posted by Wolof at 4:55 AM on October 25, 2007
Mais oui.
posted by Wolof at 4:55 AM on October 25, 2007
Discuss
Macbeth. Hamlet. Julius Caesar.
Bugs vs Daffy.
posted by Wolof at 5:47 AM on October 25, 2007 [1 favorite]
Macbeth. Hamlet. Julius Caesar.
Bugs vs Daffy.
posted by Wolof at 5:47 AM on October 25, 2007 [1 favorite]
I think an argument could be made for Bugs as The Final Girl.
posted by taz at 6:15 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by taz at 6:15 AM on October 25, 2007
Dude, not in What's Opera, Doc?
(Much as I am learning to love you and your beautiful ways and all.)
posted by Wolof at 6:31 AM on October 25, 2007
(Much as I am learning to love you and your beautiful ways and all.)
posted by Wolof at 6:31 AM on October 25, 2007
As I recall Ripley spends a fair bit of time in Alien in revealing (but functional) clothing, and in all of those movies, the only character whose physical appearance is remotely 'fashionable' is Paul Reiser's corporate drone villain in Aliens, when he is introduced. The other characters are generally dressed in uniforms or "work outfits" - shabby, functional, sturdy clothing suited for dirty, heavy work.
There are a number of times where Ripley displays a physicality that if not exactly "feminine" as some would define it, is definitely sexually appealing. I'm remembering a scene where she does hard physical exercise in a singlet.
Ripley as Final Girl should be contrasted with other non-final adult female characters in the movies: the pilot whose name escapes me, and Vasquez the marine ("Have you ever been mistaken for a man?" "No, have you?"). Neither of these, or anyone else, is eaten by the Aliens for being sluts, or bad people, or even particularly foolish; the Aliens are an indiscriminate enemy.
Also, Ripley and Hicks were a potential couple--there's a few bonding moments amid the frantic terror--but the writer of Aliens III got rid of Hicks offscreen before the movie.
The trouble with the argument of 'masculinization' is that it cuts both ways: any female character who vacillates or cowers in the face of danger is weak, and therefore a disgrace as a woman; any female character who displays assertiveness, let alone ferocity, in the face of danger is behaving in a masculine manner, and therefore a disgrace as a woman.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:43 AM on October 25, 2007 [3 favorites]
There are a number of times where Ripley displays a physicality that if not exactly "feminine" as some would define it, is definitely sexually appealing. I'm remembering a scene where she does hard physical exercise in a singlet.
Ripley as Final Girl should be contrasted with other non-final adult female characters in the movies: the pilot whose name escapes me, and Vasquez the marine ("Have you ever been mistaken for a man?" "No, have you?"). Neither of these, or anyone else, is eaten by the Aliens for being sluts, or bad people, or even particularly foolish; the Aliens are an indiscriminate enemy.
Also, Ripley and Hicks were a potential couple--there's a few bonding moments amid the frantic terror--but the writer of Aliens III got rid of Hicks offscreen before the movie.
The trouble with the argument of 'masculinization' is that it cuts both ways: any female character who vacillates or cowers in the face of danger is weak, and therefore a disgrace as a woman; any female character who displays assertiveness, let alone ferocity, in the face of danger is behaving in a masculine manner, and therefore a disgrace as a woman.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:43 AM on October 25, 2007 [3 favorites]
Dude, not in What's Opera, Doc?
(Much as I am learning to love you and your beautiful ways and all.)
So the chainsaw/meat cleaver and mask would be the "spear and magic helmet?"
posted by louche mustachio at 6:51 AM on October 25, 2007
(Much as I am learning to love you and your beautiful ways and all.)
So the chainsaw/meat cleaver and mask would be the "spear and magic helmet?"
posted by louche mustachio at 6:51 AM on October 25, 2007
One of the more important, if not groundbreaking, accounts/recuperations of the horror film from a feminist perspective is Carol Clover's "Men, Women, and Chainsaw."
