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SMNTY Classics: How To Be The Final Girl In A Horror Movie · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I Heart Radio today
0:20
Speaker 1: because I guess I can't talk about scream enough. I'm
0:23
Speaker 1: going to continue with something I didn't get to touch
0:25
Speaker 1: on in our recent Screen Queen's episode, but it was
0:27
Speaker 1: triggered by headline I saw after I was researching this.
0:31
Speaker 1: And of course after your researching episode, you get a
0:34
Speaker 1: million things about what you just talked about and you're like, oh,
0:37
Speaker 1: this would have been nice to have earlier. But I
0:40
Speaker 1: saw a headline of this article. It's a philosophical horror question.
0:44
Speaker 1: I wanted you to weigh in on. Samantha, can a
0:47
Speaker 1: final girl ever be happy? According to the movies I've seen,
0:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem so because either they a have the
0:57
Speaker 1: little bad guy pop up at the very with a
1:00
Speaker 1: dude when you think that things are happening, right, or
1:03
Speaker 1: be they become evil themselves somehow right? Right? Yes? Or
1:11
Speaker 1: that or that? I mean this, it's very as we
1:14
Speaker 1: discussed in the Screen Queens episode, it is very alright, Candy,
1:18
Speaker 1: It's not always look at trauma. And that's not to
1:21
Speaker 1: say you can't like be happy and have trauma. Um
1:26
Speaker 1: and We've talked about that a lot. That this is
1:27
Speaker 1: you know, ups and downs, good days, bad days. But
1:30
Speaker 1: I just thought that was interesting. And I will get
1:33
Speaker 1: to the point that this article was making it a
1:35
Speaker 1: second because there is a piece I didn't touch on
1:40
Speaker 1: that I wanted to about Scream three Yes, which is,
1:47
Speaker 1: by the way, I think I made this point. This
1:49
Speaker 1: movie is not really well acclaimed like it's It doesn't
1:51
Speaker 1: get a lot of praise from like fans or critics.
1:56
Speaker 1: A part of that is generally believed to be that
1:59
Speaker 1: the scream in question, the final rule in question, Sidney
2:01
Speaker 1: Prescott is actually not in a lot of it. And
2:04
Speaker 1: that was because at the time, Nev Campbell was filming
2:07
Speaker 1: another movie and she only had twenty days on set,
2:10
Speaker 1: I think, and also she was wearing a wig, which
2:12
Speaker 1: I didn't know anyway, Despite that, a lot of people
2:17
Speaker 1: do think that the ending for her was a good
2:20
Speaker 1: ending that because she mostly spent the movie being isolated
2:26
Speaker 1: and not talking to anybody and saying like, you know,
2:28
Speaker 1: killers can't kill what they can't find or whatever, so
2:31
Speaker 1: she was just by herself and experiencing this trauma by herself.
2:37
Speaker 1: It ends with her walking the dog bright light and
2:43
Speaker 1: the gate opens and she leaves it open, and then
2:46
Speaker 1: at the end the door opens and what would be
2:48
Speaker 1: kind of a classic like who is there something behind
2:51
Speaker 1: their horror movie thing? But then she sees it and
2:53
Speaker 1: it's just like it's fine, and she smiles and she's
2:56
Speaker 1: living with well I don't know, but that cop that
3:00
Speaker 1: Patrick Jimsey played is there, and then Dewey and Gail
3:03
Speaker 1: are there, and it's implied that like she's moving on
3:06
Speaker 1: or she's healing, but I mean, I think she's rightfully
3:09
Speaker 1: paranoid at this point. But it's kind of the messages
3:12
Speaker 1: she's taken a step in her life. What they do
3:16
Speaker 1: that with all the movies, like it seems like it's
3:18
Speaker 1: ending fine where they're happily going on their way, and
3:21
Speaker 1: then the next thing, you know, there's a numer Well
3:24
Speaker 1: that's the question, isn't it. That's the Can the Final
3:27
Speaker 1: Girl ever be happy as long as there's a franchise?
3:29
Speaker 1: And that was the point this article was making, is
3:31
Speaker 1: that if it had ended there, then we could as
3:34
Speaker 1: the audience, be like, Okay, she found some sort of
3:37
Speaker 1: peace or happyness. But these movies are successful, they make
3:40
Speaker 1: another one, The fourth one spoilers more killers coming for
3:44
Speaker 1: her like it doesn't end. I do think that this
3:49
Speaker 1: is an issue with just franchises in general. Like we said,
3:54
Speaker 1: people want to see these characters come back. Um, that's
3:58
Speaker 1: what people are paying to see. That's what people back
4:00
Speaker 1: to see. But that does mean, especially in these horror movies,
4:02
Speaker 1: there's no real happy ending. It's just keeps going and
4:06
Speaker 1: going again. We could get really in depth, hear, we
4:10
Speaker 1: won't about trauma and good day's bad days. Happy ending
4:14
Speaker 1: is kind of not really the the goal. It's more like,
4:16
Speaker 1: can you live with it and be healthy and generally happy? Yeah,
4:21
Speaker 1: And I feel like the question of like Michael Myers
4:25
Speaker 1: always coming back or Jason always coming back, how many
4:27
Speaker 1: times can something or someone, which Jason is implied to
4:30
Speaker 1: be a demon by the way, be blown up and
4:33
Speaker 1: just come back On top of that, well, I do
4:36
Speaker 1: think the screen queen is the foil for the villain.
4:38
Speaker 1: There are plenty of examples where the screen queen, like
4:41
Speaker 1: the recent Halloween movies, especially if they are the older
4:46
Speaker 1: generation that we said is like teaching or traumatized doing trauma,
4:49
Speaker 1: are sidelined like Laurie Strode. So they're there, but they're
4:55
Speaker 1: to the right and eventually will die. Oh no, scream five.
