Sunday, 11 December 2011

Recently Published



My article Girl Power: The Politics of the Slasher Movie has just been published in the December 2011 edition of MediaMagazine. Here is a brief extract:

As can be seen from this selection of endings, The Final Girl uses her weapon to cut off body parts and/or impale the male killer. Given the nature of the sexualised murders throughout the film and the weapons used by The Final Girl, it can be suggest that the climatic death of the killer is a symbolic castration – The Final Girl not only kills the killer but ‘removes’ their masculinity before doing so by either disarming them or cutting off their limbs or heads. Because of this, it can be argued that the repressed virginal Final Girl is freed at the narrative’s conclusion because she has given vent to her (sexual) repressions and emerges from the narrative having killed the symbol of male dominance and sexual threat. Consequently, she becomes her adult herself – capable, in charge and powerful, both feminine and masculine, entering into the adult world on her terms, making her choices and succumbing to no one.


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