“Final Girl”
It’s interesting to see the evolution of horror films as they evolve into something more. Peter Hutchings talks allot about how the old fades away and other grouping and trends start to emerge (216). The film industry itself will always be changing and creating new things, however, most films still haven’t equally balanced out mare and female roles. Generally, most horror films include a monster of some sort. It seems as though most killer/monster roles are taken by men, while women are usually put into roles that are powerless leaving them to be the victim. As mentioned before, horror films are always changing, for instance, many horror films end in brutal deaths. However, when it comes to movies like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween, their endings are a bit more significant than the average horror film only because the killer is confronted by the “final girl”. The final girl is usually the character who is seen as pure and is able to confront the killer at the end of the film.
The final girl is a unique character because she slowly overcomes her fears and by doing so she becomes empowered. Although the characters feel a sense of empowerment, most final girls die. In some sense, you may be thinking,“do horror films
…show more content…
Women shouldn’t have to be seen as a weaker character. Although this role empowers women and yes it’s definitely a unique movie hero it is still wrong to characterize women, it especially sends out a negative message. Additionally, the final girl might be a powerful hero figure in horror films, however, it wouldn’t be wrong for the horror film industry to switch up male and female roles and to have a more realistic approach towards the final character role. Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, the film industry is still growing, creating different things. Hopefully, the horror film industry will take a new stance towards the final girl character and change it
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes and The Scarlet Letter. Both authors persuade the reader to feel pain of the stories subject. In Little Girls in Pretty Boxes the author used pathos and interviewing to share the stories of these overly dedicated youth. Joan Ryan wrote to show how these young, talented, sophisticated women can hide the harsh reality of the sport. In her biography she listed the physical problems that these young girls go through. They have eating disorders, stunted growth, weakened bones, depression, low self esteem, debilitating and fatal injuries, and many sacrifice dropping out of school. Whereas the Scarlet Letter is a fictional drama that uses persuasion and storytelling to involve the reader. Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton Publishing, 1992.
The documentary that I viewed was called Dark Girls (Directors: Bill Duke & D. Channsin Berry, 2011). The focus was based on colorism in the African- American community and how it has impacted young girls and women. The directors provided a platform that explored the issue starting with the history of African- American culture down to the aspect of how we would need to begin to heal and overcome this prejudice.
In most horror films women seem to be slower, less powerful, and simply less dominant. Men in the same films are going to die too, but are not shown as being so defenseless. Females are commonly shown getting killed slowly and getting carried off into the night screaming. On the other hand males will be killed quickly with fewer struggles. For example in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when the men go into the house where the butcher lives, they are killed with one smash of a sledge hammer with the camera at a distance. Where as, when the first girl goes in she is seen grabbed and put on the shoulder of the butch and carried off kicking her legs and screaming. She is then hung on a butchers hook and is forced to watch her boyfriend get sawed in half. Same incident happens with the next two men, they are quickly killed, but the girl barely gets away and you get to see her running away screaming the entire time. This helps show how women are portrayed as being defenseless where most of the time men are also, but are not given the seen of...
Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned. (Horror Films)
The most important events of this film all revolve around the female characters. While there are some male charac...