5:01
Speaker 1: Don't you do it to me? Even though I wanted
5:03
Speaker 1: to be happy, but it's not happy. Oh my god. Okay, um,
5:08
Speaker 1: so all, but today we talked a lot about Final
5:11
Speaker 1: Girls in that episode, and so we wanted to bring
5:14
Speaker 1: back this episode. It was my first episode, so please
5:18
Speaker 1: have some patience. Is figuring things out, but it was
5:21
Speaker 1: about buying our girls, so please enjoy. Hey, this is
5:30
Speaker 1: bridget Hi, this is Annie, and you're listening that stuff
5:32
Speaker 1: mom never told you. And today we're talking about one
5:47
Speaker 1: of my favorite things, horror movies. I can already see
5:51
Speaker 1: on your face how excited you are to talk about
5:54
Speaker 1: horror movies. I am so excited. I am a grown
5:57
Speaker 1: woman who probably three times a week stays up too
6:00
Speaker 1: late watching harror. You would think that's a been unusual,
6:03
Speaker 1: but actually it seems like a lot of women are
6:06
Speaker 1: watching a lot of horror movies these days. Yes, Americans
6:10
Speaker 1: have been watching them watching horror movies for decades, but
6:14
Speaker 1: in the last year, in seventeen, horror films have had
6:18
Speaker 1: particularly big numbers thanks to movies like It or Get Out,
6:22
Speaker 1: and if you take any given horror movie in the US,
6:25
Speaker 1: statistics show that women purchased more tickets to it than men.
6:30
Speaker 1: Dom I surprise you, it is surprising. Yeah, but that
6:33
Speaker 1: doesn't include torture porn movies. Do you like horror movies?
6:38
Speaker 1: Bridget I like horror movies. Well, first of all, I
6:41
Speaker 1: like all movies. It's it's you'd be hard pressed to
6:44
Speaker 1: find a movie that I don't like. I'm the person
6:46
Speaker 1: that you know when you see commercials on TV for
6:49
Speaker 1: big budget popcorn movies and you think, who would go
6:52
Speaker 1: see that? I'm like the Middle America person that's like, oh,
6:54
Speaker 1: that looks good. I'm just happy to be at the movies.
6:57
Speaker 1: When I go to the movies, I'm like, I get
6:59
Speaker 1: my whiszlers in my coke, and I'm I'm just happy
7:02
Speaker 1: to be there. So I like movies in general, but
7:04
Speaker 1: I also love bad horror movies. Kind of a thing
7:07
Speaker 1: that I enjoy watching me too. Ye. Can we have
7:09
Speaker 1: a sminty horror movie night, Yes, night horror movie meet up? Yes? Oh,
7:16
Speaker 1: there are some that I would love to like live
7:18
Speaker 1: stream on here. Maybe we can. Maybe we can pull
7:20
Speaker 1: that together. Um. And one reason I found for why
7:25
Speaker 1: women might be seeing horror movies more than men UM
7:29
Speaker 1: is that women kind of have this low level fear
7:33
Speaker 1: that they're just living with more than men. Are you
7:36
Speaker 1: saying that being a woman is a little bit stressful sometimes, Anny,
7:39
Speaker 1: I'm saying it might could be possibly maybe a little
7:42
Speaker 1: stressful virgin and horror movies are a great way or
7:46
Speaker 1: at least in my experience, not everyone agrees with me,
7:48
Speaker 1: but for people who enjoy them, and they're a good
7:51
Speaker 1: way to relieve stress, uh, in a way that you
7:54
Speaker 1: can't any real life. It's a fear that you choose
7:57
Speaker 1: and therefore you can control. And I remember an argument
8:01
Speaker 1: for um why people like zombie movies so much, zombie things,
8:05
Speaker 1: and it's because it reduces the stresses of your life
8:08
Speaker 1: to this one terrible thing. But it does simplify things.
8:12
Speaker 1: You're you've got to survive the zombies done hopefully, um.
8:17
Speaker 1: And to quote journalist Brianna Wou, horror movies are a
8:20
Speaker 1: world where money can't save you, privilege can't save you,
8:22
Speaker 1: strength can't save you. So they're kind of, I mean,
8:25
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, they're kind of equalizing in that way. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: I get what you're saying. It's sort of this fantasy
8:30
Speaker 1: world where we're all on the same playing field. Um,
8:33
Speaker 1: even though you know, one of the tropes and horror
8:35
Speaker 1: movies is like all the black person dies first, or
8:37
Speaker 1: you know. And I think that it's important to recognize
8:42
Speaker 1: the way that tropes play out in movies like this
8:44
Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of people might be saying,
8:46
Speaker 1: horror movies, this is dumb. Why is this the thing
8:49
Speaker 1: we're talking about? But actually, when you look at what
8:51
Speaker 1: we recognize as tropes in these kinds of movies, they
8:54
Speaker 1: can tell us a lot about culture and society. And
8:57
Speaker 1: you know what we think about women. Oh, absolutely, horror
9:00
Speaker 1: movies I think, and I am a fan, but I
9:02
Speaker 1: think they say a lot about society in general. And
9:06
Speaker 1: even though women we're seeing these movies, but when it
9:09
Speaker 1: comes to behind the scenes, if you look at director, writer, producer,
9:13
Speaker 1: roles so on, women are very poorly represented. Um. They're
9:17
Speaker 1: more likely to work in documentary or drama genres that's
9:20
Speaker 1: a fun tongue restor um, and at least likely to
9:24
Speaker 1: work in action or horror genres. They accounted from twelve
9:28
Speaker 1: of those working on horror. According to a seventeen study
9:31
Speaker 1: out of San Diego State University, the film industry in general,
9:36
Speaker 1: off screen and on screen is dominated by men on screen.
9:39
Speaker 1: These films are truck full of stereotypes and portrayals of
9:42
Speaker 1: women that are disparaging and negative and historically a lot
9:46
Speaker 1: of messaging and tropes like you were saying that they
9:49
Speaker 1: don't do women any favors, and one of the most prevalent.
9:53
Speaker 1: The topic of today's episode is the trope of the
9:56
Speaker 1: Final Girl. So I can't wait to find out more
10:00
Speaker 1: about what exactly this trope is after this quick break
10:11
Speaker 1: and we're back. So Annie, horror movie aficionado, tell me
10:16
Speaker 1: about the Final Girl. Okay, I would love to. I
10:20
Speaker 1: believe probably those who are familiar with horror movies you
10:25
Speaker 1: know right away what what we're talking about with us
10:27
Speaker 1: haven't without us having to explain it. But for those
10:29
Speaker 1: that aren't big on the genre, it's the last woman standing.