The writer got the name of the book wrong, and right in the first sentence. Never a good sign.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:18 AM on October 25, 2007
The writer got the name of the book wrong, and right in the first sentence. Never a good sign.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:18 AM on October 25, 2007
Wow. I guess everything is new to somebody.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:21 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:21 AM on October 25, 2007
Technically, Jamie Lee Curtis isn't a Final Girl. I'm just sayin'.
posted by damnthesehumanhands at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by damnthesehumanhands at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2007
Outstanding. This stuff is fascinating.
However, that first link decries American horror as too puritanical and says Euro horror is where sex and violence "really cook". I won't argue that Euro horror is somewhat less restrained by the same structures as American, but this:
In the American horror film, women are usually murdered because of their having had sex, or desiring sex. In the Euro horror film women murder because of their carnality!
leaves me feeling... what's the difference? In one camp, women are so without agency that they must be masculinized to be identifiable as heroes, and in the other their sexuality is depicted as making them monstrous and therefore worthy of death. Is that superior in some way?
From PopMatters:
But in either case, from 1974 on, the survivor figure has been female.
Which is one of many reasons Evil Dead is so damn interesting. Admittedly, it uses the same mechanics to the point that it's no stretch to call Ash the Final Girl, but that gives me a kick. Years ago I read an essay that explained quite convincingly how that trilogy shows Ash's progress through Lacan's stages. I highly doubt that that's what Raimi planned, but to me it just goes to show how eager people are to read into things that buck the status quo.
I have a hard time buying Ripley as a Final Girl, though, and for exactly the reasons aeschenkarnos mentions in the last paragraph above. The series spends a fair amount of time and energy demonstrating exactly how capable she is, and she repeatedly shows up male characters that doubt her. She is beautiful, but frankly she makes Ash, for example, seem girlish in comparison. She's not Vasquez, but her hair does get shorter with each of the first three films. (The fourth completely subverts the question for reasons that will be obvious to those who have seen it, so I won't include it in this.)
Meanwhile, in my reading of the series, the monster itself and its methods of attack are inextricably linked to gender. The 'end boss' to be destroyed in each film is a mother. The films give copious screen time to eggs, and those face-huggers that shove their ovipositors down their victims' throats and paralyzes them whilst hiding their faces. The most dreaded fate a person can meet in these films is an obvious metaphor for childbirth. So in my opinion, a final girl is simply not necessary and Ripley is too thoroughly masculinized to fit the bill.
More questions: Is the literal gender of a final girl a valid consideration? Is Ash a final girl? Sarah Connor is a final girl in Terminator; is John Connor the final girl in Terminator 2?
posted by zebra3 at 7:57 AM on October 25, 2007
However, that first link decries American horror as too puritanical and says Euro horror is where sex and violence "really cook". I won't argue that Euro horror is somewhat less restrained by the same structures as American, but this:
In the American horror film, women are usually murdered because of their having had sex, or desiring sex. In the Euro horror film women murder because of their carnality!
leaves me feeling... what's the difference? In one camp, women are so without agency that they must be masculinized to be identifiable as heroes, and in the other their sexuality is depicted as making them monstrous and therefore worthy of death. Is that superior in some way?
From PopMatters:
But in either case, from 1974 on, the survivor figure has been female.
Which is one of many reasons Evil Dead is so damn interesting. Admittedly, it uses the same mechanics to the point that it's no stretch to call Ash the Final Girl, but that gives me a kick. Years ago I read an essay that explained quite convincingly how that trilogy shows Ash's progress through Lacan's stages. I highly doubt that that's what Raimi planned, but to me it just goes to show how eager people are to read into things that buck the status quo.
I have a hard time buying Ripley as a Final Girl, though, and for exactly the reasons aeschenkarnos mentions in the last paragraph above. The series spends a fair amount of time and energy demonstrating exactly how capable she is, and she repeatedly shows up male characters that doubt her. She is beautiful, but frankly she makes Ash, for example, seem girlish in comparison. She's not Vasquez, but her hair does get shorter with each of the first three films. (The fourth completely subverts the question for reasons that will be obvious to those who have seen it, so I won't include it in this.)
