April 13, 2018 • 35 mins
Ever notice a lot of horror movies end with one girl standing? Anney & B explore why that is.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridgett. Hi, this is Annie, and you're
listening that stuff mob never told you, And today we're
talking about one of my favorite things, horror movies. I
(00:26):
can already see on your face how excited you are
to talk about horror movies. I am so excited. I
am a grown woman who probably three times a week
stays up too late watching harm You would think that's
a bit unusual, but actually it seems like a lot
of women are watching a lot of horror movies these days. Yes,
Americans have been watching them watching horror movies for decades,
(00:49):
but in the last year in horror films have had
particularly big numbers thanks to movies like It or Get Out.
And if you take any given horror to be in
the US, statistics show that women purchased more tickets to
it than men. Should I surprise you, It is surprising. Yeah,
but that doesn't include torture porn movies. Do you like
(01:13):
horror movies? Bridgets I like horror movies. Well, first of all,
I like all movies. It's it's you'd be hard pressed
to find a movie that I don't like. I'm the
person that you know when you see commercials on TV
for big budget popcorn movies, and you think who would
go see that. I'm like the Middle America person that's like, oh,
that looks good. I'm just happy to be at the movies.
When I go to the movies, I'm like, I get
(01:35):
my Twizzlers and my coke, and I'm I'm just happy
to be there. So I like movies in general, but
I also love bad horror movies. Kind of a thing
that I enjoy watching me too. Yeah. Can we have
a smiinty horror movie night, Yes, horror movie meet up? Yes? Oh,
there are some that I would love to like live
stream on here. Maybe we can, Maybe we can pull
(01:56):
that together. Um. One reason I found for or why
women might be seeing horror movies more than men, um
is that women kind of have this low level fear
that they're just living with more than men. Are you
saying that being a woman is a little bit stressful sometimes? An,
I'm saying it might could be possibly maybe a little stressful,
(02:20):
and horror movies are a great way or at least
in my experience, not everyone agrees with me, but for
people who enjoy them, and they're a good way to
relieve stress. Uh. In a way that you can't any
real life. It's a fear that you choose and therefore
you can control. And I remember an argument for um
why people like zombie movies so much, zombie things, and
(02:40):
it's because it reduces the stresses of your life to
this one terrible thing. But it does simplify things. You're
you've got to survive the zombies done hopefully. Um. And
to quote journalist at Brianna Wou, horror movies are a
world where money can't save you, privilege can't save you,
strength can't save you. So they're kind of I mean,
(03:01):
in a perfect world, they're kind of equalizing in that way. Yeah,
I get what you're saying. It's sort of this fantasy
world where we're all on the same playing field. Um.
Even though you know, one of the tropes and horror
movies is like all the black person dies first, or
you know. And I think that it's important to recognize
the way that tropes play out in movies like this
because you know, a lot of people might be saying,
(03:22):
horror movies, this is dumb, Why is this the thing
we're talking about? But actually, when you look at what
we recognize as tropes in these kinds of movies, they
can tell us a lot about culture and society. And
you know what we think about women. Oh, absolutely, horror movies,
I think, and I am a fan, but I think
they say a lot about society in general. And even
though women we're seeing these movies, but when it comes
(03:44):
to behind the scenes, if you look at director, writer,
producer roles so on, women are very poorly represented. Um.
They're more likely to work in a documentary or drama
genres that's a fun tongue restor um, and at least
like to work in action or horror genres. They accounted
from twelve of those working on horror. According to a
(04:06):
study out of San Diego State University, the film industry
in general, off screen on screen is dominated by men.
On screen, these films are truck full of stereotypes and
portrayals of women that are disparaging and negative and historically
a lot of messaging and tropes like you were saying
that they don't do women any favors, and one of
(04:27):
the most prevalent. The topic of today's episode is the
trope of the Final Girl. So I can't wait to
find out more about what exactly this trope is after
this quick break and we're back. So Annie, horror movie aficionado,
(04:51):
tell me about the Final Girl. Okay, I would love to,
I believe. Probably those who are familiar with horror movies
you know right away what what we're talking about with
that is, haven't without us having to explain it. But
for those that aren't big on the genre, it's the
last woman standing. In horror movies, and specifically slasher films,
(05:13):
the final Girl is the one to confront the killer
or the monster, whatever the thing is, after everyone else
has been slain and she survives to tell the tale.
She's almost guaranteed to be a virgin, straight white, probably brunette. Um.
She usually chased, doesn't really drink our otherwise engage in drugs,
and it is also probably rocking a gender neutral name
(05:37):
Sam or Joe or Alex. When I was a kid,
I always wanted a name like that. I did too.
I wanted Will or Jack. I wanted Billy Billy that's
close to Will. I like that um and probably is masculine,
well not masculine, but masculine ish hairstyle. The Final Girl
(05:59):
choke at it start in the nineteen seventies, but it
wasn't until that American film professor Carol Clover first coined
the term in her book Men, Women in Chainsaws, Gender
and the Modern Horror Film. Clover argued that in order
to survive, the Final Girl had to in some way
become more masculine, m probably by adopting a weapon of
(06:21):
the phallic variety, like a spear, a spear or a knife. Um,
something you stick in someone, Yes, got it? Thank you
for the gesture. At least I don't know if you
know how it works. That's how I do it. She's banking,
stabbing motion starts me totally non threatening podcast, no, no,
(06:43):
I'm totally safe. Clover interprets this as messaging of women
needing men are needing to be masculine in order to
survive this horrible ordeal they are going through. Lori from Halloween,
a k a. Jamie Lee Curtis's character is one of
the first and most pure examples of the Final Girl,
(07:07):
and one of the interesting things about her is that
throughout the course of this film, she uses traditionally feminine
objects like a knitting needle or a coat hanger as
her weapons of choice or necessity. Probably is more accurate
other famous final girls include Ripley from Alien, Nancy from
The Nightmare in Elm Street, and even Sydney from one
(07:27):
of my favorite horror movies making fun of horror movies,
Wes Craven's films Screen. Okay, so let's talk about Scream
because it's one of my favorite movies. She's such a
clever example of the final girl where it kind of
spins the trope on its head to comment on it, Yeah, yeah,
and I love they were so sneaky about it because
um Drew Barrymore was the biggest star at the time.
(07:50):
And if you look at the cover, she's on the front,
like she's prominently not just on the front, she's they're
all standing in a line, and she's like the first
girl in the line, prominently displayed. Yes, and she fits
the bill of what you would imagine a final girl is.
The movie starts with her, but she dies within the
first fifteen minutes. She's in the Yeah, she's in the
(08:11):
movie for like five minutes. Yeah, and he's sober sister
and all the other girls about drinking and partying. So
she's like the opposite of final Girl, the opposite of
final first first girl, First Girls. She was first, and
the one that It's Stuck with Me that was quite
the brutal, brutal scene. Uh and Scream also has a
(08:32):
horror movie buff Randy and Randy. Uh. He even directly
speaks to the rules of surviving a horror movie and
a couple of them are never say I'll be back. Um.