10:33
Speaker 1: In horror movies and specifically slasher films, the final girl
10:38
Speaker 1: is the one to confront the killer or the monster,
10:42
Speaker 1: whatever the thing is, after everyone else has been slain
10:45
Speaker 1: and she survives to tell the tale. She's almost guaranteed
10:48
Speaker 1: to be a virgin, straight white, probably brunette. Um. She
10:54
Speaker 1: usually chased, doesn't really drink our otherwise engage in drugs.
10:57
Speaker 1: And it is also probably rocking a gender neutral name
11:02
Speaker 1: Sam or Joe or Alex. When I was a kid,
11:06
Speaker 1: I always wanted a name like that. I did too,
11:08
Speaker 1: I wanted Will or Jack. I wanted Billy Billy. That's
11:13
Speaker 1: close to Will. I like that um and probably is
11:18
Speaker 1: masculine will not masculine, but masculine ish hairstyle. The Final
11:23
Speaker 1: Girl choke at its start in the nineteen seventies, but
11:25
Speaker 1: it wasn't until that American film professor Carol Clover first
11:30
Speaker 1: coined at the term in her book Men, Women in Chainsaws,
11:33
Speaker 1: Gender and the Modern Horror Film. Clover argued that in
11:38
Speaker 1: order to survive, the Final Girl had to in some
11:41
Speaker 1: way become more masculine um, probably by adopting a weapon
11:45
Speaker 1: of the phallic variety, like a spear, a spear or
11:49
Speaker 1: a knife. Um, something you stick in someone, Yes, got it?
11:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for the jesture. At least, I don't know
11:56
Speaker 1: if you know how it works. That's how I do it.
11:59
Speaker 1: She's I kin stabbing motion starts me totally non threatening
12:05
Speaker 1: podcast No, no, I'm totally safe. Clover interprets this as
12:11
Speaker 1: messaging of women needing men are needing to be masculine
12:16
Speaker 1: in order to survive this horrible ordeal they are going through.
12:21
Speaker 1: Laurie from Halloween a k a. Jamie Lee Curtis's character
12:25
Speaker 1: is one of the first and most pure examples of
12:29
Speaker 1: the Final Girl, and one of the interesting things about
12:32
Speaker 1: her is that throughout the course of this film she
12:35
Speaker 1: uses traditionally feminine objects like a knitting needle or a
12:38
Speaker 1: coat hanger as her weapons of choice or necessity. Probably
12:44
Speaker 1: is more accurate. Other famous Final Girls include Ripley from Alien,
12:49
Speaker 1: Nancy from The Nightmare in Elm Street, and even Sydney
12:51
Speaker 1: from one of my favorite horror movies making fun of
12:53
Speaker 1: horror movies, Wes Craven's films, Scream. Okay, so let's talk
12:57
Speaker 1: about Scream because it's one of my favorite movies. She's
13:00
Speaker 1: such a clever example of the Final Girl where it
13:02
Speaker 1: kind of spins the trope on its head. To comment
13:05
Speaker 1: on it, yeah, yeah, and I love they were so
13:08
Speaker 1: sneaky about it because um Drew Barrymore was the biggest
13:13
Speaker 1: star at the time. And if you look at the cover,
13:17
Speaker 1: she's on the front like she's prominently not just on
13:19
Speaker 1: the front, she's they're all standing in a line and
13:22
Speaker 1: she's like the first girl in the line right prominently displayed. Yes,
13:27
Speaker 1: and she fits the bill of what you would imagine
13:30
Speaker 1: a final girl is the movie starts with her, but
13:33
Speaker 1: she dies within the first fifteen minutes. She's in the Yeah,
13:35
Speaker 1: she's in the movie for like five minutes. Yeah, and
13:37
Speaker 1: he's sober sister, but all the other girls about drinking
13:40
Speaker 1: and partying. So she's like the opposite of Final Girl,
13:45
Speaker 1: the opposite of final first first girl, first girls. She
13:48
Speaker 1: was first and the one that it's stuck with me.
13:51
Speaker 1: That was quite the brutal, brutal scene. Uh. And Scream
13:56
Speaker 1: also has a horror movie buff Randy and Randy. Uh.
14:00
Speaker 1: He even directly speaks to the rules of surviving a
14:04
Speaker 1: horror movie, and a couple of them are never say
14:07
Speaker 1: I'll be back um. Never two jugs or alcohol for
14:12
Speaker 1: the love that is all all that is holy in
14:14
Speaker 1: the world. Do not have sex or your don't show you.
14:18
Speaker 1: Once you show your moobs, you're pretty much that. You
14:20
Speaker 1: pretty much just crawl into a grave. Right You're through.
14:26
Speaker 1: Another great example of a subversion of the Final Girl
14:30
Speaker 1: is Twelves Cabin and Cabin in the Woods. Excuse me.
14:35
Speaker 1: This movie directly addresses the trope to So there's this
14:39
Speaker 1: bengeful god, which I'm fairly certain is meant to represent
14:43
Speaker 1: the American audience. Um, and the Final Girl Dana. She's chased,
14:49
Speaker 1: she's smart, she's sexually conservative, pale Brunett is given the
14:54
Speaker 1: chance at survival, but only after making sure all of
14:57
Speaker 1: our friends died. And they're on this cabin cabin in
14:59
Speaker 1: the woods like trip Um, and she has to make
15:02
Speaker 1: sure all of her friends die, and she is the
15:04
Speaker 1: Final Girl, and each of her friends fits the stereotype too,
15:08
Speaker 1: but only after they were forced to fit into them
15:12
Speaker 1: through weird circumstances. So there's a blonde, slooty bimbo, the
15:16
Speaker 1: dumb jock played by Chris Him's worth, he's so cute,
15:20
Speaker 1: the stoner, and the sweet bookish guy Um that is
15:24
Speaker 1: the Final Girl's sweetheart, of course, and it's it's so
15:30
Speaker 1: hard to explain this movie without having seen it, but basically, like,
15:33
Speaker 1: there's this government entity that's watching them through secret like
15:37
Speaker 1: security cameras, making sure that they fulfill the prophecy of
15:41
Speaker 1: this final God. Is that the plot of the movie. Yeah,
15:44
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. Full disclosure, Yeah, well I don't
15:47
Speaker 1: spoil it for you. Oh no, well yeah, it's it's
15:52
Speaker 1: like this weird government thing where there's a god. They
15:55
Speaker 1: have to satisfy the god by meeting this criteria. The
15:58
Speaker 1: sweet girl has to end up with the bookish guy
16:01
Speaker 1: and that's how she sort of say, that's how she
16:03
Speaker 1: pleases this is this god who's watching above? And does that?