Meanwhile, in my reading of the series, the monster itself and its methods of attack are inextricably linked to gender. The 'end boss' to be destroyed in each film is a mother. The films give copious screen time to eggs, and those face-huggers that shove their ovipositors down their victims' throats and paralyzes them whilst hiding their faces. The most dreaded fate a person can meet in these films is an obvious metaphor for childbirth. So in my opinion, a final girl is simply not necessary and Ripley is too thoroughly masculinized to fit the bill.
More questions: Is the literal gender of a final girl a valid consideration? Is Ash a final girl? Sarah Connor is a final girl in Terminator; is John Connor the final girl in Terminator 2?
posted by zebra3 at 7:57 AM on October 25, 2007
Meanwhile, in my reading of the series, the monster itself and its methods of attack are inextricably linked to gender. The 'end boss' to be destroyed in each film is a mother.
Um, not really. That's all James Cameron. You don't have to read much into Scott's Alien to see the creature there as male. The monster is Alien3 is...um...a dog, and the less said about the end of Alien Resurrection, the better.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:16 AM on October 25, 2007
Um, not really. That's all James Cameron. You don't have to read much into Scott's Alien to see the creature there as male. The monster is Alien3 is...um...a dog, and the less said about the end of Alien Resurrection, the better.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:16 AM on October 25, 2007
I understand what you're referring to in the first film. When I watched the director's cut, though, Tom Skerritt is shown near the end of the film webbed and impregnated. Doesn't that imply the existence of a queen on the Nostromo, or egg-laying capabilities on the part of the creature we see repeatedly?
The monster in the third film is as much the one inside Ripley as it is the "dog" and the others. Ripley herself must be destroyed.
posted by zebra3 at 8:32 AM on October 25, 2007
The monster in the third film is as much the one inside Ripley as it is the "dog" and the others. Ripley herself must be destroyed.
posted by zebra3 at 8:32 AM on October 25, 2007
I understand what you're referring to in the first film. When I watched the director's cut, though, Tom Skerritt is shown near the end of the film webbed and impregnated. Doesn't that imply the existence of a queen on the Nostromo, or egg-laying capabilities on the part of the creature we see repeatedly?
Well, the "director's cut" of Alien, if I'm not mistaken, isn't really a director's cut as such -- my understanding is that it's an alternate version, produced from "lost" footage more or less at the studio's request, and that Scott still prefers the original. So I tend to read the theatrical version as the actual text. Even so, if Skerritt and Stanton's characters are in this version incubators for budding larvae (as opposed to food for a full-grown alien, their presumed fate in the original version), that still places them in a feminized role. The men become wombs. Squicky squicky, but there you go.
The monster in the third film is as much the one inside Ripley as it is the "dog" and the others. Ripley herself must be destroyed.
Hmmmmm. That is interesting. Okay.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:47 AM on October 25, 2007
Well, the "director's cut" of Alien, if I'm not mistaken, isn't really a director's cut as such -- my understanding is that it's an alternate version, produced from "lost" footage more or less at the studio's request, and that Scott still prefers the original. So I tend to read the theatrical version as the actual text. Even so, if Skerritt and Stanton's characters are in this version incubators for budding larvae (as opposed to food for a full-grown alien, their presumed fate in the original version), that still places them in a feminized role. The men become wombs. Squicky squicky, but there you go.
The monster in the third film is as much the one inside Ripley as it is the "dog" and the others. Ripley herself must be destroyed.
Hmmmmm. That is interesting. Okay.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:47 AM on October 25, 2007
Speedreading here I got that the Final Girl is the virgin who survives after killing obvious metaphor for childbirth. Did I get that right?
posted by dabitch at 8:59 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by dabitch at 8:59 AM on October 25, 2007
I think it's a bad idea to apply the Final Girl concept indiscriminately; the idea (as originally laid out in Men, Women and Chainsaws) refers mainly to slashers, which have their own specific and peculiar set of rules, even within a genre which is often dismissed as being formulaic and predictable. I don't think any main female character or survivor of any horror movie can be shoehorned into the Final Girl mold.
posted by hilatron at 9:07 AM on October 25, 2007
posted by hilatron at 9:07 AM on October 25, 2007
Also, Ripley and Hicks were a potential couple--there's a few bonding moments amid the frantic terror--but the writer of Aliens III got rid of Hicks offscreen before the movie.