Never two jugs or alcohol for the love that is
all all that is holy in the world. Do not
have sex or show your boobs. Don't show you. Once
(08:54):
you show your moobs, you're pretty much that you pretty
much just crawl into a grave. Right You're through. Another
great example of a subversion of The Final Girl is
Twelves Cabin and Cabin in the Woods. Excuse me. This
movie directly addresses the trope to so there's this bengeful god,
(09:16):
which I'm fairly certain is meant to represent the American audience. UM.
And the Final Girl Dana, She's chase, she's smart, she's
sexually conservative. Pale Brunette is given the chance at survival,
but only after making sure all of her friends died.
And they're on this cabin Cabin in the woods like
trip Um, and she has to make sure all of
(09:38):
her friends die and she is the Final Girl, and
each of her friends fits the stereotype too, but only
after they were forced to fit into them through weird circumstances.
So there's a blonde, slooty bimbo, the dumb jock played
by Chris hims Worth, he's so cute, the stoner, and
the sweet bookish guy. Um that is the Final Girl's
(10:01):
sweetheart of course, and it's it's so hard to explain
this movie without having seen it, but basically, like there's
this government entity that's watching them through secret like security cameras,
making sure that they fulfill the prophecy of this final God.
Is that the plot of the movie? Yeah, I haven't
seen it full disclosure. Yeah, well I don't spoil it
(10:23):
for you. Oh no, well yeah, it's it's like this
weird government thing where there's a god. They have to
satisfy the god by meeting this criteria. So the sweet
girl has to wind up with the bookish guy and
that's how she sort of say, that's how she pleases
this this god who's watching above and does that Does
that ensure her safety? Does that? Is that what allows
(10:45):
for to get out of the situation? No, she can
either have sex or not and she can either die
or not. And it's actually really sad. There's a sad
moment where they take bets the government. People watching like
is she gonna have sex? Is she gonna die? Like?
How is she going to die? And there's a moment
where she's getting the crap beat out of her and
they're just watching like wondering is she going to survive?
(11:08):
And it's weird because you're as the viewer, You're in
that position, right, You're watching someone when you're watching horror movie,
wondering is she going to survive? And it's brutal. It
goes on for a long time, and it's the same
in horror movies. Um, it is worth it's worth a watch,
but it's a strange one. And it also has the
virgin Horde dichotomy of Dana the final girl who is
(11:32):
pure and innocent, but she's sexualized when she actually has sex,
she is looked out upon. She's seen as less than
she was, just like in society, you're you're all my
wave length here, um. And the person overseeing this whole thing,
she's called the director, um, and she's played by Sigourney
(11:53):
Weaver tells Dana that she fulfills the virgin archetype. But
when Dana is actually I had sex, you know, the
director tells her, we work with what we have. So
it's also kind of a commentary on on these different tropes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't want to spoil it, but definitely check it
out if you're interested. It does not sound anything like
(12:15):
what I thought it was going to be like when
he started. I don't know if you remember the posters,
but the posters said things like it was obviously a
horror movie just through the decor and the whole feel
of it. But it would say like if you hear
a strange noise, separate like the opposite things of what
you should be doing. Now that I think about it,
the trailers and stuff didn't I didn't understand. Now it
(12:38):
makes more sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And as a horror
movie fan, it's I very much enjoyed it because there's
one part where like every horror movie villain ever is
on display, because it could be they kind of draw
randomly what the villain is of what every year they
have to fulfill this prophecy. So they have this like
case of every horror movie Villa and ever, they could
(12:58):
pull from I like freeze Frameman, like oh yeah this frame,
Oh yeah, oh my god. Growing up, what villain were
you the most afraid of? Oh man, the girl from
the Ring Tomorrow. I saw that like right when it
came out in theaters, and I covered my TV. I
unplugged it, I covered it, I unplugged the phone, and
I kept getting in trouble with my mom. She'd be like,
(13:20):
who's unplugging the phone? Like seven days later, sitting in
my room wide awake. Yeah, that was pretty scary. Mine
was Chucky. I'm still unnerved by Chucky. I saw child
to play in the theater when it first came out,
So I was a kid. My parents were the kind
of parents who, like I was like, I'm not paying
for a babysitter and bringing all the kids here. You
(13:41):
know that family where you're like you brought all the kids?
That was um. But I saw Chucky at a really
young age, and my brother loved Chucky. So we had
the doll and like the poster and all this stuff,
like he had Chucky paraphernalia. And to this to this day,
I find it unnerving. I'm bothered by it as an adult.
That's some staying power those movies you see as a kid.
(14:03):
Another one of mine that we'll be talking about in
a little bit is Alien. Oh yeah, that's a that's
a good one that took you when when I think
about Chucky, I mean it was obviously as the movies
went on, they were pretty hokey, but they illustrate something
that you were just talking about, which is this weird
mix between female sexuality and horror and also like maybe
a little bit of camp because as the Child's play
(14:25):
movies went on, they had the one where, um, it's
Bride of Chucky and it's a it's a grown woman.
I think it's Jennifer Tilly, right, So it's Jennifer Tilly
and she's this sort of like throaty voiced blonde and
she become like she has a sexual relationship with Chucky
and they end up having a child in this in
this later iterations of the film, and again it's this
(14:47):
weird thing where horror movies always present this very unusual
image of female sexuality, and you know, in Chucky, you're
like she shaking a doll, like what's going on. But
it's it's interesting how a lot of horror movies always
have like a sexy scene or something like that that
you it's almost expected, and how they display female sexuality
(15:09):
in this very weird way. Yeah. Yeah, And I think
you could extrapolate that and say that society sees it
as that way because at their core, I think horror
movies they simplify the norms and taboos of society into
if you break these, you will be punished. There are
consequences for having sex outside of marriage. If you're a woman.
(15:33):
There are consequences were doing drugs or alcohol as a
not twenty one year old, you know. So I think
that's one of the reasons that I'm glad we're talking
about this today is I think you can take lessons
from that, or at least it gives you a little
snapshot of where we are perhaps as a society. Um
and going back to Cavin in the Woods for a second,
(15:56):
can we talk about the vampires? Can we? Can we? Ever?
Buffy is kind of the TV version of the Final Girl.
Week after week, she's the last one after fighting vampires
or demons or whatever, although fortunately most of her friends
did survive. In the final episode of Buffy, she's speaking
(16:18):
to a group of potential successors potential slayers, and she
comments on kind of this whole thing directly. She says,
in every generation, one slayer is born because a bunch
of men who died thousands of years ago made up
that rule. From now on, every girl in the world
who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every
girl who could have the power will have the power,
(16:39):
can stand up, will stand up slayers. Every one of
us make your choice? Are you ready to be strong?
So every girl is is a final girl? Yes, we
all have the power to be the final girl. And
I just love the line of men thousands of years
ago made that rule because I kind of think that's
what the final girl is. This The first scripts about
(17:02):
these Final Girls were written by men, and then because
they sold well or um, they were popular, they just continued.
All the scripts continue to be kind of the same formula.
