All right, I'm comfortable enough with my slightly re-edited intro now to begin doing this.  Updates will be irregular as I'm not sure how many parts this is gonna be or how much proofreading some of these sections will need.  All will be put into the same category though on my blog, so you should be able to find them there.  Now then:

For this first part of this, I just wanted to give a touch of background in what lead to this project.  The program I was a part of in college forced us to do academic research papers in both my Freshman and Sophomore years.  I remember doing one on Donatello and his works, I remember doing one on the evolution of Freedom, Equality, Slavery, etc. in Enlightenment literature, and I BARELY remember writing a paper about Martin Luther King, Jr. and how his preachings were based in Judeo-Christian philosophy that he had read and in his upbringing.  (Riveting, no?)  So time rolls on, and in Junior year they let us go into Seminar classes on more localized subjects.  I took one on Southeast Asian Culture and Anthropology which was very interesting and a class on human sexuality. 

That was where the seed of this was planted:  The Human Sexuality and Gender class.  At the end of it, we were to write an essay relating to the subjects we'd discussed in class.  There was no set rule of what we had to do, it just had to relate to the class and show that we could apply what we'd learn to something important to us outside the class.  By that time, I was becoming more and more horror-loving, so I thought about androgyny.  I thought about why certain characters in horror are gay, or why some male characters have feminine qualities, or why a director might use transsexualism as a plot device.  So I banged out a relatively quick 7-pager hitting Silence of the Lambs, Stephen King's IT, Sleepaway Camp, and the "Spoiled" and "A Fatal Caper" eps of Tales from the Crypt.

I actually enjoyed writing that paper so much that when the time came for our senior thesis, it was still on my mind.  We were told that we had our choice of what to do.  I still went in thinking that I had to do something classically academic.  Until someone stood up and said they were doing it on the process of opening an art exhibition.  Someone else had done it on the process of opening an AIDS musem in NYC.  And I thought....if they can do that, then I should be able to....and thus this was born.

But not anything like this.  The original outline was an unfocused mess.  At that point, the thesis was about just how sex was used, it didn't prove a point or anything.  It was going to cover how adult film stars cross over into mainstream film usually through horror, androgyny and homosexuality(expansion of the first paper), sex as an amplifier of unsettling scenes, sex and religion, sex as a marker of the victim, sex as it relates to famous movie villains and their characteristics, and sex as a trap.  The number of movies used wouldve been astronomical and I'dve prolly had to deliver it with a crane.  My main professor in this class though pointed out the unfocused aspect and told me to look back over the books I was using for support.  Which was when I started to see that people kept using phrases as "Shift" and "inaugurated" the modern era in discussing Psycho.  And by that time, I'd seen Psycho and I could tell it was good, but I knew other movies came after that changed the genre as well.  And thus I pushed for a fluid timeline of modern horror rather than the Psycho dividing line theory (as I started calling it) and everything else fell into place.  It led to the chronological structure, the idea to use fewer films, etc.

I'm very proud of it and soon, I'll begin serializing it in earnest, but for now I just wanted to let everyone know what led up to the paper in my life.

And yes, that is the title page I used.  I had the idea to use a picture of each main female protagonist pre-2000 I focused on in it.  Jeryline was pretty hard to find a good photo of.

And so we begin.  Today:  the intro. It'll take a bit for me to edit the next part as it will get into the body of the paper then.  The cited works in this section are:  Reynold Humphries's "The American Horror Film:  An Introduction", Joseph Maddrey's "Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue:  The Evolution of the American Horror Film", and Kendall Phillips's "Projected Fears:  Horror Films and American Culture".  I will be saying that info at the beginning of each part.  Now then:  *clears throat*

MILESTONES IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN HORROR FILM AS TRACED THROUGH THE ROLES OF WOMEN

"One word can sum up the shift from classic horror to modern horror: Psycho" (Humphries 85).
"While there is considerable debate over which film inaugurated the modern era of the horror film, Psycho(1960) is among the earliest candidates" (Maddrey 48).

      To write a film criticism piece solely claiming that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is influential, a milestone in the history of horror, or a general masterpiece of American cinema would be redundant, derivative, and, some might say, unnecessary overall due to the sheer mass of analysis of the movie that exists. The impact of this excess of research is expressed by Kendall Phillips in the chapter devoted solely to the film in his book Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture: "With little doubt, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is the most heavily analyzed film in the long career of the most investigated director in the history of American film. [...] The film has been the subject of numerous books, hundreds of essays, and indeed, the critical and academic attention to Hitchcock and Psycho played an integral part in the development of film studies". (61)

      However, to claim, as Reynold Humphries does in the quote that begins this essay, that Psycho is the sole dividing line between a "classic" horror movie and a "modern" horror movie is short-sighted and somewhat flawed. While it is true that, style-wise, Psycho was a visionary work that influenced numerous other movies over the years, to say it is the only movie to divide between "classic" and "modern" both oversimplifies the development of the horror movie and neglects numerous other movies that have advanced the plots and popularity of horror through the last 40 years through various stylistic approaches. Instead, this particular analysis will attempt to first show the flaw in describing Psycho as a totally revolutionary movie, different in every way from those which came before. It will then divide the "modern" horror movies that followed Psycho into subsections based on the development of female protagonists from the helpless, weak characters of the 1960s, through the strong, self-aware characters of the 1970s, into the stereotypical "Final Girl" of the slasher films of the 1980s, and finally into the protagonists of some 1990s movies featuring "hybrid" protagonists, women whose character traits are enhanced by stereotypically masculine actions. It will conclude with an examination of movies from the 21st Century both proving just how influential these previous films have been overall, and depicting the state of the female protagonist since 2000. In this way, it will be proven that Psycho, while undeniably a cinematic tour de force, was not the final step in either the evolution of the horror movie or the progression of the female main character.

And now part 2.  In which I admit that Psycho is worthy of general praise for being an overall classic and show how.  In the next part, I'll break down why, while it may be a classic, its far LESS original than most people might think in some areas.  Cited in this run:  AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, and Ransom Riggs's article in Mental Floss Magazine (Nov-Dec 2006)"Masterpieces:  Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho".  Enjoy......