For that matter, midway through III we have Ripley being frankly and unromantically straightforward to the doctor about wanting to fuck. Not seductive, neither authoritarian: just, hey, it's been a while, shall we?
Her character across the trilogy is very a poor fit for the Final Girl trope because she is at the core so increasingly coldly self-reliant in the face of all the shit that goes down.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on October 25, 2007
For that matter, midway through III we have Ripley being frankly and unromantically straightforward to the doctor about wanting to fuck. Not seductive, neither authoritarian: just, hey, it's been a while, shall we?
Her character across the trilogy is very a poor fit for the Final Girl trope because she is at the core so increasingly coldly self-reliant in the face of all the shit that goes down.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on October 25, 2007
I wouldn't consider anything from the series other than Alien as even remotely fitting into this trope.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:15 PM on October 25, 2007
posted by Rock Steady at 5:15 PM on October 25, 2007
what's the difference? In one camp, women are so without agency that they must be masculinized to be identifiable as heroes, and in the other their sexuality is depicted as making them monstrous and therefore worthy of death. Is that superior in some way?
In stark women + sexuality = bad terms? Sure, ok, the same.
But in terms of woman as victim vs. woman as perpetrator? That's a pretty big difference.
posted by dreamsign at 12:19 AM on October 26, 2007
In stark women + sexuality = bad terms? Sure, ok, the same.
But in terms of woman as victim vs. woman as perpetrator? That's a pretty big difference.
posted by dreamsign at 12:19 AM on October 26, 2007
Sure, it is to the story... but is story structure really what makes the Final Girl interesting?
Is this not a gender studies issue, above all else?
posted by zebra3 at 6:28 AM on October 26, 2007
Is this not a gender studies issue, above all else?
posted by zebra3 at 6:28 AM on October 26, 2007
What hilatron said.
I think the slasher cycle (can we call it that?) is pretty over-studied, and a sign of that is when you see terms that apply very specifically to it being applied to films where it doesn't work, or treated as though "horror" and "slasher" are the same thing, when I don't think they are (and the Alien series is a good counter-example, because it doesn't really work). It's a pretty specific kind of movie in a specific historical place and time (America, 70s-90s), not a universal archetype that works across genres and cultures.
The whole "final girl" construction depends on the idea of viewer identification, that the (male) viewer is -- at least in some parts of the movie -- identifying across gender with the (female) victim. I guess in 1992 the idea that a genre movie that was thought to appeal to men channeled male viewers into identifying with a female subject was something fairly new. I think the default was still a Mulvey-type assumption about movies showing male subjects vs. female objects when talking about viewer identification and gender and so forth.
I don't really think I buy that that's how people really watch horror movies, but it's interesting work and it was pretty important.
posted by SoftRain at 11:14 AM on October 26, 2007
I think the slasher cycle (can we call it that?) is pretty over-studied, and a sign of that is when you see terms that apply very specifically to it being applied to films where it doesn't work, or treated as though "horror" and "slasher" are the same thing, when I don't think they are (and the Alien series is a good counter-example, because it doesn't really work). It's a pretty specific kind of movie in a specific historical place and time (America, 70s-90s), not a universal archetype that works across genres and cultures.
The whole "final girl" construction depends on the idea of viewer identification, that the (male) viewer is -- at least in some parts of the movie -- identifying across gender with the (female) victim. I guess in 1992 the idea that a genre movie that was thought to appeal to men channeled male viewers into identifying with a female subject was something fairly new. I think the default was still a Mulvey-type assumption about movies showing male subjects vs. female objects when talking about viewer identification and gender and so forth.
I don't really think I buy that that's how people really watch horror movies, but it's interesting work and it was pretty important.
posted by SoftRain at 11:14 AM on October 26, 2007
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