Final girl
The final girl or survivor girl is a trope in horror films. It refers to the last surviving female character to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, notable examples being Psycho, Voices of Desire, The Texas [Chain Saw Massacre], Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, A [Nightmare on Elm Street], and Scream. The term "final girl" was coined by Carol J. Clover in her article "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film". 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.
Usage of the term
The original meaning of "final girl", as described by Clover in 1987, is quite narrow. Clover studied slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s and defined the final girl as a woman who is the sole survivor of the group of people who are chased by a villain and who gets a final confrontation with the villain, and who has such a "privilege" because of her implied moral superiority.Trope concept
A common plot line in many horror films is one in which several victims are 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, to more modern final girls who are more likely to survive due to their own abilities. According to Clover's definition, Lila Crane from Psycho is an example of a female survivor and not a final girl, due to her lack of moral purity, who is saved by a male at the film's ending. Laurie Strode from Halloween is a final girl, but one that is saved by someone else.
On this basis, Tony Williams argues that, while 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." 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 viewers uncertain about the future of the final girl. The viewers wait for a send-off or sequel bait, and are felt that they are left with an apparent victory. 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 and 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. Additionally, Williams notes that final girls often survive, but in the sequel they are either killed or institutionalized. A notable example is Alice Hardy, who survives Friday the 13th 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 either be contained or destroyed. 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 is "death by sex", where sex scenes are shortly followed by violence, with the participants being murdered in gruesome ways. More recent horror movies and series 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. 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".
One of the basic premises of Clover's theory is that the capacity for audiences to identify with characters is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of slasher films. Clover argues that, during the final girl's confrontation with the killer, she becomes masculinized through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon such as a knife or chainsaw against the killer. She also argues that, in order for a film to be successful, it is necessary for the 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, if a female character survives, she is "purged" of undesirable characteristics such as the tendency to relentlessly pursue personal pleasure.
Notable characters
1970s
Diane Adams
One pioneering example of the "final girl" trope occurs in Silent Night, Bloody Night, whose main protagonist and narrator Diane Adams, portrayed by Mary Woronov, has been cited by multiple commentators as displaying the characteristics of a "final girl," with Rosie Knight of WomenWriteAboutComics even positing that she is arguably the first example of this character type. Conversely, in her own review of the film, Rebecca McCallum of Attack from Planet B contends that the film "follows the then more typical presentation of the hysterical woman or submissive mistress as opposed to the final girl trope which would be cemented in Sally Hardesty of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."Jess Bradford
Another early example of a "final girl" can be found in the film Black Christmas, 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.Sally Hardesty
from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, created by Tobe Hooper and portrayed by Marilyn Burns, has been regarded as one of the earliest examples of the final girl trope.Laurie Strode
According to Clover, Laurie Strode 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)|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 "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.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 no foregrounding in Alien, as there is in the slasher film genre, of the character's sexual purity and abstinence relative to the other characters. 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. Additionally, professor Brenda M. Boyle argues that in Alien Resurrection, Ripley has crossed the line between human and monster. This conflict of identity could further jeopardize her status as a final girl beyond Alien 3.