Following Final Girl: Spectatorship and Gender from Hitchcock to Tarantino

The Final Girl trope as proposed by Carol Clover is the embodiment of the conservative ideology of womanhood, but, at the same time, makes the male spectator identify with a female character. The development of the trope through the character of femme fatale was influenced by specific historical-cultural circumstances and the same goes for the slasher genre itself. The violence of the Final Girl remains a reaction to men’s actions. These films also problematise the masculinity (of the killer). While arguing the Final Girl trope, Clover never completely renounces gender binarism, unquestioningly accepting the codes of the masculinity and femininity of genre films. Today, Final Girl reappears modified as a female action hero or in subversions of the trope.

The integral (Slovenian) version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!