The 1960s: Weak Female Protagonists
To claim that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is unoriginal and uninspired is just as large a fallacy as claiming it is the only line that defined all movies that followed it. It is perfectly logical to present the argument that Psycho is a classic of horror in its own right. After all, a movie like Psycho is not dubbed the 18th best overall movie and most thrilling movie of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute for no reason.(AFI's 100Years...100 Movies, AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills) Psycho is best known for having one of the most effective "twist endings" in the history of film. It's also distinctive because it is one of the first mainstream horror movies to be promoted as having a female protagonist. However, what may be Psycho and Hitchcock's greatest legacy is the ability of the film and its director to create the maximum tension and suspense in the viewing public through techniques that would become horror staples, particularly in the slasher genre some claim it fostered. In particular, analysts examine the infamous 45 second shower scene as proof of this. Using a soundtrack meant to evoke the action of stabbing a victim, foreshadowing by showing a shadow entering the bathroom during the protagonist's shower, and camera angles throughout the montage showing the killer's, victim's, and "knife's" perspectives; Hitchcock is able to "create the impression of nudity and violence without actually showing a breast, a buttock, or a knife puncturing skin" (Riggs 25). To this day, the sequence is seen as one of the most effective and scariest sequences in the history of the genre.

While the "shower scene" is memorable, it alone does not make Psycho compelling. Without effective character development, cinematography, and direction, the movie would have probably fallen flat. Fortunately for the annals of film criticism and film history, Anthony Perkins's portrayal of Norman Bates, along with Hitchcock and cinematographer John L. Russell's movie-making style, serve to turn Psycho into a classic. Perkins's ability to present Norman Bates to the audience as a meek, sympathetic character trapped under the thumb of an overbearing "mother" makes it all the more likely that the viewers will be stunned by the truth about the character's deep psychological disturbances and murderous tendencies. After all, Bates would go on to become one of the most infamous killers in film history partially because of the fact that the mental faculties that could lead to such a series of actions were not yet fully understood at the time of Psycho's release, nor were they talked about very often in everyday conversation. Hitchcock understood the power and unexpectedness of Psycho's ending, as well as how different his villain character was from the norm, showing this by both adding characters that explained Perkins's psychoses and family background and driving the point those characters made home by "[cutting] to Norman in a holding cell, grinning madly with his mother's dead face superimposed over his own" (27). Through this method, Hitchcock is able to explain to the audience just what could cause the mind-blowing, shocking activities they just witnessed. Overall, Psycho as a whole, including its psychologically-layered plot/ending and Hitchcock's genius at directing, storytelling, and cinematography; definitely deserves to be remembered as a masterpiece of filmmaking. However, this does not by any means prove that Psycho is the full, complete, and sole genre shift it is sometimes seen as, particularly in an area that is seen by some as one of its hallmarks of originality: its female protagonist.

Seeing as I'm currently fasting for blood work in the morning (that blood drive thing made me look at some other odd things in my life like random dizzy spells, leading me to consider the possibility that I am possibly maybe developing slight hypertension or diabetes), I'm watching the Dolphins episode of Penn and Teller:  BS (thank god for free on demand samplers), and I haven't done this in a while, IT'S TIME FOR PART THREE!  Today we will be attempting to prove that the characters of Marion and Lila in Psycho were not earthshattering changes as some might have you believe.    Sources cited today are: Psycho itself (though not physically, I am paraphrasing plot points here), the "Posters and Psycho Ads" special feature on the Psycho Collector's Edition dvd from 1998, Tony Williams's essay "Trying to Survive on the Darker Side:  1980s Family Horror" from the literary criticism collection The Dread of Difference:  Gender and the Horror Film, and Carol J. Clover's classic book Men, Women, and Chainsaws.  Of particular note in this section:  A)I have no idea how I got a B+ on this because GOD did this have spelling and grammar errors before I edited it for this, B)This section contains the first instance of me purposely rubbing my advisor's face in my use of Demon Knight later on, and C)I'm VERY thankful for that Carol Clover quote at the end.  Enjoy!  Next time:  Rosemary's Baby.

     Over the course of the history of the horror film, the role of female characters in horror movies has slowly evolved from supporting, weak, powerless roles in some "creature features" to women who are strong, self-sustaining, powerful fighters that attempt to survive at all costs. This change did not occur all at once. Rather it has happened in stages that one can see by examining movies released during each decade from the 1960s on that were either popular or which strikingly showed the trend of the decade in the evolution of the feminine. While many of the movies that will be discussed are of high critical acclaim and are beloved by a sizeable audience, it is sometimes the cult film that can prove the progression equally well. It is for this reason that, while films like Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, and The Silence of the Lambs should rightly be discussed here, so as well should the "slasher" film milestones some consider to have been detrimental to the genre due to the deluge of sequels they spawned. Even lesser known, sometimes critically dismissed, offbeat movies such as Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight deserve some credit in the progression due to how certain characters in them are able to show depth, emotion, and strength heretofore unseen in film and demonstrate the overall progression of female characters in general.
     It is important to note that the 1960s can be chosen as the first dividing decade due to a small change seen in two movies of the decade. The first film that features this is Psycho, though not because women exhibited different characteristics in this movie than they had previously in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the main difference between the female protagonist and her sister, Marion and Lila respectively, and the women of the movies that preceded them is that Marion is the main character focused on in the first act of the film. It is her story and the consequences of her actions that allow the plot to move forward and the movie's events to occur. That is not to say that the movie was marketed in that way, though, as Anthony Perkins's role as Bates was top-billed both in the trailer and on the movie posters and lobby cards, compared to Janet Leigh's which was last in all the marketing materials. ("Posters and Psycho Ads")
     Marion is the character whom the action revolves around from the beginning of the film and is the reason for the developments that occur as the movie goes on. However, to claim that she acts differently because of this is patently false. The opening sequence of the movie shows her in a motel room with her lover, having sex with him and discussing the possibility of marrying him. During this sequence, Marion appears to be quite uncomfortable with the secretive circumstances with which she must meet with her lover and acts so as to bring some degree of respectability and commitment into their relationship. She then goes to her job (a secretary-like position). At her job she is presented with $40,000 cash as part of a real-estate job and is supposed to deposit it in a safe-deposit box. Instead, she steals the money and leaves town in an attempt to find both herself and her lover. Along the way, she lies to a policeman, changes cars, and ends up at the Bates Motel after leaving behind the suspicious policeman at a used car lot. Once there, after a private dinner with Norman, Marion returns to her room where she is stabbed. Throughout this sequence of events, Marion acts of her own free will, attempts to be somewhat self-sufficient for the time period, and is, as a result, dead halfway through the movie. In order for her death to be avenged, it takes her lover, Sam, and Lila to hunt Norman down and discover his secret, with Sam specifically being the one to knock Norman out, rescuing Lila from mortal peril in the process.
     Thus, in general, the female roles of Marion and Lila represent a small step forward rather than a massive change. The characters in the film are far more similar to the expected role of the female in horror to that point, particularly Lila who only survives the movie because of Sam's protection. (Williams 170) Marion falls less into this category because she attempts to express her femininity and exercise her rights. However, she is still constrained by societal roles as seen through her job as a secretary and the questions she is asked by the police officer who appears to find it very suspicious that a woman driving alone would be in such a rush. (He asks her multiple times if anything is wrong and also follows her down the road to her next destinations.) She is also helpless in that she is taken by surprise by Norman and is thus powerless to stop herself from being stabbed to death. In general, Psycho is a turning point in the history of horror movies in that it redefined the way movies are marketed and the way in which directors and actors instigate fear in audiences. However, when the roles of the two primary women are examined, it is seen that the development of the feminine had not yet fully begun. Rather, Psycho was simply one of the first popular horror movies to have a woman in a protagonist role, even though she was still just as weak as women in horror movies had been before. Overall, while some of its plot elements were quite derivative, it was how they were put together and portrayed by the actors that made the movie such a touchstone. As Carol J. Clover puts it while describing Psycho in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws:
"Its elements are familiar: the killer is the psychotic product of a sick family, but still recognizably human; the victim is a beautiful, sexually active woman; the location is not-home, at a Terrible Place; the weapon is something other than a gun; the attack is registered from the victim's point of view and comes with shocking suddenness. None of these features is original, but the unprecedented success of Hitchcock's particular formulation, above all the sexualization of both motive and action, prompted a flood of imitations and variations" (23-4, underlining mine).