And now that now that we're kind of mixing it
up a little bit and trying different things, we're seeing
that other things could work too, People might enjoy a
different take, perhaps, Yeah, And I think what that really
(17:24):
shows is that we're ready for different kinds of storytelling,
that we don't have to rely on one trope or
one theme. Just because it was popular successful. There are
all different kinds of different stories that I think people
want to see. Even look at the success of something
like get Out, which was very unusual, not quite like
any horror thriller movie I've ever seen, and people loved it,
(17:44):
And so I think that the industry can get very
it's kind of stuck in a run of telling the
same story, the same types of story and get it
again and again. But then when a story comes and
it's not like that, people really pay attention. Yeah, and
I think some nostalgia plays a role in that as well,
just people remember those movies as a kid and they
want to kind of have maybe nomage or just that's
(18:06):
what they liked, so they want to recreate it, and
people keep recreating it. But yeah, I think we're we
might be ready for something new. And Buffy, before we
move on, she has another great quote related to this,
where her boyfriend of the time, I believe, is saying
they were watching a horror movie and he says, I
want to know what happens, and Buffy says, everyone gets
(18:26):
horribly killed, except the blonde girl in the night who
finally kills the monster with a machete. But it's not
really dead and he says, oh really, She says, I
don't know what movie is this. It's true though, I
mean like you can sort of if you've seen one,
you've seen them all in a kind of way. So
she's not wrong. Yeah, there's certainly at the beginning, I
usually am like, probably not gonna live, Probably not gonna live.
(18:49):
I know, there's even a table for like percentages based
just on um, hair color, skin color, what they do. Well,
that's like this movie House of Wax. You've ever seen that?
So in that that movie when it came out, this
was in the heyday of Paris Hilton. That seems like
forever ago, but whatever, it wasn't that long ago. That
movie has a perfect example of a of a final
(19:09):
girl where it's the brunette girl. She's got to have
a name like Sam or Joe. She probably doesn't, but
like you know, she she probably does. Like don't write
in if she doesn't, but I think she does. She
wears like in the beginning of the movie, she gets
like deer guts on her, so she has to change
her clothes, and so she's wearing male clothes for most
of the movie because her clothes get destroyed into her
(19:29):
brother gives gives her like his tank top that happens
to be very sexy by the way, So it's a
it's a men sure, but like somehow luckily it falls perfectly,
I mean, thank god. Um So, she's the kind of chased,
brown haired, somewhat masculine, you know, clearly being set up
to be the final girl. Paris Hilton. On the other hand,
(19:49):
you know she's gonna die soon, like before you even
see the movie. You know exactly, like they're definitely gonna
kill her. She's blonde, she has like a sexy scene
with her boyf in the movie. She's in an interracial relationship.
She wears a pink track suit throughout most of the movie.
She's kind of presented as the one who's supposed to
be vapid or fast, and her death scene is gruesome.
(20:12):
She gets a like a rusty pole through her head,
and you can tell that the filmmakers are presenting this
as a gratuitous death scene almost like you know, you
guys know you came to watch Paris Hilton take a
metal pole to the head. Like it's almost seems to
be the gaze seems to be very gratuitous, as if
the audience is waiting to see Paris Hulton die a bloody,
(20:35):
painful death. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's something we're definitely going
to come back to. And it's just a weird kind
of thing when you're shown this very violent death and
you're obviously supposed to like take pleasure in it. That's
not why I like horror movies, but UM, I guess
I guess that's something other people enjoy. UM. If we're
(20:59):
if we're talking about the history of this, where did
this come from? Um? Like we were saying earlier, you
could argue that most horror movies exist to scare people
into following a certain set of norms. And the final Girl,
I would say, there's no exception. They kind of serve
as the everyman or every woman. She's tough, resilient, and
(21:20):
you root for her. I when I was thinking about this,
I'm I was wondering if maybe she's the least common
denominator of I don't know if that's the right way
to say it, but she's the simplest way to get
people to root for someone to survive. Most people can
get on board with this person. This kind of watered
down safe, Heaven forbid bridges all the other victims, Like
(21:45):
we were saying, you can point to why they died
in terms of sort of a moral majority outlook. Um,
the vices they indulge in, the mistakes they made. Um.
Horror movies all about punishing, especially young people, I would say.
And when a trope emerged in the nineteen seventies, the
u S was in the midst of all kinds of political, sexual,
(22:05):
and economic unrest. As feminism was rising, so is the
backlash to it. And the common interpretation of slasher picks
is summarized by I would say this quote from Students
of All Things Horror, Robin Woods. The violence against women
movies have generally been explained as a hysterical response to
(22:27):
sixties and seventies feminism. The male spectator enjoys a statistic
revenge on women who have begun to refuse to slot
neatly and obligingly into his patriarchal patriarchally hard to say, yeah, patriarchally,
there we go predetermined view of the way things should
naturally be in a male dominated culture where power, money, law,
(22:49):
and social institutions are controlled by past, present, and future patriarchs.
Women as the other assumes particular significance. The dominant images
of women in our culture are entirely male creat it
and male controlled. Women's autonomy and independence are denied onto women.
Men project their own innate, repressed femininity in order to
disown it as inferior. In general, the teenagers are punished
(23:12):
for promisecurity, while the women are punished for being women. Well,
that's just like what this film scholar Linda Williams says.
She says the horror film maybe the rare example of
a genre that permits the expression of women's sexual potency
and desire and associates this desire with the autonomous act
of looking. But it does so only to punish her
for this very act, only to demonstrate how monstrous female
(23:34):
desire can be. And I have this great example in
my head and this very weird horror movie that I
saw as a child called Jack Frost. Have you seen it?
This is this is gonna be a little bit like
your Cabin in the Woods explanation, So you haven't seen it.
It's very difficult to explain, but essentially, it's a movie
that takes place during Christmas time and a serial killer
(23:55):
is killed in the snow by being doused with some
sort of chemical or acid is like d NA gets
into the snow, you know, don't I don't overthink it.
He then comes back to life as a snowman, like
a murdering snowman. And so because he's a snowman, he
has the ability to like melt and refreeze, So melt
into water, then refreeze and just and a snowman. And
(24:19):
Shannon Elizabeth who you might remember from American Pie. In
one scene, she's taking a bath and I think she
might be touching herself in the bath and the snowman.
This sounds like I'm making get up, but if you've
seen it, you know I'm not. And go watch it
and you can be like you were accurate. He melts
into water, goes into the bathroom, becomes the bathwater that
(24:40):
she's in, and then he basically violates her with his
carrot nose, and that's how she's killed. And so it's
interesting because the scene is shot in such a way
that's exactly what this film scholar Linda Williams is explaining,
where you are watching like a beautiful woman in a bathtub,
you know, enjoying her own sexuality and her own sexual
dis or sexual potency, whatever. And immediately after that, she
(25:04):
is killed in the most gruesome, dehumanizing way, and it's
played for laughs in the movie. And so within the
universe of this movie, the expectation of us the audience is,
you saw this beautiful woman having a sexual moment alone.
You were sort of spying on her, and now she's
dead in this horribly dehumanizing way. Isn't that a riot?
(25:24):
You know? It's sort of sort of exactly what she's
saying that because Shannon Elizabeth was shown within the confines
of this film being a sexual person, that we the
audience one get to kind of leer at that and
to get to watch her die in a terrible way
because of that. Yeah, you could almost say that It's like,
(25:46):
and I've seen this in other non horror movies too,
but um, just things like a female sexuality or even
periods and Ridget knows, I have a whole theory a
theory about this um or seemed as monstrous or at
least they're kind of like symbolize this, this scary monstrous thing.
