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The Final Girl

NAME AND SURNAME: Ezachia Ngcobo

STUDENT NUMBER: 0514961J

COURSE NAME: Spectatorship in the cinema-horror

COURSE NUMBER: DRAA 342

LECTURER: Catherine Duncan

DUE DATE: 31 October 2007

ESSAY TOPIC: Carol Clover argues that, in particular the slasher film disturbs the traditional model of spectatorship and identification. "As the character who lives to tell the tale of horror, the final girl, Clover argues, must be accessible as a point of identification to male viewers. For this reason the final girl's gender is ambiguous. The final girl is boyish says Clover and she adds, what filmmakers seem to know better than film critics is that gender is less a wall than a permeable membrane.

Using appropriate references to films covered in the course debate whether there is evidence to support this position. You will first need to define what is meant by spectatorial identification and how this is produced by the cinematic apparatus. Then go on to discuss Clover's argument substantiating from one or more films how the final girl does/doesn't disturb this identification.

Horror has been a genre that has been defined and redefined. It's a topic that leads to a lot of debate and speculation when the film is finished. It's also one of the few genres that allow the audience members, both female and male to engage in it according to some. This will be part of the essay discussion but the other part will also focus on the ‘final girl' theory.

The history of horror should be able to explain what the fascination is about concerning ‘monsters' and the possibilities of our fears becoming real. The name horror according to Jean Renoir "… describes the very effects intended to have on their spectators" Jean Renoir goes on to say that the earliest form of horror is rooted in the Gothic literature where the landscape was ornate with castles and houses, populated by clearly recognized monsters (1). However the next major cycle of horror films came about in the 1940s...