Brandon Bosch
October 3, 2016
... about the genre. A lot of the class participates in this lecture, and while it does skew towards male
I use this lecture in my Sociology of Mass Media class, where we look at mass media representations
to be calmed by authorities who don’t really believe their incredible tales. From a more feminist lens, one could argue that despite surviving it all, the female character still needs to be comforted by men.
[Note: If I have time, I like to show the clip from the ending of the first Friday the 13th film to give students a flavor of these endings, but it is not essential. If doing so, you need to set-up the scene a bit, as it occurs after Alice killed Jason’s mom, who had been killing people at the camp for letting her child Jason drown. The figure that grabs Alice is Jason (or was that attack just a dream?)]
Slide 31: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Remember that nice, but traumatized Alice from the first Friday the 13th? Well, she gets killed by Jason in the beginning of the sequel. So, a Final Girl for one film, but not the other.
Slide 32: Friday the 13th (2009)
This reboot shakes things up by not even having a Final Girl, as Whitney appears to die in the last frame of the movie as Jason bursts through the dock for a sneak attack.
Slide 33: Alien 3 (1992)
Ripley beats the odds and survives the first two Alien films, but ends up being implanted with an alien in the third movie. The film ends with Ripley throwing herself into a vat of molten lead to kill the alien. Ripley would come back as some strange alien-hybrid clone in Alien Resurrection, but that may be best forgotten.
Slide 34: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Jamie Lee Curtis reprised her role in the Halloween series after taking a few decades off. In the film before this, she seemingly kills Michael Meyers for good, but it turns out that she killed an innocent man instead. When she is given the chance to kill Michael again in this movie, she hesitates because she is afraid that it might not be Michael again. This caution results in her death.
If that was not bad enough, Busta Rhymes defeats Michael Meyers using kung fu at the end of this movie (seriously).
Slide 35: Nightmare on Elmstreet (1984, 1987, 2010)
Nancy Thompson has a complicated fate as the Final Girl. The first film ends with her apparently doomed as Freddy traps her in a car, and she returns in the third film Dream Warriors only to be killed near the end. In the recent reboot of the series, Nancy seems to live but the film ends with her screaming in horror as Freddy leaps through a mirror and kills her mom.
Slide 36: Final Girls and Misogyny
As we discussed earlier, slasher films have often been described as being misogynistic. However, I would argue that the Final Girl complicates this narrative a bit. Besides the villain, the Final Girl is the main character of the film with the most character development, meaning that the audience has the most investment in that character. The character is generally smart, resourceful, brave, and a survivor who sometimes takes on the villain head-on.
On the other hand, the character is often traumatized, sometimes killed in another film (or seems to die at the very end of the film), and is more gender neutral, with the more feminine women being axed by the killer (a killer, as noted earlier, who also tends to have some feminine qualities). Moreover, the decision to have the sole survivor be a woman may stem from a desire to increase the underdog status of the main protagonist.
For this reason, some have suggested that the Final Girl is not really a girl, but a male character that is played by a female actor. In light of these things, I think dismissing the genre outright as being misogynistic can be a bit oversimplified.
Slide 36: Summing Up the Elements
Okay, now it is time for some applied Media Literacy. I’m going to show you some clips from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I want you to think about what we have been talking about in lecture about the slasher film and gender, and use it to analyze these clips.
In terms of characters, in the first clip we have Stretch as the Final Girl (the DJ), Chop Top (the strange, wig-wearing burnt out Vietnam Vet), and Leatherface. In the first clip, Chop Top will mention his Lefty request. Chop Top is referring to an on-the air call request which incidentally captured people being chainsawed to death by Leatherface—Chop Top wants to destroy the incriminating tape.
In the second clip (which comes from the very end of the film) we have Stretch and Chop Top again.
Slide 37: Summing Up the Elements
Okay, now it is time for some applied Media Literacy. I’m going to show you some clips from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I want you to think about what we have been talking about in lecture about the slasher film and gender, and use it to analyze these clips.
In terms of characters, in the first clip we have Stretch as the Final Girl (the DJ), Chop Top (the strange, wig-wearing burnt-out Vietnam Vet), and Leatherface. In the first clip, Chop Top will mention his Lefty request. Chop Top is referring to an on-the air call request which incidentally recorded people being chainsawed to death by Leatherface—Chop Top wants to destroy the incriminating tape. In the second clip (which comes from the very end of the film) we have Stretch and Chop Top again. Again, there is a bit of deliberate humor to the violence and mayhem.
[Note: Once the clips are done, have the students answers these questions. If I have time, I like to have them discuss it in groups for about one minute].
Slide 38: Summing Up the Elements
We see Stretch—the Final Girl—is terrorized by creepy male characters.
However, Stretch is also shown standing up to Chop Top, firmly telling him to leave.
Leaterface acts like a man-child, doing a weird frustrated dance after missing her.
Stretch is sexualized a bit as the camera focuses on her legs as she runs away screaming in terror.
Also—Stretch is a pretty gender-neutral name.
Slide 39: Summing Up the Elements
Stretch is resourceful, using the fire extinguisher, quickly locks herself in the room for safety, and wields a chainsaw to save the day.
Stretch seems a bit affected by the whole experience. The strange dance that she does at the top of the cave closely resembles the dance that Leatherface did at the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, suggesting that it is either a dance of triumph, a humorful reference to the original, or perhaps suggesting that she has gone crazy and is like Leatherface now.
Works Cited
Clover, Carol. 1992. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lizardi, Ryan. 2010. “Re-imagining” Hegemony and Misogyny in the Contemporary Slasher Remake.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 38:113-121.
Molitor, Fred, and Sapolsky, Barry S. 1993. Sex, Violence, and Victimization in Slasher Films.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 37: 233-242.
Assignment
In class we have talked about the different ways in which men, women, and gender are represented in mass media. To what extent do you think that the men and women of slasher films conform to the general stereotypes of men and women in mass media that you regularly consume, and mass media more broadly? To answer this question, you must first address the main elements of slasher films, discussing some of the qualities of victims, the Final Girl, and the Slasher. Second, you must consider the debate on misogyny in the slasher genre, and consider the extent to which sociological concepts like emphasized femininity and hegemonic masculinity are applicable to the genre. Third, you will compare these representations with your own examples of representations of gender in 3-5 television shows or films that you have consumed within the last few years. Finally, based on this discussion, you must assess how typical you think representations of gender in the slasher film are of representations of gender in mass media in general.
Your essay should 3-5 pages, double-spaced.
) having to be calmed by authorities who don’t really believe their incredible tales. From a more feminist ..."
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Subject Area(s):
- Sex and Gender
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Resource Type(s):
- Lecture
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Class Level(s):
- College 300
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Class Size(s):
- Any
- Abstract:
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Slasher films typically involve a lone killer/monster stalking a group of people, often picking them off a few at a time. Formulaic and full of long-lived franchises, it is relatively easy for students to pick up on themes and patterns in the slasher films. Moreover,...