Um and horror movies are just a perfect if you
(26:10):
analyze them, if you over analyze them, perhaps like I
do um And if we go back to the seventies,
and this is one of my favorite examples in the US.
As women are getting more power and exploring our sexuality,
so many horror movies proliferated in response. And Alien is
(26:31):
one of my faiths, even if at the time at
the time, I wasn't alive then, But when I was
a kid, they terrified me. Those movies did. I could
do a whole mini series on this, on sexual imagery
and symbolism and messaging in the Alien series, And I
want to, and we should. There are so many symbols
of emasculation of the male, fear and anxiety of having
(26:54):
to share equal responsibility of childbirth and child bearing. I'm
telling you, you cannot see it should be a whole series.
I want to so bad. I mean, if we if
we could live stream watching that, I mean, you'd have
to be of age. But we need to do a
mystery science three thousand viewing of Alien, where it's you
(27:16):
and me, the silhouettes of our head making feminist commentary
at the screen. Yes, ruining it for you forever. I
love ruining things. It's my favorite pastime. I still love
the movie and it has it's like interesting to see
from that time period kind of what was going on.
Another thing to consider is that when you look at
(27:37):
how the male characters versus the female characters are killed,
there is usually this element of torture or brutality involved
in the deaths of the women that it's not there
and death of the men. And key two is how
the killer monster whatever it is have what have you,
terrorizes the Final Girl. It's kind of like what you
(27:57):
were talking about, Bridget that, like we're expect did to
kind of enjoy this, like set up to enjoy it,
but male characters generally get a much more merciful death. Um.
And another tripe that dovetails with the Final Girl is
called men are the expendable gender. And this is the
(28:17):
idea that women automatically have the sympathy of the audience
while men don't. Oh, in horror movies, they mow through
men like they're not right people. They like mow them down. Yeah,
you're kind of like, oh no, sorry, buddy. The Walking
Dead's Nagan sums it up this way. I don't enjoy
killing women men. I can waste them all the live
(28:40):
long I didn't try to do Jeffrey Dean Morgan voice there.
That's probably for the best. Yeah, probably, I want to
hear this impression. We can we can take it off air,
we can do it off perfect. I think you definitely
see this trope out of movies, and I think it
goes back to this thing that EMM and I talked
about once, where it's benevolent sexism where women are sort
of it on the same level as children in terms
(29:01):
of their helplessness, and so films tend to fall on
this idea that, oh, the audience is going to sympathize
with the woman. I've seen movies where the woman is
pregnant but hasn't told anybody, and that when she survives,
the audience is like, woofah, God, she's pregnant. You know. Yeah,
I definitely think that plays into it too, that the
whole thing where women could be pregnant and that they're
(29:22):
more maybe fragile. Um that, Yeah, benevolent sexism is a
great way to think about that trope. Probably. So Annie
is the Final Girl is a feminist trope in film
or No, I would say no, Um, it's still a
trope that's written by men and largely for men. I
(29:44):
would say it's a reaction to feminism. Um, but like,
if you look at the use of POV shots at
the killer or monster that's talking the Final Girl, it
demonstrates that we as the audience are still encouraged to
identify with the generally male tormentor that the male force
that is punishing or tormenting this woman, it was probably
(30:05):
still masculine. So all is to say, I do love
horror movies and just good to know the messaging you're
receiving from the entertainment. You're like, and it's not all bad, right,
Bridget That's exactly right. This is actually changing a little bit.
Let's talk about some of the ways this is changing
for the better after this quick break and we're back.
(30:35):
We were just talking about the Final Girl trope and
some of the ways that trope is changing a little
bit as we go forward in storytelling and movies and
all of that. So one of the reasons why it's
changing really has to do with self awareness. We sort
of recognize this trope as audiences and we kind of
want something that's more creative. I think, just like with
the example we gave with Get Out earlier, today, I
think we're sort of done with the same old stories
(30:57):
that we always see, particularly in horror, and so I
think audiences expect something different. They don't expect the same
movies that we saw in the seventies and the eighties
and the nineties, and so that's one of the reasons
you find this trope not being as prevalent. Yeah, and
I will say thanks to this episode for giving me
some of the most fun homework I've ever had. Um
I watched a movie called The Final Girl, which was
(31:19):
all about the Final Girl trope, and it was enjoyable.
But I also watched so many movies that sort of
play with that trope, a lot of them available on Netflix.
Another one of the reasons that this is changing, that
we're getting away from that is that there are more
female directors and writers and roles, more female stories. If
(31:40):
the Final Girl is a product of the male gaze,
then it seems like the solution is to get more
women in the industry. I come back to that as
a solution to pretty much everything. So you have more
women in the mix, whether it's the military, professional sports, whatever,
it's always gonna be better. And so one of the
soapboxes I love to get on. Exmin t is more women,
(32:00):
storyteller is more diverse, storyteller is more inclusive storytelling. And
I'm happy to see that more women are in the
mix telling different kinds of stories. Yeah, yeah, me too. Uh.
Study out of from Google and the Jena Davis Institute
on Gender and Media found that in all genres of entertainment,
men had twice the speaking in scream time, with one
(32:20):
exception horror, while traditionally that female screen time might have
been those of the screaming victim variety, but it has
been moving towards more nuanced survivors and protagonists. And um,
as someone who has acted in some horror movies, I
can say that, um, I get so many bad casting calls,
(32:43):
but they are it has become less. I think there
is an increased awareness, perhaps out of actually almost absolutely
out of totally selfish means, but I'm glad to see
it is moving that way. Still still some work to
be done, absolutely, but as always yes, So this has
(33:03):
been really interesting. As someone who hasn't really spent that
much time picking apart of the horror movies that I watch,
it's interesting to think about how these movie tropes do
kind of show us about how women are seen in society. Yeah,
and UM, I do want to mention some some examples
something some movies that are good, UM, examples of how
it is changing. Before we before we're done here raw
(33:25):
from French director. It might take a bit of a
strong stomach, but it's good. Um the invitation Bob a duke.
A girl walks home alone at night and it follows
they all these films have female directors and female main characters,
and but they might have a final girl. But she's
a more complex final girl. So if you're interested, I
(33:47):
believe all of those are on Netflix and UM. As
advertisers and studios realize the buying power of of us ladies. Um,
the shift towards a more complex storytelling, especially involving women,
has started to take place. So that's that's good. That
that makes me feel better. As a horror movie fan,
(34:08):
I'm excited for that content to be made. I just
realized something. As a girl with brown hair, if we
were in a horror movie, you might be a final girl.
Just saying oh no, I mean yes, I mean you're
gonna live. I'll definitely die. You're gonna live. We'll make
a sminty horror movie, and we'll we'll flip the tropes
(34:30):
all upside down. Bridget everyone lives, everyone lives. It's like
Buffy will all be the final Girl. I like it.
I love it. That's a great feminist message to end on.