Whilst I nurse this sunburn (more on that in a site report from the convention later this week), It's time for another piece of my epic.  Today we will be finishing off the 1960s by discussing Roman Polanski's classic Rosemary's Baby.  Cited works today include the film itself (because I'm paraphrasing the plot to discuss this properly), Gregory A. Waller's Introduction to American Horrors:  Essays on the Modern American Horror Film, Virginia Wright Wexman's "The Trauma of Infancy in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby" from that book, Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws:  Gender in the Modern Horror Film, and Reynold Humphries's The American Horror Film:  An Introduction.

     The other movie of the 1960s that tends to emphasize a weak female protagonist, though through somewhat different circumstances, is Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. In fact, the movie has even been considered, in much the same way as Psycho, as a crucial component of the beginning of the modern era of American horror films. (Waller 2) Regarding what specifically tends to be cited as the reasons for Rosemary's Baby's impact, the movie is often noted for Polanski's ability to make a movie with a degree of nebulousness in its main plotline separate from that seen in the story it was based on. "Though Polanski's screenplay stays close to Levin's original story, the movie maximizes the ambiguity between paranoid projection and real events that the novel repeatedly strives to resolve."(Wexman 37) Specifically what is being discussed most often is the degree to which the viewer of the movie, throughout almost the entire film, is made unsure of just how much of the events befalling Rosemary are actually happening in reality and how much of them are misinformed overreaction or imagination. While some analysts have claimed that Polanski made the answer abundantly obvious by the revelation of the coven at the movie's conclusion, the superimposing of an inhuman face over Rosemary's body, and filmic techniques meant to imply imprisonment and helplessness, the fact that Polanski never actually shows the child in the movie still leaves the question slightly open-ended. (36-7) In fact, it is this ambiguity that can show just how similar Rosemary really is to the aforementioned weak female lead, Marion in Psycho.
      Upon further analysis, while Rosemary is able to survive the entire movie, unlike Marion, it is interesting to note that, throughout the movie, she is unable to gain control of her situation, no matter what she attempts. She becomes a quintessential victim of her circumstances, her surroundings, her naiveté and the wants and desires of others. In the beginning of the movie, Rosemary willingly buys the fateful apartment with her husband Guy, even after discovering the building's dark, bloody history from her former landlord Hutch. She also, at least at first, allows herself to be sucked into a friendship with her elderly next-door neighbors, Roman and Minnie Castavet, initially not questioning her husband's closeness with Roman or strange occurrences relating to gifts she receives from them. She permits them to convince her to change her obstetrician from one she was recommended by a friend to one whom they endorse and who will prescribe treatments heavily influenced by Minnie's strange herbs. Also, on the night of conception itself, Rosemary's downfall is that she allows herself to be incapacitated, whether by tainted chocolate mousse or too much alcohol, and is thus totally unable to control and fend off her husband's sexual advances and desires. She was, in a manner of speaking, unwillingly impregnated: "When Guy tells Rosemary that he ‘didn't want to miss baby night,' he acknowledges not just an act of ‘necrophile' penetration, as he puts it the morning after, but impregnation as well."(Clover 80)
     As the movie continues, Rosemary becomes more and more suspicious of her husband and her neighbors. However, she still shows herself to be immensely weak in her convictions at multiple points over the story, most memorable of these being when she complains of both the raw meat she has begun to find herself eating and the excruciating pain she has been experiencing for the first few months of her pregnancy which Dr. Sapirstein has been ignoring. When the pain suddenly goes away as soon as it reaches its zenith, Rosemary returns to trusting Sapirstein and taking the Castavets' strange brew of herbs, suppressing the fears she once expressed. She also, to a degree, trusts her husband after she discovers he does not have a mark on his shoulders that would show he belonged to the coven. This particular example of Rosemary's naïveté is seriously egregious in that it goes against a slowly increasing amount of evidence that her husband may be untrustworthy, including his implication in the tragedies that befell a fellow actor and Hutch and his apparent unwillingness to listen to his wife's concerns regarding the Castavets.
     In the movie's final scenes, one sees Rosemary attempting everything in her power to determine the truth about her pregnancy or prevent the birth. She is thwarted in each attempt to either gain information or expose the coven, however. She attempts to determine the Castavets' secrets through research, yet her husband throws away her book when he figures out what she is doing. She tries to revisit Sapirstein to tell of her suspicions, only to realize he may be one of the Castavets' allies. She returns to her prior obstetrician, Dr. Hill, only to be betrayed by him to her husband and Sapirstein out of disbelief rather than allegiance. Finally, she attempts to run from Saperstein and Guy en route to the apartment, barricading herself inside the building. This fails as well when Guy is able to easily get through the locks with the doctor, as it is also his apartment, and sedate his wife. Ultimately, Rosemary is momentarily fooled into thinking she has had a miscarriage, discovers the truth when acting upon suspicions brought about by hearing a crying baby, and determines the extent of the coven's influences. Overall, the clearest proof of her victim role, her helplessness, and her general weakness is seen in the fact that she cannot suppress her maternal instincts and appears to agree to raise what is presumed to be the devil's child as her own. Thus, the movie ends on a note of subjugation and control in which the elders, Rosemary's doctor, and Rosemary's husband are able to utilize Rosemary's femininity and sexuality for their own gains. As put by Reynold Humphries in The American Horror Film: An Introduction:
"[...] what we are seeing is a persecuted young woman accepting the tasks of the dutiful mother and their attendant ideology. [...]For during the ‘rape' sequence the alternating shots of Guy and of Satan having sex with Rosemary insist on the piercing eyes of both: whether one accepts the supernatural reading or prefers a rational one, Rosemary will be under constant surveillance"(88-9).

