Take a quick inventory of all the horror films you've ever watched. Why is it that the majority of them involve a lone female survivor? It started with the early slasher-genre films. In the original slasher film, Black Christmas (1974), Olivia Hussey's character is the sole survivor of Billy's torment. In Halloween (1978), we had Jamie Lee Curtis' character as the final opponent to face off against Michael Myers. Even modern horror films such as Scream, The Descent and The Grudge, all utilize the final girl character in their plots.
The Concept of The Final Girl in Horror Films
The final girl character has always been a staple of horror films, particularly those in the slasher sub-genre. She is typically the smartest female character, most often virginal in demeanor. She need not be paired against victim characters of mixed sexes to represent the final girl character, she need only to have out-survived all of the other characters by use of her intelligence and chaste. Typical traits of the final girl character include some or all of the following:
- Sexually pure or otherwise inexperienced;
- Naive to drug and/or alcohol use;
- The morally conscious character of the film;
- Often times will have a gender ambiguous name such as Billie, Sidney and Georgie.
The Final Girl: A Feminist Perspective
Slasher films are typically marketed towards a young male audience, so it is not unusual to have the female characters portrayed in an almost strictly sexual sense. Sex scenes and female nudity is the norm in a majority of horror movies, primarily because they will satisfy the intended gender demographic.
As Carol Clover so intelligently questioned in Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, if the primary audience for slasher movies is male, what is the reasoning behind choosing to make the final survivor female? Her answer is that men, composing of a majority of the audience, will be more gender-neutral in relation to how they view the sole remaining character.
Furthermore, Clover goes on to state that only when the final female character emasculates herself through the use of a "phallic appropriation" such as a knife or an axe, does she stand on equal ground with the killer. This stands to reason that women in the genre must somehow compensate for their inherent weakness (i.e. the female gender).
Objections to the Final Girl Character Study
While feminists make a valid point for the final girl, there are others who don't view her as such a victim of gender consequence. In Arrin Dembo's article Demon of the Threshold, "ultimately, the Final Girl and the slasher are on the same side. They are agents of the same morality." Dembo implies that both the final girl and the killer are both present to teach a lesson to other characters and film viewers, “Don’t grow up, kids. Those cigarettes give you cancer. Those drugs will destroy you. That booze is dangerous. Sex will be the end of you. And if you abandon your childhood, the demon of the threshold will be waiting to pounce.”'
While films like Wes Craven's Scream (1996) did much to satirize the stereotypical last girl character, she still remains an enduring component of horror/slasher films. As misogynistic as it may seem, as long as horror films maintain their core audience of young male viewers, the final girl is likely to stay the course.
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