There's a whole discussion to be had about how horror isn't really about portraying a moral order you actually agree with and if you did it probably wouldn't really be horror
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chrysopoetics and
honestly my own take that carol clover was basically right: the essential libidinal moment of slasher horror is when a woman picks up a machete and hacks a man to death it's a passion play, where you start weak and victimized but overcome
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
we can see this in the evolution of slashers, where yes of a certainty the original Final Girls were virginal and pure and their friends weren't but modern horror eschews that, often very deliberately yet the story still plays on the same goddamn beats it was never essential.
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Replying to @perdricof @chrysopoetics and
Again, Carpenter said he never intended Laurie Strode to be read as "virginal and pure" The irony he intended was a much more practical one, that by being forced into a boring night at home babysitting she's exposed to danger less than her friends out having fun
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
But it's not that she doesn't WANT to party, or hasn't partied before The whole point of them inviting her out and her reluctantly refusing is that she has
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
A lot of ingredients go into making the Final Girl stereotype and most of them taken in isolation are just about the practicalities of drama than morality Of course it's the one friend who's stuck at work who lives while their friends out having fun are getting picked off
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
Just like if you want to keep ratcheting tension up then obviously it's the least experienced and skilled character who keeps surviving while the older and wiser and tougher characters fail
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
I mean hey look - the actual explicit codifier of the Final Girl concept is Friday the 13th, in that the killer's motive is explicitly stated to be hunting down irresponsible partying teenagers But the Final Girls don't actually survive because they're "pure'
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chrysopoetics and
final girls survive because they're ruthless
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
It feels like people count on them not being morally tainted by the ruthlessness because it’s Correct and also Desirable, so they retcon purity from that
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Final Girls are really just notable because they're a gender flipped version of the tough male endurance hero, who endures because of the purity of his will So it's less about feminine "virtue" and more about being above the influence of vices that make you vulnerable
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chrysopoetics and
Halloween is interesting here, with Carpenter retconning that Laurie is the target of Michael Myers' obsession because she's his secret sister, and that Laurie's "loneliness" in the first movie wasn't so much about her "virtue" as making her and Michael Not So Different
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chrysopoetics and
(One major asset to surviving a slasher movie is being the one victim who has the capacity to empathize with the monster, though whether that's actually "virtuous" is debatable)
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