Seems the time is right for me to roll into the seventies here and present the fifth part of my thesis, my discussion of Carrie and the shift that occurs from the women of Psycho and Rosemary's Baby.  Today's cited works include the film itself, Vivian Sobchack's essay "Bringing It All Back Home:  Family Economy and Generic Exchange" from The Dread of Difference:  Gender and the Horror Film, Shelley Stamp Lindsey's essay "Horror, Femininity, and Carrie's Monstrous Puberty" from the same book, and Joseph Maddrey's Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue:  The Evolution of the American Horror Film.  Next time:  Halloween.

The 1970s: Independent Female Protagonist
     In the 1970s, the female protagonist began to become stronger and more able to protect herself. While some qualities of the main female characters of the milestone movies of the 1960s were apparent in the new horror actresses, it was a slightly greater degree of self-awareness, depth, and inner strength that set them apart from their predecessors. This change in traits was particularly seen in the female leads of two movies from the latter half of the decade. The first of these films, Brian de Palma's Carrie, has been analyzed in multiple pieces in terms of how the film discusses teenage and societal fears about growth, sexuality, and repression. De Palma also has been praised for crafting a movie that so effectively conveys the all-to-human desire to belong, while clearly and accurately describing high school life. At the same time, it is interesting to note De Palma's masterful ability to control his audience, eliciting just as many feelings of sympathy for Carrie because of the heinous actions of the high school clique as it does feelings of disgust and disdain at the murderous rampage that occurs as a result:
      "Adolescent Carrie is a pitiable victim of her culture who evokes sympathy. She is a nerd whose outrage, however horrific and excessive its expression, is a response to a comprehensible betrayal. [...]Carrie's fury is as justified as it is frightening-irrational in its power and force, perhaps, but rationally motivated" (Sobchack 151).
It is this interesting sympathy and empathy that make the character memorable and separate her from those who came before her while simultaneously moving toward the traits of those who would follow in later decades.

     Sissy Spacek's portrayal of Carrie White is different from the two aforementioned female protagonists for a multitude of reasons. In fact, one might interpret the overall performance as a microcosm of the evolution of the female lead from weak victim to stronger, more active heroine/anti-heroine. At the beginning of the movie, Carrie is spiritless, shy, and vulnerable. The more popular girls in the teenage hierarchy prey on her mercilessly, taunting her and throwing tampons at her in response to Carrie's reaction to her first period. She cowers in the corner of a shower while the twisted version of "hazing" continues. Visually, the viewer can see Carrie becoming more and more desperate for a way out. She screams for help and her eyes grow wide as she progresses further and further into hysterics. This event culminates in her first telekinetic feat, an exploding light bulb overhead. This scene is the first clue to the viewer that Carrie is not like her predecessors much less the average young woman. Where Marion and Rosemary were either helpless or could not effectively respond to changing surroundings, Carrie has supernatural powers that make her stronger and more dangerous than the rest of the girls. It is important to note, though, that she is not fully accustomed to this newfound energy and strength, needing to be "saved" and protected by the gym teacher during this particular scene. The movie addresses this fact by later showing Carrie researching telekinesis, miracles, and powers of the mind in the school library in an attempt to gain a fuller understanding of her abilities.

     A similar reluctance is shown when she tries to explain the fear and embarrassment she felt over her first period, the reaction of her schoolmates, and the exploding light bulb to her hyper-religious mother. Her mother responds by trying to make Carrie realize, through biblical readings and fundamentalist catholic literature, that these are all signs that something is wrong with her and that the devil is acting through her. "And God made Eve from the rib of Adam. And Eve was weak and loosed the raven on the world. And the raven was called Sin. Say it. The raven was called Sin!" (Carrie). When Carrie resists this idea, her mother responds violently, attempting to impose her will on the still-weak Carrie and force her to say exactly what she wants her to say. In so doing, Carrie is forced to admit to committing all the perceived "Sins of Women", as the title of the chapter in her mother's book says. In many ways, this particular scene shows the height of Carrie's vulnerability, ending with her being forcibly locked in a room filled with disturbing religious paraphernalia.

     The middle portion of the movie then appears to show the slow growth of Carrie's self-confidence and inner strength as she prepares for the climactic prom scene. This includes a series of scenes in which Carrie disobeys her mother's wishes and snubs her attempts to shame Carrie and restrain her from going to the dance. At one point, Carrie uses her mind to close windows and force her mother to talk to her, thus revealing "the power of the Devil" to her mother for the first time. Later, she would defuse her mother's final attempt to prevent her from going to the dance by actually using her powers on her mother, twice knocking her off her feet and onto a bed.
     However, overall, the prom sequence is the quintessential barometer of Carrie's growth as a protagonist and as a form of anti-hero. In it, Carrie is tricked by many of the same girls who mocked her in the opening scene. The girls nominate her prom queen only to dump a bucket of pig's blood onto her. Parallels can be drawn between the blood used in this action and the blood associated with the misunderstood period that was the impetus of the initial confrontation. (Lindsey 289-90) By this point in the movie, Carrie has honed her powers and inner strength and responds in an exponentially greater manner; much like the bucket of pig's blood could be seen as a much more serious insult than the initial hazing. Carrie's fiery, cataclysmic destruction of the gymnasium represents a form of filmic rebirth of female protagonists in which the previous weak, one-dimensional characters (including Carrie herself at the movie's beginning), are left behind. In their place is a character that reacts against oppression and punishes those who attempt to restrain her. (Maddrey 61-2) This particular idea is seen in the numerous murders and killings that occur in her initial rampage, the car she runs off the road with her mind as she walks home after the prom, and her mother who is killed with Carrie-controlled kitchen implements that stab her in such a way that she mimics the crucified statue seen in the fateful religious room. This final murder in particular can be seen as Carrie attempting to deliver a metaphoric fatal blow to a person who attempts to foster within her the restraint and weakness seen in many of the characters who preceded her.

