Overview
- Becomes the first work to shed light on contemporary reformulations of the 'Final Girl' in film, TV and literature, focusing specifically on popular texts representative of the 21st century
- Stands apart in its expansion of the discussion of the ‘Final Girl’ beyond the traditional ruminations of the slasher subgenre in order to challenge previous approaches and offer innovative perspectives
- The contributors to this collection take up these concerns from diverse perspectives and with different answers, notably spanning theories of genre, posthumanism, gender, sexuality and race, as well as identification and spectatorship.
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About this book
This volume examines contemporary reformulations of the ‘Final Girl’ in film, TV, literature and comic, expanding the discussion of the trope beyond the slasher subgenre. Focusing specifically on popular texts that emerged in the 21st century, the volume asks: What is the sociocultural context that facilitated the remarkable proliferation of the Final Girls? What kinds of stories are told in these narratives and can they help us make sense of feminism? What are the roles of literature and media in the reconsiderations of Carol J. Clover’s term of thirty years ago and how does this term continue to inform our understanding of popular culture? The contributors to this collection take up these concerns from diverse perspectives and with different answers, notably spanning theories of genre, posthumanism, gender, sexuality and race, as well as audience reception and spectatorship.
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Keywords
Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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From Slasher Films to Slasher TV Series
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Front Matter
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The Final Girl(s) in Horror Films
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Front Matter
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The Final Girl(s) Beyond the Horror Genre
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Front Matter
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Ways of Seeing: The Final Girl(s) and Spectatorship
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“Final Girls, Feminism and Popular Culture fulfils its promise of providing a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach to theFinal Girl trope. Each chapter’s unique approach and discussion of widely different genres ensures its relevance for scholars interested in media, gender and reception studies, while its understanding of feminism as an organic continuum helps to both illuminate and question the achievements of our current sociopolitical context.” (nexus, aedean.org, Issue 2, 2020)
“A fascinating exploration of the Final Girl and her place in feminist scholarship! Final Girls, Feminism and Popular Culture takes a wide-ranging look at the presence of this evocative trope in 21st century film and television as well as popular fiction and comics. Carol Clover first identified the Final Girl in her influential 1990s work on the horror/slasher film, and the editors begin this volume with a richly researched introduction that traces the use of that scholarship to support shifting and, at times, competing feminist perspectives on popular culture. The essays that follow continue what becomes a sustained and substantial conversation with Clover. Ambitiously conceived, lucidly written and transnational in its reach, Final Girls is packed with subtle readings of texts both popular and less widely known. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the ways contemporary popular culture has imagined female heroism and resistance to suffering and violence.” (Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, Professor Emerita, University of Oregon)
“We all think we know what the Final Girl is. Carol Clover. Men, Women and Chain Saws. The last woman standing at the end of the slasher film, bloodied but ultimately unbowed, having overcome the (male) killer. Final Girls, Feminism and Popular Culture questions this formulation and considers the implications of this gendered trope for 21st century feminism: what do we mean by the Final Girl in a nonbinary, intersectional, multimodal world? Smart, rigorous and always entertaining, this outstanding book is essential reading for scholars, fans and filmmakers alike.” (Alison Peirse, Associate Professor in Film and Media, University of Leeds)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Katarzyna Paszkiewicz is Lecturer in English Studies at the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain, and member of ADHUC–Research Center for Theory, Gender and Sexuality (University of Barcelona). She has co-edited, with Mary Harrod, Women Do Genre in Film and Television (2017, Winner of first Prize in the BAFTSS Best Edited Collection competition) and published her monograph Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers (2018).
Stacy Rusnak is Associate Professor of Film at Georgia Gwinnett College, Georgia. Her publications include chapters on MTV and the 1980s satanic panic, cannibalism and consumption in Jorge Michel Grau’s Somos lo que hay and third wave feminism in Twin Peaks. She has also served as guest judge for Atlanta’s Buried Alive Film Festival.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Final Girls, Feminism and Popular Culture
Editors: Katarzyna Paszkiewicz, Stacy Rusnak
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31523-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-31522-1Published: 06 May 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-31525-2Published: 26 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-31523-8Published: 05 May 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 281
Number of Illustrations: 27 b/w illustrations
Topics: Genre, Culture and Gender, Film Theory