16:07
Speaker 1: Does that ensure her safety? Does that? Is that what
16:09
Speaker 1: allows her to get out of the situation. No, she
16:12
Speaker 1: can either have sex or not, and she can either
16:15
Speaker 1: die or not. And it's actually really sad. There's a
16:17
Speaker 1: sad moment where they take bets the government. People watching
16:20
Speaker 1: like is she gonna have sex? Is she gonna die?
16:23
Speaker 1: Like how is she going to die? And there's a
16:25
Speaker 1: moment where she's getting the crap beat out of her
16:28
Speaker 1: and they're just watching like wondering is she gonna survive?
16:32
Speaker 1: And it's weird because you're as the viewer, you're in
16:35
Speaker 1: that position, right, You're watching someone when you're watching horror movie,
16:40
Speaker 1: wondering is she going to survive? And it's brutal. It
16:42
Speaker 1: goes on for a long time, and it's the same
16:44
Speaker 1: in horror movies. Um, it is worth it's worth a watch,
16:48
Speaker 1: but it's a strange one, and it also has the
16:52
Speaker 1: virgin horde dichotomy of Dana, the final girl who is
16:57
Speaker 1: pure and innocent but she's sexualized, but when she actually
17:01
Speaker 1: has sex, she is looked out upon. She's seen as
17:05
Speaker 1: less than she was, just like in society, you're you're
17:10
Speaker 1: on my wave length here um. And the person overseeing
17:13
Speaker 1: this whole thing, she's called the director, um and she's
17:17
Speaker 1: played by Sigourney Weaver tells Dana that she fulfills the
17:22
Speaker 1: virgin archetype. But when Dana is like, actually I had sex,
17:26
Speaker 1: you know, the director tells her, we work with what
17:29
Speaker 1: we have. So it's also kind of a commentary on
17:32
Speaker 1: on these different tropes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't want
17:35
Speaker 1: to spoil it, but definitely check it out if you're interested.
17:38
Speaker 1: It does not sound anything like what I thought it
17:40
Speaker 1: was going to be like when he started to I
17:44
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember the posters, but the posters
17:46
Speaker 1: said things like it was obviously a horror movie just
17:48
Speaker 1: through the decor and the whole feel of it. But
17:51
Speaker 1: it would say like if you hear a strange noise,
17:54
Speaker 1: separate like the opposite things of what you should be
17:57
Speaker 1: doing now that I think about it, the trailers and
17:59
Speaker 1: stuff didn't I didn't understand. Now it makes more sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:04
Speaker 1: And as a horror movie fan, it's I very much
18:07
Speaker 1: enjoyed it because there's one part where like every horror
18:10
Speaker 1: movie villain ever is on display, because it could be
18:13
Speaker 1: they kind of draw randomly what the villain is of
18:16
Speaker 1: what every year they have to fulfill this prophecy. So
18:19
Speaker 1: they have this case of every horror movie villa and
18:22
Speaker 1: ever they could full from. I like Freeze Frameman, Like,
18:25
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's fame. Oh yeah, oh my god. Growing up?
18:29
Speaker 1: What villain were you the most afraid of? Oh man,
18:32
Speaker 1: the girl from the Rings Tomorrow. I saw that like
18:37
Speaker 1: right when it came out in theaters, and I covered
18:39
Speaker 1: my TV. I unplugged it, I covered it, I unplugged
18:42
Speaker 1: the phone, and I kept getting in trouble with my mom.
18:44
Speaker 1: She'd be like, who's unplugging the phone? Like seven days later,
18:48
Speaker 1: sitting in my room, wide awake. Yeah that was pretty scary.
18:53
Speaker 1: Mine was Chucky. I'm still unnerved by Chucky. I saw
18:57
Speaker 1: Child to Play in the theater when it first came out,
18:59
Speaker 1: so I was kid. My parents were the kind of
19:01
Speaker 1: parents who like I was like, I'm not paying for
19:03
Speaker 1: a babysitter and bringing all the kids here. You know
19:05
Speaker 1: that family where you're like you brought all the kids?
19:08
Speaker 1: That was um. But I saw Chucky at a really
19:11
Speaker 1: young age, and my brother loved Chucky. So we had
19:13
Speaker 1: the doll and like the poster and all this stuff,
19:16
Speaker 1: like he had Chucky paraphernalia. And to this to this day,
19:20
Speaker 1: I find it unnerving. I'm bothered by it as an adult. Yeah,
19:25
Speaker 1: that's some staying power those movies you see as a kid.
19:28
Speaker 1: Another one of mine that we'll be talking about in
19:29
Speaker 1: a little bit is Alien. Oh yeah, that's a that's
19:33
Speaker 1: a good one. That took you when when I think
19:35
Speaker 1: about Chucky, I mean it was obviously as the movies
19:38
Speaker 1: went on, they were pretty hokey, but they illustrate something
19:40
Speaker 1: that you were just talking about, which is this weird
19:42
Speaker 1: mix between female sexuality and horror and also like maybe
19:46
Speaker 1: a little bit of camp because as the child's play
19:49
Speaker 1: movies went on, they had the one where, um, it's
19:52
Speaker 1: Bride of Chucky and it's a it's a grown woman.