Grace King's The Little Convent Girl is an excellent example of post-Civil War realism incorporating a trick-ending. In this local color short story, King methodically lures the reader into a false belief that her story is about an insignificant and nameless young girl who, after twelve years seclusion in a convent, is exposed to the fervor and excitement of a steamboat trip down the Mississippi River. The success of Ms. King's trick-ending is achieved through three basic elements; 1) de-emphasizing the importance of the main character, 2) tidbits of information followed by wordy misdirection, and 3) a false climax.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
Everyone deserves an education, but for some in the developing world, especially girls, it is hard to even get into a classroom, due to the opposition from those who believe a girl 's place is in the home, not the classroom. The 2013 documentary Girl Rising by Richard E. Robbins states, “There are 33 million less girls in primary school worldwide than boys.” Girl Rising tells the stories of nine girls varying in ages throughout the developing world who only want to learn or where school saved their lives. Richard E. Robbins the director of the film, uses famous celebrities to tell these stories in hope to reach people all over the world in order to raise awareness and money to girls’ educations worldwide. Mr. Robbins film produces a concerned or worried tone throughout the documentary which intrigued the viewer to pay full attention to the film. Mr. Robbins uses lots of textual strategies in the form of statistics and interesting facts, as well as audio strategies such as the celebrity
Horror films are designed to frighten the audience and engage them in their worst fears, while captivating and entertaining at the same time. Horror films often center on the darker side of life, on what is forbidden and strange. These films play with society’s fears, its nightmare’s and vulnerability, the terror of the unknown, the fear of death, the loss of identity, and the fear of sexuality. Horror films are generally set in spooky old mansions, fog-ridden areas, or dark locales with unknown human, supernatural or grotesque creatures lurking about. These creatures can range from vampires, madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, demons, zombies, evil spirits, satanic villains, the possessed, werewolves and freaks to the unseen and even the mere presence of evil.
The reading by Barbara Creed titled “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”, is an in-depth examination on the role of women in horror films. Creed challenges the commanding patriarchal view, which frequently puts the woman in the position of the helpless victim. She argues that when the feminine is constructed as monstrous, it is frequently done in conjunction with its mothering role and function. Creed’s main thesis supports that the prototype of all cinematic definitions of monstrosity related to the feminine is linked to the woman’s reproductive body. Creed elects to use the term “monstrous feminine” instead of female monster, because for Creed it is the “femininity itself that is monstrous” (41). It has been unfairly
Horror literature has been around since as long as man has been on earth. While usually in the form of ghost stories, many have often told stories orally, or on paper, to play on the horrors and darkest fears that we as humans face. While large populations of people do not like the horror genre, some get a satisfaction or enjoyment at looking at some of their worst fears being played out in front of them via a book or movie. As the stories have advanced through history and been examined and read through many different lenses both by history and literature experts, one aspects remains to be examined, and that is the changing role on of women in the story. While many of the early stories early stories portray them as simple, one-dimensional characters, weak and unable to help themselves, they evolve into more complex and eventually pushing through the damsel in distress mantra into the complex villain or hero.
Girl Interrupted Review Cherie Pryor Denver College of Nursing Girl Interrupted is a film about a young woman, Susanna Kaysen, who voluntarily enters a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a portrayal of psychiatric care in the 1960’s. The film is based on the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen and her experiences during an 18 month stay at a mental institution. During her visit, Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The film depicts psychiatric care, diagnoses, and treatments from a different era.
To most people the movie Mean Girls is simply a silly teen chick flick and is not good for anything but pure entrainment. Even though Mean Girls is slightly dramatized, high school in reality is perfectly portrayed through this movie. Every high school varies but there is always a domain group of students. The socially powerful are the rich and beautiful girls and everyone else are the loyal subjects to their castle. However, there is a twist in Mean Girls, the message is actually positive. Mean Girls is sending a message that women should not criticize one another to feel empowerment, it is unattractive to men to be mindless, and that White Americans have domains over other races. This movie also implies that nothing wrong with being different from what society accepts.
...on how they have overcome this demeaning concept, it is still present in many of the films created today. Laura Mulvey, a feminist of the Second Wave, observed the evolution of female representations in films. She concludes that films still display dominant ideologies that prevent social equality between men and women. Mulvey came up with three common themes that mainstream films continuously promote within their films. These three common themes reinforce that women are always going to be seen as nothing more but objects. They do not serve any symbolic purposes except to help advance the story by motivating the objectives of the male characters. As evident, Happy Endings is one particular film that embodies all of these traits and as a result, the female characters are perceived as sexual objects in both the perspectives of the male character(s) and the spectators.