Two things:  One, two new reviews are up that I don't think I've linked to yet:  The Ring and Demons.  Enjoy!

Two:  Time for more from my thesis.  Today, we will be finishing off the 1970s with the iconic Halloween.  Cited works include the film itself, Robin Wood's essay "An Introduction to the American Horror Film" from Planks of Reason:  Essays on the Horror Film, Joseph Maddrey's Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue:  The Evolution of the American Horror Film, Tony Magistrale's Abject Terrors:  Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Films, James F. Iaccino's Psychological Reflections on Cinematic Terror:  Jungian Archetypes in Horror Films, and Tony Williams' "Trying to Survive on the Darker Side:  1980s Family Horror" from The Dread of Difference:  Gender and the Horror Film.  Next time, we roll into the heavy hitters of the 80s final girls with Friday the 13th.

      The other movie that can be seen as part of the initiation of the defensive, responsive, strong-willed female protagonist is also one of the original "slasher" films. The film in question is John Carpenter's Halloween. In it, the story of serial killer Michael Myers is told. As a child, Myers killed his older sister in an apparent response to negligence she showed in choosing to have sex with her boyfriend while she was supposed to be babysitting him. He was sent to a mental institution for 15 years to determine the root cause of his crimes and was examined by Dr. Loomis, who discovered that "what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil"(Halloween). Shortly before Halloween night, Myers escapes through Dr. Loomis's inadvertent help. It is at this point that the film shifts from a focus on Myers and his instability to Myers and his obsession with Laurie Strode, the protagonist.

      He proceeds to Haddonfield, his original hometown, where he begins a murderous rampage, targeting young women in an apparent mission to gain further vengeance against his older sister. In fact, some analysts believe that Myers sees Strode as a new, reincarnated version of his dead sister. (Wood 196) Much of the finale of the movie is a showcase of Myers's bloodlessly filmed, violent murders of Strode's friends in what a relentless quest by to get to Strode and finish what he believed he started that earlier Halloween night.
      Interestingly, the movie stars Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of the actress who played Marion in Psycho, Janet Leigh. (Maddrey 62) One can compare the characteristics of the mother's character to that of Curtis's to see just how far the female protagonist had come in the 17 intervening years between the films. In Psycho, Marion was simply a victim. She had no method to fight back against Norman and was taken relatively by surprise. She was somewhat suspicious of Norman, of course, after their short discussion during dinner in his parlor, but she both appeared to be more suspicious of Norman's "mother" than Norman himself and showed nearly no signs of actual trepidation about her safety after her meeting with Norman. Instead, she appeared more scared of someone discovering the stolen money than of losing her life. She also decides to disobey both her boss's orders and societal norms of the time by stealing the safe deposit box money in and of itself, and driving out of town alone. Overall, she appears to be far more similar to Laurie's friends Halloween than to Laurie herself. The two girls, Lynda and Annie, are both self-absorbed, thinking only of themselves and ignoring the preliminary signs that Myers had returned. As for their own sexual prowess, they are both specifically shown, either by word or deed, to be quite sexually active. These ideas combine in the end to get both them and one of their boyfriends killed.

     Laurie Strode is quite different from these particular stock characters, however. First, from the initial moment that Michael appears in Haddonfield, the only person observant enough to notice his stalking and to actually stop and consider its implications is her:

     "Laurie's marginal interest in sex, in contrast, allows her the ability to concentrate on other matters; we note on several occasions early in the film that her friends mock her nervous response to the looming presence of Myers.[...] Unlike her clueless girlfriends, Laurie senses intuitively that there is trouble brewing"(Magistrale 158-9)

     "Laurie Strode is a survivor-type, but she is characterized by her reactions rather than her actions" (Maddrey 133).

She is also, as previously mentioned, a virgin, as well as generally respectable, ethically and morally speaking, thinking of others or her surroundings before herself. As an example, a comparison of the events surrounding Lynda and Annie's deaths to those of the final battle is quite revealing. Lynda and her boyfriend Bob die after they have broken into a house to have sex, one being stabbed while getting a beer afterwards, the other being strangled in bed with a phone cord. Annie is killed in her car while she prepares to shirk house-sitting/baby-sitting duties to go see her own boyfriend. Both girls thus die as a result of decisions that indulge their own prurient self-interests.

     In Laurie's final fight against Michael Myers, on the other hand, the most important thing to her is not really her own life so much as the lives of the children she is caring for. (Magistrale 158-9) While she is fighting to stay alive, her first action once Michael is physically pursuing her is to run to the house where the children are so as to protect them. She keeps them with her through almost the entire final act of the movie in an effort to keep them safe. Once she has succeeded in this quest and it has become clear that Myers is after her, not the children, she fights for her own survival, using her intellect to try and outwit him by hiding in a closet. While she hides, she shows a resourcefulness not seen in female protagonists before by using a wire hanger to gouge out his eye (similar to slightly earlier in the sequence where she attempts the same action with a knitting needle) and allow her to momentarily escape. (159)
     It is important to note, however, that the full transformation from weak protagonist to strong independent heroine has not fully taken place in Strode. While she keeps herself alive through intelligence and ingenuity, she is not the person who doles out the "final" blow to Myers. That distinction belongs to Dr. Loomis who takes advantage of Strode's removal of Myers's mask, shooting Myers as soon as he retrieves his mask and is about to administer the coup de grâce to Strode, knocking him out a nearby window. (Iaccino 133) While this act does not kill Myers, thus freeing him to years of sequels, it does point out an interesting fact. While Halloween is said by some to be the first instance of the "final girl" survivor in "slasher"-type horror movies, she is still not fully independent, still not strong enough to fully save herself, and still haunted by the weaknesses of Marion and Lila in Psycho. (Williams 170)