19:54
Speaker 1: I think it's Jennifer Tilly, right, So it's Jennifer Tilly
19:58
Speaker 1: and she's just sort of like throaty voiced blonde, and
20:02
Speaker 1: she becomes like she has a sexual relationship with Chucky
20:06
Speaker 1: and they end up having a child in this in
20:08
Speaker 1: this later iterations of the film, and again it's this
20:11
Speaker 1: weird thing where horror movies always present this very unusual
20:17
Speaker 1: image of female sexuality. And you know, in Chucky, you're like,
20:20
Speaker 1: she shaking a doll, like what's going on. But it's
20:23
Speaker 1: it's interesting how a lot of horror movies always have
20:27
Speaker 1: like a sexy scene or something like that that you
20:29
Speaker 1: it's almost expected, and how they display female sexuality in
20:33
Speaker 1: this very weird way. Yeah, And I think you could
20:39
Speaker 1: extrapolate that and say that society sees it as that
20:42
Speaker 1: way because at their core, I think horror movies they
20:45
Speaker 1: simplify the norms and taboos of society into if you
20:50
Speaker 1: break these, you will be punished. There are consequences for
20:55
Speaker 1: having sex outside of marriage if you're a woman. There
20:58
Speaker 1: are consequences for doing drugs or alcohol as a not
21:02
Speaker 1: twenty one year old, you know. So I think that's
21:06
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I'm glad we're talking about
21:08
Speaker 1: this today is I think you can take lessons from
21:10
Speaker 1: that or at least it gives you a little snapshot
21:13
Speaker 1: of where we are perhaps as a society um and
21:17
Speaker 1: going back to Cavin in the Woods for a second,
21:21
Speaker 1: can we talk about the vampires? Can we? Can we? Ever?
21:26
Speaker 1: Buffy is kind of the TV version of the Final Girl.
21:30
Speaker 1: Week after week she's the last one after fighting vampires
21:34
Speaker 1: or demons or whatever, although fortunately most of her friends
21:37
Speaker 1: did survive. In the final episode of Buffy, she's speaking
21:42
Speaker 1: to a group of potential successors, potential slayers, and she
21:47
Speaker 1: comments on kind of this whole thing directly. She says,
21:50
Speaker 1: in every generation, one slayer is born because a bunch
21:53
Speaker 1: of men who died thousands of years ago made up
21:56
Speaker 1: that rule. From now on, every girl in the world
21:58
Speaker 1: who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every
22:01
Speaker 1: girl who could have the power will have the power,
22:04
Speaker 1: can stand up? Will stand up players? Every one of us?
22:08
Speaker 1: Make your choice? Are you ready to be strong? So
22:10
Speaker 1: every girl is is a final girl in this iteration. Yes,
22:14
Speaker 1: we all have the power to be the final Girl.
22:17
Speaker 1: And I just love the line of men thousands of
22:21
Speaker 1: years ago made that rule because I kind of think
22:23
Speaker 1: that's what the final girl is. Is this the first
22:26
Speaker 1: scripts about these final Girls were written by men, and
22:28
Speaker 1: then because they sold well or um, they were popular,
22:33
Speaker 1: they just continued. All the scripts continue to be kind
22:35
Speaker 1: of the same formula. And now that now that we're
22:38
Speaker 1: kind of mixing it up a little bit and trying
22:40
Speaker 1: different things, we're seeing that other things could work too.
22:44
Speaker 1: People might enjoy a different take perhaps, Yeah, And I
22:48
Speaker 1: think what that really shows is that we're ready for
22:50
Speaker 1: different kinds of storytelling, that we don't have to rely
22:53
Speaker 1: on one trope or one theme just because it was
22:55
Speaker 1: popular successful. There are all different kinds of different stories
22:59
Speaker 1: that I think people want to see. Even look at
23:00
Speaker 1: the success of something like get Out, which was very unusual,
23:04
Speaker 1: not quite like any horror thriller movie I've ever seen,
23:07
Speaker 1: and people loved it. And so I think that the
23:09
Speaker 1: industry can get very it's kind of stuck in a
23:13
Speaker 1: run of telling the same story, the same types of story,
23:15
Speaker 1: and get it again and again. But then when a
23:17
Speaker 1: story comes and it's not like that, people really pay attention. Yeah.
23:20
Speaker 1: And I think some nostalgia plays a role in that
23:24
Speaker 1: as well. Just people remember those movies as a kid
23:27
Speaker 1: and they want to kind of have maybe nomage or
23:30
Speaker 1: just that's what they liked, so they want to recreate it,
23:32
Speaker 1: and people keep recreating it. But yeah, I think we're
23:36
Speaker 1: we might be ready for something new and Buffy, before
23:39
Speaker 1: we move on, she has another great quote related to this,
23:43
Speaker 1: where her boyfriend of the time I believe, is saying
23:47
Speaker 1: they were watching a horror movie and he says, I
23:48
Speaker 1: want to know what happens, and Buffy says, everyone gets
23:51
Speaker 1: horribly killed, except the blonde girl in the night who
23:53
Speaker 1: finally kills the monster with a machete, but it's not
23:55
Speaker 1: really dead, and he says, oh really, She says, I
23:58
Speaker 1: don't know what movie is this. It's true, though, I
24:02
Speaker 1: mean like you can sort of if you've seen one,
24:05
Speaker 1: you've seen them all on a kind of way. So
24:06
Speaker 1: she's not wrong. Yeah, there's certainly at the beginning, I
24:10
Speaker 1: usually am like, probably not gonna live, Probably not gonna live.
24:13
Speaker 1: I know there's even a table for like percentages based
24:17
Speaker 1: just on um hair color, skin color. What they do. Well,
24:21
Speaker 1: that's like this movie House of Wax. You've ever seen that?
24:24
Speaker 1: So in that that movie when it came out, this
24:26
Speaker 1: was in the heyday of Paris Hilton. That seems like
24:28
Speaker 1: forever ago, but whatever, it wasn't that long ago. That
24:31
Speaker 1: movie has a perfect example of a of a final
24:33
Speaker 1: girl where it's the brunette girl. She's got to have
24:36
Speaker 1: a name like Sam or Joe. She probably doesn't, but
24:38
Speaker 1: like you know, she she probably does, Like don't write
24:41
Speaker 1: in if she doesn't, but I think she does. She
24:44
Speaker 1: wears like in the beginning of the movie, she gets
24:46
Speaker 1: like deer guts on her, so she has to change
24:48
Speaker 1: her clothes, and so she's wearing male clothes for most
24:51
Speaker 1: of the movie because her clothes get destroyed into her
24:54
Speaker 1: brother gives gives her like his tank top that happens
24:57
Speaker 1: to be very sexy by the way, So it's a
24:58
Speaker 1: it's a men sure, but like somehow luckily it falls perfectly,
25:02
Speaker 1: I mean, thank god. Um. So she's the kind of chased,
25:07
Speaker 1: brown haired, somewhat masculine, you know, clearly being set up
25:11
Speaker 1: to be the final girl. Paris Hulton. On the other hand,
25:14
Speaker 1: you know she's gonna die soon, like before you even
25:17
Speaker 1: see the movie. You know exactly, like they're definitely gonna
25:20
Speaker 1: kill her. She's blonde. She has like a sexy scene
25:23
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend in the movie. She's in an interracial relationship.
