Piano keys pound. Our damsel in distress runs down the street, wailing. In tow is our mask-wearing, chainsaw-wielding maniac, fresh off dispatching a handful of beer-drinking, marijuana-smoking, premarital-sex-having teens. Now remains one last target: the Final Girl. 

It’s a picture that has played out across hundreds of stories and thousands of screens. Even those who bypass the horror genre entirely are bound to be familiar; the trope exists just as much in popular culture as it does within the actual source films, if not more. But with such impassive reach, it becomes necessary to ask: what underlying values are being legitimized in the process of immortalizing this timeless trope? 

I want you to think about the scene I just described. Picture it in your head. How did you construct the Final Girl? It’s this question that I feel best opens the conversation concerning the significance of popular culture’s image of the Final Girl. Because as it turns out, it may reflect and reinforce the hegemonic image of the ideal woman. 

It is through the aforementioned question that we will enter the academic discourse surrounding the Final Girl. The answer–which traits comprise the quintessential Final Girl–has been debated upon for decades, with a multitude of scholars supplying an array of conflicting opinions. The figurative beacon for this discourse is Professor Carol J. Clover’s 1987 essay, Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film. Published just nine years after the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) – a film considered by many as the birth of the slasher genre as we know it today – Clover’s essay was among the first of its kind, and is the basis for most feminist film theory concerning the Final Girl archetype. In fact, Clover holds a laminated receipt for her primordially-staked claim on the uncharted frontier of feminist slasher discourse – Her Body, Himself (as I will be referring to it from now-on) actually coined the term, “Final Girl.” 

Quick interjection: this is just one of the many revered analytical pillars born of this essay, and while I lack the sufficient laptop battery percentage to discuss even a fraction of them here, I strongly suggest giving Her Body, Himself a read. It’s a fascinating piece that I believe still has merit today. 

But back to the original question. The Final Girl as described by Clover is resourceful, physically adept, and–most importantly – not overtly feminine; “boyish,” even (especially where sexuality is concerned). Here’s where it gets interesting. She surmises the Final Girl’s masculine characterization is geared towards making the character more accessible for male viewers. Clover details the formula further, arguing how the technically-female-but-not-traditionally-feminine (in contrast with other female character archetypes of that time) heroine creates a perfect halfway point for the male gaze to comfortably reside. In a climate rampant with paradoxical misogyny (fascination paired with oppression), audiences full of men can experience the allure of the damsel in distress provided by the Final Girl while simultaneously identifying with the character due to her traditionally masculine traits. 

So, Clover pencils in the “classic” Final Girl as strong, resourceful, and masculine. She chalks this up to filmmakers catering towards male audiences and their desire to view feminine terror without letting go of their requisite masculine identities (another fascinating concept introduced by Clover as it relates to this phenomenon is the Final Girl’s formulaic emasculation of the masked killer–especially as it relates to male identification and fascination – but that’s a tangent for another day). 

Nearly a decade after Clover first sparked the academic discourse surrounding the Final Girl comes author Jack Halberstam’s book, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995). Alongside many other contemporary corners of the slasher genre, Halberstam gives his two cents on the Final Girl, directly engaging with the dialogue started by Clover in 87’ (it is worth noting that in the eight-year gap between these two pieces, the landscape of the slasher had shifted, now boasting entries like Child’s Play and Candyman). 

Halberstam’s deconstruction of the Final Girl – like Clover’s – points to a nuanced case of genderbending. The similarities end there. Halberstam argues the Final Girl possesses both feminine and masculine traits, which–when combined–form a “monstrous” gender. Halberstam stresses the importance of utilizing such an anomaly and its power to destabilize gender norms altogether. He specifically points to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 (1986)’s Final Girl, Sketch, describing her as a “white trash bitch with a chain saw” (Skin Shows, Ch. 6), someone who doesn’t adhere to any feminine or masculine norms but is beautifully and violently fluid and unique. Halberstam cautions against Clover’s denotation of the Final Girl as boyish, arguing that such a conclusion “remains caught in a gender lock” (Skin Shows, Ch. 6). 

Another contributor who shares Halberstam’s reservations is Professor Isabel Pinedo. In her 1997 book, Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, she warns against Clover’s analysis of the Final Girl, arguing that classifying abject terror as the character’s defining feminine trait strips it of all female agency – something Pinedo lists as an essential attribute of the Final Girl. Pinedo’s fixation on the character’s potential for female agency is motivated by just that – potential. She recognizes the patriarchal forces responsible for the inception of the character, but reasons that the Final Girl presents a unique opportunity for women to experience terror on their terms. Furthermore, she claims that reclaiming and engaging with the archetype in a progressive manner will only healthily impact the hegemonic perception of the archetype going forward, steadily pulling the Final Girl firmly into the fold as a feminist character. 

Now I’ll attempt to put something of a bow on this (and fair warning: I’m terrible at gift-wrapping…) by returning to my earlier question. How do you picture the Final Girl? There’s no right answer. But the archetype – as a trope firmly cemented in popular culture–holds both the power to influence and the ability to be influenced. Understanding this is key, because – as with all injustice – there can be no reparation without acknowledgment. While the Final Girl’s inception was informed by a myriad of misogynistic ideals, the archetype stands today – in a beautiful twist of irony – as a unique opportunity to destabilize the very systems from which it sprang forth.