It is so sminty. Listeners, have you seen this final
girl troupe playing out in movies that you like? What's
your favorite example of a final girl? Let us know.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
on Instagram at stuff Mom Never Told You, and we
(34:51):
love getting your emails at mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com. Two t
Hey, this is Bridgett. Hi, this is Annie, and you're
listening that stuff mob never told you, And today we're
talking about one of my favorite things, horror movies. I
(00:26):
can already see on your face how excited you are
to talk about horror movies. I am so excited. I
am a grown woman who probably three times a week
stays up too late watching harm You would think that's
a bit unusual, but actually it seems like a lot
of women are watching a lot of horror movies these days. Yes,
Americans have been watching them watching horror movies for decades,
(00:49):
but in the last year in horror films have had
particularly big numbers thanks to movies like It or Get Out.
And if you take any given horror to be in
the US, statistics show that women purchased more tickets to
it than men. Should I surprise you, It is surprising. Yeah,
but that doesn't include torture porn movies. Do you like
(01:13):
horror movies? Bridgets I like horror movies. Well, first of all,
I like all movies. It's it's you'd be hard pressed
to find a movie that I don't like. I'm the
person that you know when you see commercials on TV
for big budget popcorn movies, and you think who would
go see that. I'm like the Middle America person that's like, oh,
that looks good. I'm just happy to be at the movies.
When I go to the movies, I'm like, I get
(01:35):
my Twizzlers and my coke, and I'm I'm just happy
to be there. So I like movies in general, but
I also love bad horror movies. Kind of a thing
that I enjoy watching me too. Yeah. Can we have
a smiinty horror movie night, Yes, horror movie meet up? Yes? Oh,
there are some that I would love to like live
stream on here. Maybe we can, Maybe we can pull
(01:56):
that together. Um. One reason I found for or why
women might be seeing horror movies more than men, um
is that women kind of have this low level fear
that they're just living with more than men. Are you
saying that being a woman is a little bit stressful sometimes? An,
I'm saying it might could be possibly maybe a little stressful,
(02:20):
and horror movies are a great way or at least
in my experience, not everyone agrees with me, but for
people who enjoy them, and they're a good way to
relieve stress. Uh. In a way that you can't any
real life. It's a fear that you choose and therefore
you can control. And I remember an argument for um
why people like zombie movies so much, zombie things, and
(02:40):
it's because it reduces the stresses of your life to
this one terrible thing. But it does simplify things. You're
you've got to survive the zombies done hopefully. Um. And
to quote journalist at Brianna Wou, horror movies are a
world where money can't save you, privilege can't save you,
strength can't save you. So they're kind of I mean,
(03:01):
in a perfect world, they're kind of equalizing in that way. Yeah,
I get what you're saying. It's sort of this fantasy
world where we're all on the same playing field. Um.
Even though you know, one of the tropes and horror
movies is like all the black person dies first, or
you know. And I think that it's important to recognize
the way that tropes play out in movies like this
because you know, a lot of people might be saying,
(03:22):
horror movies, this is dumb, Why is this the thing
we're talking about? But actually, when you look at what
we recognize as tropes in these kinds of movies, they
can tell us a lot about culture and society. And
you know what we think about women. Oh, absolutely, horror movies,
I think, and I am a fan, but I think
they say a lot about society in general. And even
though women we're seeing these movies, but when it comes
(03:44):
to behind the scenes, if you look at director, writer,
producer roles so on, women are very poorly represented. Um.
They're more likely to work in a documentary or drama
genres that's a fun tongue restor um, and at least
like to work in action or horror genres. They accounted
from twelve of those working on horror. According to a
(04:06):
study out of San Diego State University, the film industry
in general, off screen on screen is dominated by men.
On screen, these films are truck full of stereotypes and
portrayals of women that are disparaging and negative and historically
a lot of messaging and tropes like you were saying
that they don't do women any favors, and one of
(04:27):
the most prevalent. The topic of today's episode is the
trope of the Final Girl. So I can't wait to
find out more about what exactly this trope is after
this quick break and we're back. So Annie, horror movie aficionado,
(04:51):
tell me about the Final Girl. Okay, I would love to,
I believe. Probably those who are familiar with horror movies
you know right away what what we're talking about with
that is, haven't without us having to explain it. But
for those that aren't big on the genre, it's the
last woman standing. In horror movies, and specifically slasher films,
(05:13):
the final Girl is the one to confront the killer
or the monster, whatever the thing is, after everyone else
has been slain and she survives to tell the tale.
She's almost guaranteed to be a virgin, straight white, probably brunette. Um.
She usually chased, doesn't really drink our otherwise engage in drugs,
and it is also probably rocking a gender neutral name
(05:37):
Sam or Joe or Alex. When I was a kid,
I always wanted a name like that. I did too.
I wanted Will or Jack. I wanted Billy Billy that's
close to Will. I like that um and probably is masculine,
well not masculine, but masculine ish hairstyle. The Final Girl
(05:59):
choke at it start in the nineteen seventies, but it
wasn't until that American film professor Carol Clover first coined
the term in her book Men, Women in Chainsaws, Gender
and the Modern Horror Film. Clover argued that in order
to survive, the Final Girl had to in some way
become more masculine, m probably by adopting a weapon of
(06:21):
the phallic variety, like a spear, a spear or a knife. Um,
something you stick in someone, Yes, got it? Thank you
for the gesture. At least I don't know if you
know how it works. That's how I do it. She's banking,
stabbing motion starts me totally non threatening podcast, no, no,
(06:43):
I'm totally safe. Clover interprets this as messaging of women
needing men are needing to be masculine in order to
survive this horrible ordeal they are going through. Lori from Halloween,
a k a. Jamie Lee Curtis's character is one of
the first and most pure examples of the Final Girl,
(07:07):
and one of the interesting things about her is that
throughout the course of this film, she uses traditionally feminine
objects like a knitting needle or a coat hanger as
her weapons of choice or necessity. Probably is more accurate
other famous final girls include Ripley from Alien, Nancy from
The Nightmare in Elm Street, and even Sydney from one
(07:27):
of my favorite horror movies making fun of horror movies,
Wes Craven's films Screen. Okay, so let's talk about Scream
because it's one of my favorite movies. She's such a
clever example of the final girl where it kind of
spins the trope on its head to comment on it, Yeah, yeah,
and I love they were so sneaky about it because
um Drew Barrymore was the biggest star at the time.
(07:50):
And if you look at the cover, she's on the front,
like she's prominently not just on the front, she's they're
all standing in a line, and she's like the first
girl in the line, prominently displayed. Yes, and she fits
the bill of what you would imagine a final girl is.
The movie starts with her, but she dies within the
first fifteen minutes. She's in the Yeah, she's in the
(08:11):
movie for like five minutes. Yeah, and he's sober sister
and all the other girls about drinking and partying. So
she's like the opposite of final Girl, the opposite of
final first first girl, First Girls. She was first, and
the one that It's Stuck with Me that was quite
the brutal, brutal scene. Uh and Scream also has a
(08:32):
horror movie buff Randy and Randy. Uh. He even directly
speaks to the rules of surviving a horror movie and
a couple of them are never say I'll be back. Um.