25:26
Speaker 1: She wears a pink track suit. Throughout most of the movie,
25:29
Speaker 1: she's kind of presented as the one who's supposed to
25:32
Speaker 1: be vapid or fast, and her death scene is gruesome.
25:37
Speaker 1: She gets a like a rusty pole through her head,
25:40
Speaker 1: and you can tell that the filmmakers are presenting this
25:43
Speaker 1: as a gratuitous death scene, almost like you know, you
25:46
Speaker 1: guys know you came to watch Paris Hulton take a
25:49
Speaker 1: metal pole to the head. Like it's almost seems to
25:51
Speaker 1: be the gaze seems to be very gratuitous as the
25:56
Speaker 1: audience is waiting to see Paris Hulton die a bloody
25:59
Speaker 1: Paine full death. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's something we're definitely
26:02
Speaker 1: going to come back to. And it's just a weird
26:06
Speaker 1: kind of thing when you're showing this very violent death
26:10
Speaker 1: and you're obviously supposed to like take pleasure in it.
26:13
Speaker 1: That's not why I like horror movies, but um, I
26:18
Speaker 1: guess I guess that's something other people enjoy. Um. If
26:23
Speaker 1: we're if we're talking about the history of this, where
26:26
Speaker 1: did this come from? Um? Like we were saying earlier,
26:30
Speaker 1: you could argue that most horror movies exist to scare
26:33
Speaker 1: people into following a certain set of norms, and the
26:36
Speaker 1: final girl, I would say, there's no exception. They kind
26:40
Speaker 1: of serve as the everyman or every woman. She's tough, resilient,
26:44
Speaker 1: and you root for her. I when I was thinking
26:46
Speaker 1: about this, I'm I was wondering if maybe she's the
26:49
Speaker 1: least common denominator of I don't know if that's the
26:52
Speaker 1: right way to say it, but she's the simplest way
26:54
Speaker 1: to get people to root for someone to survive. Most
26:56
Speaker 1: people can get on board with this person. This kind
26:59
Speaker 1: of watered down safe. It's having forbid bridges all the
27:08
Speaker 1: other victims, Like we were saying, you can point to
27:11
Speaker 1: why they died in terms of sort of a moral
27:13
Speaker 1: majority outlook. UM, the vices they indulged in, the mistakes
27:17
Speaker 1: they made. UM horror movies all about punishing, especially young people,
27:22
Speaker 1: I would say. And when this trope emerged in the
27:25
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the u S was in the midst of
27:27
Speaker 1: all kinds of political, sexual, and economic unrest. As feminism
27:33
Speaker 1: was rising. So is the backlash to it. And the
27:37
Speaker 1: common interpretation of slasher picks is summarized by I would
27:40
Speaker 1: say this quote from UM Students of All Things Horror,
27:45
Speaker 1: Robin Woods, the violence against women movies have generally been
27:49
Speaker 1: explained as a hysterical response to sixties and seventies feminism.
27:53
Speaker 1: The male spectator enjoys a statistic revenge on women who
27:57
Speaker 1: have begun to refuse to slot neatly and obligingly into
28:00
Speaker 1: his patriarchal patriarchally hard to say, yeah, patriarchally, there we
28:07
Speaker 1: go predetermined view of the way things should naturally be.
28:11
Speaker 1: In a male dominated culture where power, money, law, and
28:14
Speaker 1: social institutions are controlled by past, present, and future patriarchs,
28:17
Speaker 1: women as the other assumes particular significance. The dominant images
28:22
Speaker 1: of women in our culture are entirely male created and
28:24
Speaker 1: male controlled. Women's autonomy and independence are denied onto women.
28:29
Speaker 1: Men project their own innate, repressed femininity in order to
28:33
Speaker 1: disown it as inferior. In general, the teenagers are punished
28:37
Speaker 1: for promisecuity, while the women are punished for being women. Well,
28:41
Speaker 1: that's just like what this film. Scholar Linda Williams says.
28:43
Speaker 1: She says the horror film maybe the rare example of
28:46
Speaker 1: a genre that permits the expression of women's sexual potency
28:49
Speaker 1: and desire and associates this desire with the autonomous act
28:53
Speaker 1: of looking. But it does so only to punish her
28:56
Speaker 1: for this very act, only to demonstrate how monstrous female
28:59
Speaker 1: desire can be. And I have this great example in
29:02
Speaker 1: my head and this very weird horror movie that I
29:04
Speaker 1: saw as a child called Jack Frost. Have you seen it?
29:08
Speaker 1: So this is this is gonna be a little bit
29:09
Speaker 1: like your Cabin in the Woods explanation. So you haven't
29:12
Speaker 1: seen it, It's very difficult to explain, but essentially it's
29:16
Speaker 1: a movie that takes place during Christmas time and a
29:19
Speaker 1: serial killer is killed in the snow by being doused
29:22
Speaker 1: with some sort of chemical or acid and his like
29:25
Speaker 1: d NA gets into the snow. You know, don't I
29:30
Speaker 1: don't overthink it. He then comes back to life as
29:33
Speaker 1: a snowman, like a murdering snowman. And so because he's
29:36
Speaker 1: a snowman, he has the ability to like melt and refreeze,
29:39
Speaker 1: so melt into water, then refreeze and and a snowman.
29:43
Speaker 1: And Shannon Elizabeth, who you might remember from American Pie.
29:46
Speaker 1: In one scene she's taking a bath and I think
29:48
Speaker 1: she might be touching herself in the bath and the snowman.