You know I really should've done this one on the 13th of October. Would've been nice to do it on the day. But that would've been really close to the last one on the 11th. ANNNNNYWAY: Today we roll into the 80s with a quicky overview and with Friday the 13th. Cited works include the film itself, Kendall R. Phillips's book Projected Fears:  Horror Films and American Culture, Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws:  Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Vera Dika's essay "The Slasher Film, 1978-81" from American Horrors:  Essays on the Modern American Horror Film, and Jonathan Lake Crane's Terror and Everyday Life:  Singular Moments in the History of the Horror Film.  Among other points, I'd like to say here that one of the many reasons I love this paper is because it's not often one sees a college scholarly senior thesis with the phrase "Strip Monopoly" in it.  Oh, and in case it already wasn't apparent, SPOILERS ABOUND AHEAD, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE:

The 1980s: "The Final Girl" Thrives

"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then John Carpenter's Halloween may be the most flattered film in the history of American cinema."(Phillips 123)
      While it is true that one reason Halloween was important in the evolution of the horror film was that Laurie Strode represented a departure from many of the previous female protagonists, it is also true that Halloween was significant, retrospectively, as a foreshadowing of a decade of horror movies built upon the repeating of many of both the traits of Michael Myers and the characteristics of Jamie Lee Curtis's character. The Myers archetype would be seen again in numerous other movies as an inhuman, unstoppable, sometimes almost supernatural evil force. The character Curtis pioneered would be refined over the course of the decade and appeared so often that certain film analysts could not ignore the precedent and have since taken to calling such characters "the final girl", a term coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. In general, Clover believed that each "final girl" is identifiable because they exhibit similar characteristics. According to her, the final girl is almost always presented as the movie's main character from the beginning. She tends to not be sexually active and also is watchful, intelligent, meticulous, and resourceful when compared to the other supporting characters that surround her. (Clover 39) Another author, Vera Dika, characterizes this character thusly: "Not only is she elevated from the rest of the young community because she can see and use violence, but also she is less extensively held as the sexual object of the killer's gaze (Dika 90-1). However, Clover admits there is a crucial difference between the initial "final girl"-like character of Halloween and the "final girl" of the 1980s movies. "[...] The films following Halloween present Final Girls who not only fight back but do so with ferocity and even kill the killer on their own, without help from the outside" (Clover 37, emphasis mine).
     Two of the most enduring "slasher" films of the decade, Sean Cunningham's Friday the 13th and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, enumerate this difference through their own particular finales, whether it be Friday's climactic encounter between Mrs. Voorhees and Alice; or Nightmare's final battle between Nancy and Freddy Krueger necessitated by her parents' inability to protect or believe her. Friday the 13th tells the story of Camp Crystal Lake and the murders that befall the counselors there on the night of Friday the 13th. As the movie progresses, various teenagers are dispatched through a series of violent tactics. Each counselor either has a personality flaw of some variety or has engaged in some act of sex or drug/alcohol use during the movie. (Crane 149-151) Thus, many have come to believe as they watch the movie that "Jason's" primary goal in the film is to exact revenge upon the immoral acts of the teens. This idea is elucidated later in the film when the viewer discovers the actual murderer in the movie is Jason Voorhees's mother, known only as Mrs. Voorhees here, later Pamela Voorhees. Mrs. Voorhees explains that her son drowned in Crystal Lake as a result of negligent counselors who were too preoccupied with sex and having fun to hear his cries for help. She has since become obsessed with vengeance and possessed by his spirit, egging her on into each ghastly murder. While she falls to the female protagonist, Alice, at the end of the movie, Jason's spirit is not able to be killed, thus living on to numerous sequels over the more than 20 years following its release.
     As a "final girl", Alice is not so much a "virgin" as she is less sexually active by comparison with her fellow counselors. This is made abundantly clear less through Alice's own actions than through the many explicit sexual encounters of her friends. In fact, the one instance in the movie where it appears Alice may act immodestly (during a game of "Strip Monopoly"), she is interrupted and later tells a friend that she was unsure of whether or not she would actually remove her clothes in front of the others.
     In contrast, almost all the other characters have either a sex scene in the film or unsavory characteristics that appear to imply immorality. The older male head counselor is continually lusting after the female counselors, calling them "babes in the woods" at one point. Also, twice during the movie, "Jason" intrudes upon girlfriend-boyfriend pairs who've drifted away from the main group to have sex. In both instances, both members of the pair are killed swiftly and usually one after the other, forming almost a ready-made punishment for their actions, whether the couple have actually completed the act or are only intending to.
     Also, as has been previously mentioned, the "final girl" is set apart by the way in which she notices strange occurrences, is self-aware, and protects herself in innovative ways. Many of the deaths in the movie involve counselors who either fail to heed the warnings of the townsfolk regarding the camp, run around in circles with "Jason" in hot pursuit, or stand still, screaming, as "Jason" delivers the fatal blow. Alice, on the other hand, appears to care more about her job (preparing the camp so that new campers will be able to attend) and others (appearing to wonder about missing counselors fairly often) than she does about herself. Thus, she appears to avoid the pitfalls that claimed her friends and also fulfills almost every aspect of Clover's "final girl". However, it is crucial to realize that there is an important change made evident in Alice during the final act of the movie that separates her from the survivor seen in such characters as Laurie Strode.
     Alice's final battle against Mrs. Voorhees is crucial to fully understanding the separation between Friday the 13th's "final girl" and Halloween's proto-"final girl". Strode, fighting against Michael Myers, uses violence in an attempt to stay alive, not necessarily to kill the monster. While it is quite evident that gouging someone's eye out with a needle or coat hanger would be highly unpleasant, it is by no means a lethal blow. This is perhaps the reason that Loomis's interference is required for Strode to survive the
movie. She may be more resourceful and intelligent than her predecessors, but she is not a violent murderer.
     Alice's battle with Mrs. Voorhees, on the other hand, combines Laurie Strode's resourcefulness and intelligence with a degree of violence and rage. Before the battle even begins, she shows brilliance not seen in prior protagonists by hunting for ways to protect herself and keep intruders out. Strode had a similar idea in Halloween, but appeared to grab items on impulse with little thought. After meeting up with Mrs. Voorhees and discovering her secret, the battle begins in earnest. Alice begins by causing Mrs. Voorhees blunt force trauma to the arm and back with a fire poker. As this momentarily disables her foe, Alice takes the opportunity to attempt to escape, dropping the weapon on the way. Mrs. Voorhees soon regains consciousness and pursues her prey throughout the camp. She unknowingly passes Alice, allowing her to find a new place to hide: a kitchen closet. Mrs. Voorhees discovers this hiding place and breaks the door in. The battle continues as Alice again momentarily fazes Mrs. Voorhees, this time by hitting her with a frying pan. Alice then attempts to escape by canoe on the lake, only to end up in a final wrestling match with Mrs. Voorhees on the shore. As the wrestling match nears its close, Alice finally obtains Voorhees's machete and uses it to decapitate her adversary in an action that is, ironically, one of the most, if not the most, bloody, violent killings in the movie. It is even interesting to note, as some analysts have, that Alice almost becomes Mrs. Voorhees through that action or that the two have almost entwined fates. (151-2) This is underlined by the fact that the two women have similar hairstyles and similar clothing when they first meet, just before the final battle begins. Thus, Strode differs from Alice in that Alice realizes that the only way to survive and obtain "justice" was to not just survive and escape but to "kill" the villain in whatever way possible (even if the attempts to quash the overall evil were ultimately unsuccessful), thus evolving further than most of the women before her.

