Final Girls Come in All Shapes, Sizes, and Genres

We have reached the end of our time together. We are in Act Three of the slasher movie, and by the looks of it, you have survived my blog about final girls. We have spent all this time talking about the diversity of the final girl. We started with one of the most iconic final girls, Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise. Sidney broke common stereotypes associated with women in horror. Then we took a look at Samara Weaving as Grace le Domas in Ready or Not and how marital and familial violence are a common trend in horror movies. Next we discussed a personal favorite of mine, the Fear Street trilogy, and how queer people are becoming final girls after a long history of burying your gays. Most recently, the Escape Room franchise showed us a glimpse of final girls of color. After all of these characters and analyses, we’ve proven that there are no limits to how a final girl looks or acts, despite the boxes history had tried to put them in. Final girls have never been constrained to one genre either. Traditionally, you can find final girls in the horror genre, more specifically the slasher genre. But it doesn’t just end there, final girls can be in complementary genres to horror like science fiction or comedy. 

So that brings us to our last final girl analysis. A classic among the science fiction and horror collaboration. Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien starring Sigourney Weaver as our final girl, Ellen Ripley. Alien follows a crew of space travelers who bring an extra-terrestrial on the ship and must fight for their lives as the alien wreaks havoc. One by one, the crew members are picked off, as they try to fight back against the alien and escape the ship. 

Ellen Ripley is an iconic final girl, often ranked in the top 5 final girls of all time with the likes of Sidney Prescott and Laurie Strode. For the time period, Ripley’s characterization is very progressive. Her character was truly ahead of her time as she subverted a lot of common final girl tropes that became popular in movies after 1979. Firstly, her appearance sets her apart from traditional final girls. Final girls are often depicted as the apex of femininity, vying for male attention and dressed like it too. Girls in horror movies are often sexualized, which is usually the reason for their death. When we first see her on screen, Ripley is dressed in a green jumpsuit with a white tank top underneath. She is masculinized in her role, opposite of how women usually are in horror movies. She is mostly referred to by her last name for most of the movie, which separates her from her feminine first name and further detaches her from her femininity. 

Unlike other final girls, Ripley’s strength is apparent from the start of the movie. She carries herself confidently and believes in herself and her opinions. Women in horror are often seen as weak and in need of a strong man to protect them. In Ripley’s case, she does not need anyone, let alone a man, to come and save her. Ripley is independent and handles most of the work on her own. She is also incredibly persistent and fights tooth and nail to survive in spite of dire circumstances. There is one instance where she sets the ship to self-destruct when she tries to run to escape pods, but she is unable to reach them and fights to the last second to undo the detonation and give herself more time to live. 

Throughout the film, Ripley is also an incredible leader despite not being the captain of the ship. As her superior officers fall victim to the alien, she is able to adapt and become the leader the rest of the crew needs. She takes full ownership of her circumstances and does not allow the wrongdoings of others determine if she lives or dies. For example, she has always been the voice of reason, urging her crewmates to not skip over quarantine protocol after they found one of their crew injured with an alien attached to their face. The others skipped the protocol, which led to the alien running amuck on the ship, and endangered the lives of everyone else. If they had listened to Ripley, they might have been saved. However, women are hardly listened to when men outrank and outnumber them. Usually, horror girls have things happen to them and they are combating these forces against them. Ripley’s survival does not happen from luck. She works very hard to live and she does. After the alien boards her escape pod, she outsmarts it with an amazing move that sends it into space and securing her safety.

I hope this blog has encouraged you to look at horror movies differently and I look forward to meeting the new generation of Final Girls.