29:53
Speaker 1: This sounds like I'm making get up, but if you've
29:54
Speaker 1: seen it, you know I'm not and go watch it
29:56
Speaker 1: and you can be like you were accurate. He melts
30:00
Speaker 1: into water, goes into the bathroom, becomes the bathwater that
30:04
Speaker 1: she's in, and then he basically violates her with his
30:08
Speaker 1: carrot knows and that's how she's killed. And so it's
30:11
Speaker 1: interesting because the scene is shot in such a way
30:13
Speaker 1: that's exactly what this film scholar Linda Williams is explaining,
30:17
Speaker 1: where you are watching like a beautiful woman in a bathtub,
30:21
Speaker 1: you know, enjoying her own sexuality and her own sexual desire,
30:24
Speaker 1: sexual potency, whatever, and immediately after that she is killed
30:29
Speaker 1: in the most gruesome, dehumanizing way. And it's played for
30:33
Speaker 1: laughs in the movie. And so within the universe of
30:36
Speaker 1: this movie, the expectation of us, the audience is, you
30:40
Speaker 1: saw this beautiful woman having a sexual moment alone. You
30:43
Speaker 1: were sort of spying on her, and now she's dead
30:45
Speaker 1: in this horribly dehumanizing way. Isn't that a riot? You know?
30:49
Speaker 1: It's sort of sort of exactly what she's saying that
30:52
Speaker 1: because Shannon Elizabeth was shown within the confines of this
30:55
Speaker 1: film being a sexual person, that we the audience one
31:00
Speaker 1: get to kind of leer at that and to get
31:03
Speaker 1: to watch her die in a terrible way because of that. Yeah, yeah,
31:07
Speaker 1: you could almost say that it's like and I've seen
31:11
Speaker 1: this in other non horror movies too, But um, just
31:15
Speaker 1: things like a female sexuality or even periods, and Bridget knows,
31:19
Speaker 1: I have a whole theory about theory about this um
31:21
Speaker 1: or seemed as monstrous or at least they're kind of like,
31:24
Speaker 1: symbolize this, this scary, monstrous thing. Um and horror movies
31:31
Speaker 1: are just a perfect if you analyze them, if you
31:35
Speaker 1: over analyze them, perhaps like I do. UM and if
31:40
Speaker 1: we go back to the seventies, and this is one
31:42
Speaker 1: of my favorite examples in the US. As women are
31:47
Speaker 1: getting more power and exploring our sexuality, so many horror
31:51
Speaker 1: movies proliferated in response. And Alien is one of my faiths,
31:56
Speaker 1: even if at the time at the time I wasn't
31:58
Speaker 1: alive then, but when I was a kid, they terrified me,
32:01
Speaker 1: those movies did. I could do a whole mini series
32:03
Speaker 1: on this on sexual imagery and symbolism and messaging in
32:08
Speaker 1: the Alien series, and I want to, and we should.
32:11
Speaker 1: We should. There are so many symbols of emasculation of
32:15
Speaker 1: the male, fear and anxiety of having to share equal
32:19
Speaker 1: responsibility of childbirth and child bearing. I'm telling you, you
32:25
Speaker 1: cannot see it should be a whole series. I want
32:28
Speaker 1: to so bad. I mean, if we if we could
32:31
Speaker 1: live stream watching that, I mean you'd have to be
32:34
Speaker 1: of age. But we need to do a mystery Science
32:37
Speaker 1: three thousand viewing of Alien where it's you and me,
32:40
Speaker 1: the silhouettes of our head making feminist commentary at the screen. Yes,
32:45
Speaker 1: ruining it for you forever. I love ruining things. It's
32:49
Speaker 1: my favorite pastime. I still love the movie, and it
32:52
Speaker 1: has it's like interesting to see from that time period
32:56
Speaker 1: kind of what was going on. Another thing to consider
33:00
Speaker 1: is that when you look at how the male characters
33:03
Speaker 1: versus the female characters are killed, there is usually this
33:06
Speaker 1: element of torture or brutality involved in the deaths of
33:10
Speaker 1: the women that it's not there and death of the men.
33:13
Speaker 1: And key two is how the killer monster whatever it
33:17
Speaker 1: is have what have you, terrorizes the final girl. It's
33:20
Speaker 1: kind of like what you were talking about, bridget that,
33:23
Speaker 1: like we're expected to kind of enjoy this, like set
33:28
Speaker 1: up to enjoy it, but male characters generally get a
33:31
Speaker 1: much more merciful death. Um and another tripe that dovetails
33:36
Speaker 1: with the final girl is called men are the expendable gender,
33:41
Speaker 1: and this is the idea that women automatically have the
33:44
Speaker 1: sympathy of the audience while men don't. Oh, in horror movies,
33:49
Speaker 1: they mow through men like they're not right, they mow
33:53
Speaker 1: them down. Yeah, you're kind of like, oh no, sorry, buddy.
33:57
Speaker 1: The Walking Dead's Nagan sums it up this a I
34:00
Speaker 1: don't enjoy killing women men. I can waste them all
34:04
Speaker 1: the live all I I didn't try to do Jeffrey
34:08
Speaker 1: Dean Morgan voice there. That's probably for the best. Yeah,
34:11
Speaker 1: probably I want to hear this impression. We can we
34:13
Speaker 1: can take it off their Okay, we can do it
34:14
Speaker 1: off perfect. I think you definitely see this trope all
34:18
Speaker 1: out of movies, and I think it goes back to
34:20
Speaker 1: this thing that EMM and I talked about once, where
34:21
Speaker 1: it's benevolent sexism, where women are should have put on
34:24
Speaker 1: the same level as children in terms of their helplessness,
34:27
Speaker 1: and so films tend to fall on this idea that, oh,
34:30
Speaker 1: the audience is going to sympathize with the woman. I've
34:32
Speaker 1: seen movies where the woman is pregnant but hasn't told anybody,
34:35
Speaker 1: and that when she survives, the audience is like, God,
34:39
Speaker 1: she's pregnant. You know. Yeah. I definitely think that plays
34:42
Speaker 1: into it too, that the whole thing where women could
34:45
Speaker 1: be pregnant and that they're more maybe fragile. Um. That yeah,
34:50
Speaker 1: benevolent sexism is a great way to think about that trope. Probably.