*sigh*....I'm bored.  Which can only mean one thing....It's time for another part in my award-winning (in my head) serialization of my senior thesis on the roles of women in horror films.  It's been 2 months since my last entry, so I'm hoping no one's forgotten about me.  If you have, or you're just seeing this for the first time, you can click on the category of this entry and see the first 7 parts (technically 8 if you count part 0) and get up to speed.  Today, we will be finishing the 80s by discussing Wes Craven's evergreen classic A Nightmare on Elm Street with the added bonus of also talking about every other Freddy Krueger movie.  Cited works include:  the film itself, Freddy's Revenge, Dream Warriors, The Dream Master, The Dream Child, New Nightmare, Freddy Vs. Jason, Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws:  Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Joseph Maddrey's Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue:  The Evolution of the American Horror Film, Tony Magistrale's Abject Terrors:  Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Films, and James F. Iaccino's Psychological Reflections on Cinematic Terror:  Jungian Archetypes in Horror Films.  I should also probably note that since writing this, I've heard Robert Englund make the exact same point I do here that there's always a strong female to take Freddy out...I did not know his opinion at the time.  Moving on:

     Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street showcases what Clover calls the "grittiest of the final girls" (Clover 38). The movie is the story of the vengeful spirit of a child molester named Freddy Krueger who was burned alive by the angry parents of Springwood in response to his manipulation of the judicial system. In response to the actions of the parents of Elm Street, he gains the ability to enter the dreams of their children, terrorizing them and killing them in their nightmares. As the movie progresses, he begins to shift his focus to the pursuit of Nancy, the daughter of a local police lieutenant and an alcoholic mother who both took part in the original burning and took his glove as a form of twisted souvenir. The movie then details Nancy's parents' disbelief at her claims that Krueger is harassing and killing her friends and follows her preparations for a final climactic battle against him.
      In the film, just as Alice set herself apart morally from those who surrounded her, so did Nancy show herself to be more inventive, vigilant, and persevering than her friends. It is interesting to note that only one of her friends appeared to be killed as a direct result of a sexual act, unlike that seen in Friday. Her friend Tina was murdered shortly after having sex with her boyfriend. All of Nancy's other friends die because no one believed she had seen Krueger, and no one heeded her warnings. Tina's boyfriend, Rod, dies when police officers do not believe Nancy when she tells them that he did not kill his girlfriend and do not allow her in to see him when she realizes Krueger is about to kill him. Nancy's boyfriend, Glen, suffers an even more gruesome fate after disregarding Nancy's recommendation to him that he stay awake on the night of the final battle. Finally, at the end of the movie, Nancy's mother is killed as she waves at her imperiled daughter, blissfully ignorant that Nancy's warnings throughout the movie are coming true. (Maddrey 166-7)
      Nancy, on the other hand, shows a tremendous resourcefulness and intellect that had become a hallmark of the "final girl" by that time:
"Nancy, the heroine of the first Nightmare film and one of the great Final Girls in the slasher genre, recognizes that she must take control over her own life if she wishes to avoid her friend Tina's fate and survive Krueger's nocturnal assault" (Magistrale 166).

Over the course of the movie, she discovers how to escape from one of Freddy's nightmares without outside assistance (causing herself pain) and is the only one who believes Tina's boyfriend's claim that he did not murder his girlfriend. She also learns how to remove things from her dreams, thus providing vital proof to herself that she is not losing her mind and setting the stage for her final plan to kill Freddy. When she realizes the danger Freddy is capable of, it is she and she alone who begins reading books on self-defense, home security, staying awake, and booby traps. All of this sets the stage for the final battle in which it is her traps (exploding light bulbs, trip wires, falling mallet, etc.) that slow down Freddy enough to allow for her to stay ahead of him and ultimately commit an act of defiance in letting Krueger know he has no power over her that saps him of his strength and banishes him from haunting her nightmares. (Iaccino 175-6) While he is, as is almost a given in "slasher" films, never totally killable, Nancy's quick-thinking and strength of will are thus the only reasons that Krueger fails in achieving his dark goals.

     As a final point, it is interesting to note that the A Nightmare on Elm Street series is the perfect example of the lasting impact of the "final girl" over the course of many years. Through a quick examination of how Freddy meets his end in all the Nightmare movies, an intriguing pattern becomes apparent. As already discussed, Nancy vanquishes Freddy with no outside assistance in the original. In its sequel, Freddy's Revenge, the boy who Freddy has possessed with his spirit is rescued through the love of his girlfriend. Dream Warriors features Freddy's mother, Amanda, providing vital clues to the other characters that allow them to destroy Freddy's skeleton. The movie also features Nancy returning to deal the final blow to Freddy once more, losing her own life in the process. The Dream Master features a new final girl absorbing the strengths of her friends to help her toward victory against Freddy. The Dream Child showcases a second instance in which it is the guidance of Amanda Krueger that allows the main character, the final girl from the previous Nightmare movie, to save her child from Freddy. Freddy's Dead concludes with a battle in which Freddy's scientist daughter kills him with his own glove. New Nightmare ends with Heather Langenkamp, playing herself playing Nancy, burning Freddy alive with the assistance of her son. Finally, Freddy vs. Jason ends with the "final girl" setting fire to the dock where Freddy and Jason do battle, specifically screaming "Freddy! Go to hell!" (Freddy vs. Jason, emphasis mine) and ignoring the fact that Jason is even on the pier. This then allows Jason to fight back and vanquish Krueger.
     In every case, the monstrous Freddy Krueger is only able to be overcome through the involvement of a headstrong female character. This is the very definition and epitome of the impact of the 1980s "final girls" on both the future heroines of the "slasher" subgenre and on horror in general. The fact that this feature exists in every film of a movie series that spans a time period lasting 19 years underlines how mainstream the archetype became.