Never two jugs or alcohol for the love that is
all all that is holy in the world. Do not
have sex or show your boobs. Don't show you. Once
(08:54):
you show your moobs, you're pretty much that you pretty
much just crawl into a grave. Right You're through. Another
great example of a subversion of The Final Girl is
Twelves Cabin and Cabin in the Woods. Excuse me. This
movie directly addresses the trope to so there's this bengeful god,
(09:16):
which I'm fairly certain is meant to represent the American audience. UM.
And the Final Girl Dana, She's chase, she's smart, she's
sexually conservative. Pale Brunette is given the chance at survival,
but only after making sure all of her friends died.
And they're on this cabin Cabin in the woods like
trip Um, and she has to make sure all of
(09:38):
her friends die and she is the Final Girl, and
each of her friends fits the stereotype too, but only
after they were forced to fit into them through weird circumstances.
So there's a blonde, slooty bimbo, the dumb jock played
by Chris hims Worth, he's so cute, the stoner, and
the sweet bookish guy. Um that is the Final Girl's
(10:01):
sweetheart of course, and it's it's so hard to explain
this movie without having seen it, but basically, like there's
this government entity that's watching them through secret like security cameras,
making sure that they fulfill the prophecy of this final God.
Is that the plot of the movie? Yeah, I haven't
seen it full disclosure. Yeah, well I don't spoil it
(10:23):
for you. Oh no, well yeah, it's it's like this
weird government thing where there's a god. They have to
satisfy the god by meeting this criteria. So the sweet
girl has to wind up with the bookish guy and
that's how she sort of say, that's how she pleases
this this god who's watching above and does that Does
that ensure her safety? Does that? Is that what allows
(10:45):
for to get out of the situation? No, she can
either have sex or not and she can either die
or not. And it's actually really sad. There's a sad
moment where they take bets the government. People watching like
is she gonna have sex? Is she gonna die? Like?
How is she going to die? And there's a moment
where she's getting the crap beat out of her and
they're just watching like wondering is she going to survive?
(11:08):
And it's weird because you're as the viewer, You're in
that position, right, You're watching someone when you're watching horror movie,
wondering is she going to survive? And it's brutal. It
goes on for a long time, and it's the same
in horror movies. Um, it is worth it's worth a watch,
but it's a strange one. And it also has the
virgin Horde dichotomy of Dana the final girl who is
(11:32):
pure and innocent, but she's sexualized when she actually has sex,
she is looked out upon. She's seen as less than
she was, just like in society, you're you're all my
wave length here, um. And the person overseeing this whole thing,
she's called the director, um, and she's played by Sigourney
(11:53):
Weaver tells Dana that she fulfills the virgin archetype. But
when Dana is actually I had sex, you know, the
director tells her, we work with what we have. So
it's also kind of a commentary on on these different tropes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't want to spoil it, but definitely check it
out if you're interested. It does not sound anything like
(12:15):
what I thought it was going to be like when
he started. I don't know if you remember the posters,
but the posters said things like it was obviously a
horror movie just through the decor and the whole feel
of it. But it would say like if you hear
a strange noise, separate like the opposite things of what
you should be doing. Now that I think about it,
the trailers and stuff didn't I didn't understand. Now it
(12:38):
makes more sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And as a horror
movie fan, it's I very much enjoyed it because there's
one part where like every horror movie villain ever is
on display, because it could be they kind of draw
randomly what the villain is of what every year they
have to fulfill this prophecy. So they have this like
case of every horror movie Villa and ever, they could
(12:58):
pull from I like freeze Frameman, like oh yeah this frame,
Oh yeah, oh my god. Growing up, what villain were
you the most afraid of? Oh man, the girl from
the Ring Tomorrow. I saw that like right when it
came out in theaters, and I covered my TV. I
unplugged it, I covered it, I unplugged the phone, and
I kept getting in trouble with my mom. She'd be like,
(13:20):
who's unplugging the phone? Like seven days later, sitting in
my room wide awake. Yeah, that was pretty scary. Mine
was Chucky. I'm still unnerved by Chucky. I saw child
to play in the theater when it first came out,
So I was a kid. My parents were the kind
of parents who, like I was like, I'm not paying
for a babysitter and bringing all the kids here. You
(13:41):
know that family where you're like you brought all the kids?
That was um. But I saw Chucky at a really
young age, and my brother loved Chucky. So we had
the doll and like the poster and all this stuff,
like he had Chucky paraphernalia. And to this to this day,
I find it unnerving. I'm bothered by it as an adult.
That's some staying power those movies you see as a kid.
(14:03):
Another one of mine that we'll be talking about in
a little bit is Alien. Oh yeah, that's a that's
a good one that took you when when I think
about Chucky, I mean it was obviously as the movies
went on, they were pretty hokey, but they illustrate something
that you were just talking about, which is this weird
mix between female sexuality and horror and also like maybe
a little bit of camp because as the Child's play
(14:25):
movies went on, they had the one where, um, it's
Bride of Chucky and it's a it's a grown woman.
I think it's Jennifer Tilly, right, So it's Jennifer Tilly
and she's this sort of like throaty voiced blonde and
she become like she has a sexual relationship with Chucky
and they end up having a child in this in
this later iterations of the film, and again it's this
(14:47):
weird thing where horror movies always present this very unusual
image of female sexuality, and you know, in Chucky, you're
like she shaking a doll, like what's going on. But
it's it's interesting how a lot of horror movies always
have like a sexy scene or something like that that
you it's almost expected, and how they display female sexuality
(15:09):
in this very weird way. Yeah. Yeah, And I think
you could extrapolate that and say that society sees it
as that way because at their core, I think horror
movies they simplify the norms and taboos of society into
if you break these, you will be punished. There are
consequences for having sex outside of marriage. If you're a woman.
(15:33):
There are consequences were doing drugs or alcohol as a
not twenty one year old, you know. So I think
that's one of the reasons that I'm glad we're talking
about this today is I think you can take lessons
from that, or at least it gives you a little
snapshot of where we are perhaps as a society. Um
and going back to Cavin in the Woods for a second,
(15:56):
can we talk about the vampires? Can we? Can we? Ever?
Buffy is kind of the TV version of the Final Girl.
Week after week, she's the last one after fighting vampires
or demons or whatever, although fortunately most of her friends
did survive. In the final episode of Buffy, she's speaking
(16:18):
to a group of potential successors potential slayers, and she
comments on kind of this whole thing directly. She says,
in every generation, one slayer is born because a bunch
of men who died thousands of years ago made up
that rule. From now on, every girl in the world
who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every
girl who could have the power will have the power,
(16:39):
can stand up, will stand up slayers. Every one of
us make your choice? Are you ready to be strong?
So every girl is is a final girl? Yes, we
all have the power to be the final girl. And
I just love the line of men thousands of years
ago made that rule because I kind of think that's
what the final girl is. This The first scripts about
(17:02):
these Final Girls were written by men, and then because
they sold well or um, they were popular, they just continued.
All the scripts continue to be kind of the same formula.