34:54
Speaker 1: So Annie is the Final Girl? Is it a feminist
34:57
Speaker 1: trope in film or no? I was say no, Um,
35:01
Speaker 1: it's still a trope that's written by men and largely
35:06
Speaker 1: for men. I would say it's a reaction to feminism. Um,
35:11
Speaker 1: But like, if you look at the use of POV
35:13
Speaker 1: shots at the killer or monster that's talking the Final Girl,
35:16
Speaker 1: it demonstrates that we as the audience are still encouraged
35:19
Speaker 1: to identify with the generally male tormentor the male force
35:24
Speaker 1: that is punishing or tormenting this woman. It was probably
35:30
Speaker 1: still masculine. So all this to say, Um, I do
35:36
Speaker 1: love horror movies and just good to know the messaging
35:39
Speaker 1: you're receiving from the entertainment You're like, and it's not
35:42
Speaker 1: all bad, right, Bridget, That's exactly right. This is actually
35:46
Speaker 1: changing a little bit. Let's talk about some of the
35:48
Speaker 1: ways this is changing for the better. After this quick
35:50
Speaker 1: break and we're back, we're just talking about the Final
36:01
Speaker 1: Girl trope and some of the ways that trope is
36:02
Speaker 1: changing a little bit as we go forward in storytelling
36:05
Speaker 1: and movies and all of that. So one of the
36:07
Speaker 1: reasons why it's changing really has to do with self awareness.
36:10
Speaker 1: We sort of recognize this trope as audiences, and we
36:12
Speaker 1: kind of want something that's more creative. I think, just
36:15
Speaker 1: like with the example we gave with Get Out earlier, today,
36:17
Speaker 1: I think we're sort of done with the same old
36:21
Speaker 1: stories that we always see, particularly in horror, and so
36:24
Speaker 1: I think audiences expect something different. They don't expect the
36:27
Speaker 1: same movies that we saw in the seventies and the
36:28
Speaker 1: eighties and the nineties, and so that's one of the
36:30
Speaker 1: reasons you find this trope not being as prevalent. Yeah,
36:34
Speaker 1: and I will say I thanks to this episode for
36:37
Speaker 1: giving me some of the most fun homework I've ever had. Um.
36:40
Speaker 1: I watched a movie called The Final Girl, which was
36:44
Speaker 1: all about the Final Girl trope, and it was enjoyable.
36:46
Speaker 1: But I also watched so many movies that sort of
36:49
Speaker 1: play with that trope, a lot of them available on Netflix.
36:54
Speaker 1: Another One of the reasons that this is changing, that
36:56
Speaker 1: we're getting away from that is that there are more
36:59
Speaker 1: female rectors and writers and roles, more female stories. If
37:04
Speaker 1: the final girl is a product of the male gaze,
37:07
Speaker 1: then it seems like the solution is to get more
37:10
Speaker 1: women in the industry. I come back to that as
37:13
Speaker 1: a solution to pretty much everything, even more women in
37:16
Speaker 1: the mix, whether it's the military, professional sports, whatever, it's
37:19
Speaker 1: always gonna be better and so one of the soapboxes
37:22
Speaker 1: I love to get on ex ment is more women's storyteller,
37:25
Speaker 1: is more diverse storyteller, is more inclusive storytelling. And I'm
37:28
Speaker 1: happy to see that more women are in the mix
37:30
Speaker 1: telling different kinds of stories. Yeah, yeah, me too. Uh.
37:34
Speaker 1: Study out of from Google and the Jena Davis Institute
37:38
Speaker 1: on Gender and Media found that in all genres of entertainment,
37:42
Speaker 1: men had twice the speaking in scream time, with one
37:45
Speaker 1: exception horror, while traditionally that female scream time might have
37:51
Speaker 1: been those of the screaming victim variety, but it has
37:54
Speaker 1: been moving towards more nuanced survivors and protagonists. And UM,
37:59
Speaker 1: as someone who has acted in some horror movies, I
38:03
Speaker 1: can say that UM I get so many bad casting calls,
38:07
Speaker 1: but they are it has become less. I think there
38:10
Speaker 1: is an increased awareness, perhaps out of actually almost absolutely
38:14
Speaker 1: out of totally selfish means. But I'm glad to see
38:20
Speaker 1: it is moving that way. Still still some work to
38:24
Speaker 1: be done, absolutely, but as always yes, So this has
38:27
Speaker 1: been really interesting as someone who hasn't really spent that
38:30
Speaker 1: much time picking apart of the horror movies that I watch,
38:33
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about how these movie tropes do
38:36
Speaker 1: kind of show us about how women are seen in society. Yeah,
38:39
Speaker 1: and UM, I do want to mention some some examples
38:43
Speaker 1: something some movies that are good examples of how it
38:46
Speaker 1: is changing. Before we before we're done here raw from
38:50
Speaker 1: French director. It might take a bit of a strong stomach,
38:54
Speaker 1: but it's good. Um the Invitation Bob a duke, A
38:58
Speaker 1: girl walks home alone at night and it follows They
39:02
Speaker 1: all these films have female directors and female main characters,
39:05
Speaker 1: and but they might have a final girl, but she's
39:07
Speaker 1: a more complex final girl. So if you're interested, I
39:11
Speaker 1: believe all of those are on Netflix and UM as
39:15
Speaker 1: advertisers and studios realize the buying power of us ladies.
39:20
Speaker 1: UM the shift towards a more complex storytelling, especially involving women,
39:25
Speaker 1: has started to take place. So that's that's good. That
39:30
Speaker 1: that makes me feel better as a horror movie fan.
39:33
Speaker 1: I'm excited for that content to be made. I just
39:37
Speaker 1: realized something as a girl with brown hair, if we
39:40
Speaker 1: were in a horror movie, you might be a final girl.
39:44
Speaker 1: Just saying oh no, I mean yes, I mean you're
39:47
Speaker 1: gonna live. I'll definitely die. You're gonna live. We'll make
39:51
Speaker 1: us menty horror movie and we'll we'll flip the tropes
39:54
Speaker 1: all upside down. Bridget everyone lives, everyone lives. It's like
39:58
Speaker 1: Buffy will all be the final Girl. I like it.
40:00
Speaker 1: I love it. That's a great feminist message to end on.
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Speaker 1: It is so sminty listeners, have you seen this final
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Speaker 1: girl troupe playing out in movies that you like? What's
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Speaker 1: your favorite example of a final girl? Let us know.
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Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
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Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff Mom Never Told You, and we
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Speaker 1: love getting your emails at mom Stuff at how stuff
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Speaker 1: works dot com