And now that now that we're kind of mixing it
up a little bit and trying different things, we're seeing
that other things could work too, People might enjoy a
different take, perhaps, Yeah, And I think what that really
(17:24):
shows is that we're ready for different kinds of storytelling,
that we don't have to rely on one trope or
one theme. Just because it was popular successful. There are
all different kinds of different stories that I think people
want to see. Even look at the success of something
like get Out, which was very unusual, not quite like
any horror thriller movie I've ever seen, and people loved it,
(17:44):
And so I think that the industry can get very
it's kind of stuck in a run of telling the
same story, the same types of story and get it
again and again. But then when a story comes and
it's not like that, people really pay attention. Yeah, and
I think some nostalgia plays a role in that as well,
just people remember those movies as a kid and they
want to kind of have maybe nomage or just that's
(18:06):
what they liked, so they want to recreate it, and
people keep recreating it. But yeah, I think we're we
might be ready for something new. And Buffy, before we
move on, she has another great quote related to this,
where her boyfriend of the time, I believe, is saying
they were watching a horror movie and he says, I
want to know what happens, and Buffy says, everyone gets
(18:26):
horribly killed, except the blonde girl in the night who
finally kills the monster with a machete. But it's not
really dead and he says, oh really, She says, I
don't know what movie is this. It's true though, I
mean like you can sort of if you've seen one,
you've seen them all in a kind of way. So
she's not wrong. Yeah, there's certainly at the beginning, I
usually am like, probably not gonna live, Probably not gonna live.
(18:49):
I know, there's even a table for like percentages based
just on um, hair color, skin color, what they do. Well,
that's like this movie House of Wax. You've ever seen that?
So in that that movie when it came out, this
was in the heyday of Paris Hilton. That seems like
forever ago, but whatever, it wasn't that long ago. That
movie has a perfect example of a of a final
(19:09):
girl where it's the brunette girl. She's got to have
a name like Sam or Joe. She probably doesn't, but
like you know, she she probably does. Like don't write
in if she doesn't, but I think she does. She
wears like in the beginning of the movie, she gets
like deer guts on her, so she has to change
her clothes, and so she's wearing male clothes for most
of the movie because her clothes get destroyed into her
(19:29):
brother gives gives her like his tank top that happens
to be very sexy by the way, So it's a
it's a men sure, but like somehow luckily it falls perfectly,
I mean, thank god. Um So, she's the kind of chased,
brown haired, somewhat masculine, you know, clearly being set up
to be the final girl. Paris Hilton. On the other hand,
(19:49):
you know she's gonna die soon, like before you even
see the movie. You know exactly, like they're definitely gonna
kill her. She's blonde, she has like a sexy scene
with her boyf in the movie. She's in an interracial relationship.
She wears a pink track suit throughout most of the movie.
She's kind of presented as the one who's supposed to
be vapid or fast, and her death scene is gruesome.
(20:12):
She gets a like a rusty pole through her head,
and you can tell that the filmmakers are presenting this
as a gratuitous death scene almost like you know, you
guys know you came to watch Paris Hilton take a
metal pole to the head. Like it's almost seems to
be the gaze seems to be very gratuitous, as if
the audience is waiting to see Paris Hulton die a bloody,
(20:35):
painful death. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's something we're definitely going
to come back to. And it's just a weird kind
of thing when you're shown this very violent death and
you're obviously supposed to like take pleasure in it. That's
not why I like horror movies, but UM, I guess
I guess that's something other people enjoy. UM. If we're
(20:59):
if we're talking about the history of this, where did
this come from? Um? Like we were saying earlier, you
could argue that most horror movies exist to scare people
into following a certain set of norms. And the final Girl,
I would say, there's no exception. They kind of serve
as the everyman or every woman. She's tough, resilient, and
(21:20):
you root for her. I when I was thinking about this,
I'm I was wondering if maybe she's the least common
denominator of I don't know if that's the right way
to say it, but she's the simplest way to get
people to root for someone to survive. Most people can
get on board with this person. This kind of watered
down safe, Heaven forbid bridges all the other victims, Like
(21:45):
we were saying, you can point to why they died
in terms of sort of a moral majority outlook. Um,
the vices they indulge in, the mistakes they made. Um.
Horror movies all about punishing, especially young people, I would say.
And when a trope emerged in the nineteen seventies, the
u S was in the midst of all kinds of political, sexual,
(22:05):
and economic unrest. As feminism was rising, so is the
backlash to it. And the common interpretation of slasher picks
is summarized by I would say this quote from Students
of All Things Horror, Robin Woods. The violence against women
movies have generally been explained as a hysterical response to
(22:27):
sixties and seventies feminism. The male spectator enjoys a statistic
revenge on women who have begun to refuse to slot
neatly and obligingly into his patriarchal patriarchally hard to say, yeah, patriarchally,
there we go predetermined view of the way things should
naturally be in a male dominated culture where power, money, law,
(22:49):
and social institutions are controlled by past, present, and future patriarchs.
Women as the other assumes particular significance. The dominant images
of women in our culture are entirely male creat it
and male controlled. Women's autonomy and independence are denied onto women.
Men project their own innate, repressed femininity in order to
disown it as inferior. In general, the teenagers are punished
(23:12):
for promisecurity, while the women are punished for being women. Well,
that's just like what this film scholar Linda Williams says.
She says the horror film maybe the rare example of
a genre that permits the expression of women's sexual potency
and desire and associates this desire with the autonomous act
of looking. But it does so only to punish her
for this very act, only to demonstrate how monstrous female
(23:34):
desire can be. And I have this great example in
my head and this very weird horror movie that I
saw as a child called Jack Frost. Have you seen it?
This is this is gonna be a little bit like
your Cabin in the Woods explanation, So you haven't seen it.
It's very difficult to explain, but essentially, it's a movie
that takes place during Christmas time and a serial killer
(23:55):
is killed in the snow by being doused with some
sort of chemical or acid is like d NA gets
into the snow, you know, don't I don't overthink it.
He then comes back to life as a snowman, like
a murdering snowman. And so because he's a snowman, he
has the ability to like melt and refreeze, So melt
into water, then refreeze and just and a snowman. And
(24:19):
Shannon Elizabeth who you might remember from American Pie. In
one scene, she's taking a bath and I think she
might be touching herself in the bath and the snowman.
This sounds like I'm making get up, but if you've
seen it, you know I'm not. And go watch it
and you can be like you were accurate. He melts
into water, goes into the bathroom, becomes the bathwater that
(24:40):
she's in, and then he basically violates her with his
carrot nose, and that's how she's killed. And so it's
interesting because the scene is shot in such a way
that's exactly what this film scholar Linda Williams is explaining,
where you are watching like a beautiful woman in a bathtub,
you know, enjoying her own sexuality and her own sexual
dis or sexual potency, whatever. And immediately after that, she
(25:04):
is killed in the most gruesome, dehumanizing way, and it's
played for laughs in the movie. And so within the
universe of this movie, the expectation of us the audience is,
you saw this beautiful woman having a sexual moment alone.
You were sort of spying on her, and now she's
dead in this horribly dehumanizing way. Isn't that a riot?
(25:24):
You know? It's sort of sort of exactly what she's
saying that because Shannon Elizabeth was shown within the confines
of this film being a sexual person, that we the
audience one get to kind of leer at that and
to get to watch her die in a terrible way
because of that. Yeah, you could almost say that It's like,
(25:46):
and I've seen this in other non horror movies too,
but um, just things like a female sexuality or even
periods and Ridget knows, I have a whole theory a
theory about this um or seemed as monstrous or at
least they're kind of like symbolize this, this scary monstrous thing.
Um and horror movies are just a perfect if you
(26:10):
analyze them, if you over analyze them, perhaps like I
do um And if we go back to the seventies,
and this is one of my favorite examples in the US.
As women are getting more power and exploring our sexuality,
so many horror movies proliferated in response. And Alien is
(26:31):
one of my faiths, even if at the time at
the time, I wasn't alive then, But when I was
a kid, they terrified me. Those movies did. I could
do a whole mini series on this, on sexual imagery
and symbolism and messaging in the Alien series, And I
want to, and we should. There are so many symbols
of emasculation of the male, fear and anxiety of having
(26:54):
to share equal responsibility of childbirth and child bearing. I'm
telling you, you cannot see it should be a whole series.
I want to so bad. I mean, if we if
we could live stream watching that, I mean, you'd have
to be of age. But we need to do a
mystery science three thousand viewing of Alien, where it's you
(27:16):
and me, the silhouettes of our head making feminist commentary
at the screen. Yes, ruining it for you forever. I
love ruining things. It's my favorite pastime. I still love
the movie and it has it's like interesting to see
from that time period kind of what was going on.
Another thing to consider is that when you look at
(27:37):
how the male characters versus the female characters are killed,
there is usually this element of torture or brutality involved
in the deaths of the women that it's not there
and death of the men. And key two is how
the killer monster whatever it is have what have you,
terrorizes the Final Girl. It's kind of like what you
(27:57):
were talking about, Bridget that, like we're expect did to
kind of enjoy this, like set up to enjoy it,
but male characters generally get a much more merciful death. Um.
And another tripe that dovetails with the Final Girl is
called men are the expendable gender. And this is the
(28:17):
idea that women automatically have the sympathy of the audience
while men don't. Oh, in horror movies, they mow through
men like they're not right people. They like mow them down. Yeah,
you're kind of like, oh no, sorry, buddy. The Walking
Dead's Nagan sums it up this way. I don't enjoy
killing women men. I can waste them all the live
(28:40):
long I didn't try to do Jeffrey Dean Morgan voice there.
That's probably for the best. Yeah, probably, I want to
hear this impression. We can we can take it off air,
we can do it off perfect. I think you definitely
see this trope out of movies, and I think it
goes back to this thing that EMM and I talked
about once, where it's benevolent sexism where women are sort
of it on the same level as children in terms
(29:01):
of their helplessness, and so films tend to fall on
this idea that, oh, the audience is going to sympathize
with the woman. I've seen movies where the woman is
pregnant but hasn't told anybody, and that when she survives,
the audience is like, woofah, God, she's pregnant. You know. Yeah,
I definitely think that plays into it too, that the
whole thing where women could be pregnant and that they're
(29:22):
more maybe fragile. Um that, Yeah, benevolent sexism is a
great way to think about that trope. Probably. So Annie
is the Final Girl is a feminist trope in film
or No, I would say no, Um, it's still a
trope that's written by men and largely for men. I
(29:44):
would say it's a reaction to feminism. Um, but like,
if you look at the use of POV shots at
the killer or monster that's talking the Final Girl, it
demonstrates that we as the audience are still encouraged to
identify with the generally male tormentor that the male force
that is punishing or tormenting this woman, it was probably
(30:05):
still masculine. So all is to say, I do love
horror movies and just good to know the messaging you're
receiving from the entertainment. You're like, and it's not all bad, right,
Bridget That's exactly right. This is actually changing a little bit.
Let's talk about some of the ways this is changing
for the better after this quick break and we're back.
(30:35):
We were just talking about the Final Girl trope and
some of the ways that trope is changing a little
bit as we go forward in storytelling and movies and
all of that. So one of the reasons why it's
changing really has to do with self awareness. We sort
of recognize this trope as audiences and we kind of
want something that's more creative. I think, just like with
the example we gave with Get Out earlier, today, I
think we're sort of done with the same old stories
(30:57):
that we always see, particularly in horror, and so I
think audiences expect something different. They don't expect the same
movies that we saw in the seventies and the eighties
and the nineties, and so that's one of the reasons
you find this trope not being as prevalent. Yeah, and
I will say thanks to this episode for giving me
some of the most fun homework I've ever had. Um
I watched a movie called The Final Girl, which was
(31:19):
all about the Final Girl trope, and it was enjoyable.
But I also watched so many movies that sort of
play with that trope, a lot of them available on Netflix.
Another one of the reasons that this is changing, that
we're getting away from that is that there are more
female directors and writers and roles, more female stories. If
(31:40):
the Final Girl is a product of the male gaze,
then it seems like the solution is to get more
women in the industry. I come back to that as
a solution to pretty much everything. So you have more
women in the mix, whether it's the military, professional sports, whatever,
it's always gonna be better. And so one of the
soapboxes I love to get on. Exmin t is more women,
(32:00):
storyteller is more diverse, storyteller is more inclusive storytelling. And
I'm happy to see that more women are in the
mix telling different kinds of stories. Yeah, yeah, me too. Uh.
Study out of from Google and the Jena Davis Institute
on Gender and Media found that in all genres of entertainment,
men had twice the speaking in scream time, with one
(32:20):
exception horror, while traditionally that female screen time might have
been those of the screaming victim variety, but it has
been moving towards more nuanced survivors and protagonists. And um,
as someone who has acted in some horror movies, I
can say that, um, I get so many bad casting calls,
(32:43):
but they are it has become less. I think there
is an increased awareness, perhaps out of actually almost absolutely
out of totally selfish means, but I'm glad to see
it is moving that way. Still still some work to
be done, absolutely, but as always yes, So this has
(33:03):
been really interesting. As someone who hasn't really spent that
much time picking apart of the horror movies that I watch,
it's interesting to think about how these movie tropes do
kind of show us about how women are seen in society. Yeah,
and UM, I do want to mention some some examples
something some movies that are good, UM, examples of how
it is changing. Before we before we're done here raw
(33:25):
from French director. It might take a bit of a
strong stomach, but it's good. Um the invitation Bob a duke.
A girl walks home alone at night and it follows
they all these films have female directors and female main characters,
and but they might have a final girl. But she's
a more complex final girl. So if you're interested, I
(33:47):
believe all of those are on Netflix and UM. As
advertisers and studios realize the buying power of of us ladies. Um,
the shift towards a more complex storytelling, especially involving women,
has started to take place. So that's that's good. That
that makes me feel better. As a horror movie fan,
(34:08):
I'm excited for that content to be made. I just
realized something. As a girl with brown hair, if we
were in a horror movie, you might be a final girl.
Just saying oh no, I mean yes, I mean you're
gonna live. I'll definitely die. You're gonna live. We'll make
a sminty horror movie, and we'll we'll flip the tropes
(34:30):
all upside down. Bridget everyone lives, everyone lives. It's like
Buffy will all be the final Girl. I like it.
I love it. That's a great feminist message to end on.
It is so sminty. Listeners, have you seen this final
girl troupe playing out in movies that you like? What's
your favorite example of a final girl? Let us know.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
on Instagram at stuff Mom Never Told You, and we
(34:51):
love getting your emails at mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com. Two t
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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