While I sit here and watch Harper's Island (I refuse to liveblog such a complicated show), its as good a time as any to roll into the nineties on my serialization of my thesis.  Today, we see the birth of the hybrid protagonist as seen through Clarice Starling of Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs.  Spoilers, of course, abound.  Cited this time around, besides the film itself, we have Carol J. Clover's Men, Women, and Chiansaws:  Gender in the Modern Horror Film, AFI's 100 Years, 100 Heroes and Villains, the award page of IMDB's Silence of the Lambs Page, Kendall R. Phillips's Projected Fears:  Horror Films and American Culture, and Cynthia A. Freeland's The Naked and the Undead:  Evil and the Appeal of Horror.  Next time, we'll hit the controversial part of the paper where I discuss Tales from the Crypt Presents:  Demon Knight.  And so, we continue with:

The 1990s: The Masculine-Feminine

     One of the lasting legacies of the archetypes of the 1980s slasher film boom was the rise of hybrid female protagonists who blend feminine and masculine stereotypes into one whole. The "final girl" was the prototype for this character with some describing them as "boyish, in a word. [... their] smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set [them] apart from the other girls" (Clover 40). Over time, the character would evolve, and would become more stereotypically masculine through appearance, action, and deed. In some instances, female protagonists would be seen to act, dress and look similar to a male authority figure. In others, the characters appear to show little or no emotion throughout much of the movie, choosing instead to have the air of a person who is apathetic about surrounding dangers. In so doing, they eschew the commonly-believed stereotype that women are more emotional and sentimental than men and carve out a new style of character for themselves. This particular type of blended protagonist can be seen most clearly in the leads of The Silence of the Lambs and Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight.

     Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs tells the story of Clarisse Starling, an FBI trainee thrust into the hunt for a serial killer who targets women. This particular serial killer, who goes by the name of "Buffalo Bill", has kidnapped a politician's daughter and is holding her captive in an unknown location. In order to capture him, Starling is sent by her supervisor, Jack Crawford, to interview an incarcerated serial killer, the cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter. These meetings drive the movie as Lecter becomes intrigued by Starling and helps her in her investigation through red herring clues, enigmatic puzzles, and his own attempts at psychoanalyzing both "Buffalo Bill" and Starling herself. It is these psychoanalyses that cause Starling to move closer to capturing Bill while simultaneously achieving a deeper understanding of herself and the inner demons of her past. Ultimately, the investigation culminates with Starling being separated from Crawford and his team after he believes that he and the rest of the FBI has determined where the killer is. Starling, on the other hand, acts on Lecter's tips and goes to where she thinks the killer was born, looking for clues from his past and basing her decision on the location where the first victim was discovered. She soon discovers that the house where the victim lived was directly next door to another house. Acting on a suggestion from Dr. Lecter that "we begin by coveting what we see every day" (Silence of the Lambs), Starling investigates the other house only to find the murderer at the same time the separate ground team investigates a completely empty house miles away. "Buffalo Bill" stalks Starling through the pitch-black house and is within moments of killing her when he cocks his gun, the click alerting her to his position and allowing her to kill him with one blind gunshot. Starling goes on to graduate from her training, gaining her supervisor's approval. The movie ends, however, with an escaped Dr. Lecter calling Clarisse to see how the case ended up and let her know that he is not going to kill her because "the world is more interesting with [her] in it" (The Silence of the Lambs). The final shot is of Lecter walking away into a Caribbean crowd, following a newly-arrived Dr. Clifton, his intent presumed to be cannibalistic.

      After its release, The Silence of the Lambs was praised by numerous critics and nominated for awards ranging from Writers Guild of America awards to Golden Globes to Academy Awards. One of the main reasons that the film received this many accolades and is recognized as one of the best movies of the 90s is apparent in the fact that many of these nominations were for the acting of Jodie Foster as Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter. (Awards for The Silence of the Lambs) To discover the multi-layered portrayal of Lecter or sense his impact, one only need examine one of the many essays that have been written on the character or note that the American Film Institute recently named the character the greatest film villain of the 20th century. (AFI's 100 Years, 100 Heroes & Villains) Starling, on the other hand should be noted for Foster's ability to portray her as a woman struggling to gain ground in a male-dominated profession. As such, the performance appears to be one in which Starling chooses to adopt the mannerisms, emotions, and characteristics of the male higher-ups when in their presence as it is the only way for her to advance in the system. This includes that Starling's emotions are human, not over-the-top, showing disgust and fear that anyone would, rather than showing stereotypic "final girl" overreaction (e.g. screaming). In fact, Clover describes Clarisse as "masculine in both manner and career, uninterested in sex or men, and dead serious about her career" (233).

     Starling never shows any overt signs of physical attraction to any male character in the film, deflecting any advances that occur. Also, never once in the film is Clarisse seen at a point in time where she is "off the clock". She showcases tireless work ethic, tremendous drive, and deeply workaholic tendencies, all of which up until that point tended to be characteristics of either "final girls" or masculine heroes. Physically speaking, her voice is relatively deep and features a heavy Southern accent, features that combine to make her sound much less than stereotypically feminine. She also tends to dress in unflattering, business-style suits when not in her training clothes and always has somewhat "restrained" hair, thereby simultaneously appearing both as professional and as unfeminine as she can.

     Finally, in multiple instances throughout the film, she is forced to overcome and deflect both agents who are suspicious of her abilities as a woman and agents who make snide sexual jokes in her presence or attempt to make a pass at her. This includes a moment at the beginning of the movie where she enters the elevator to meet with Crawford, only to be dwarfed and gawked at by a group of other male recruits. This visual idea of Starling being surrounded by towering men is repeated multiple times in the film. Later, when she first goes to visit with Lecter and is being debriefed by Dr. Chilton, Chilton comments on Starling's beauty before making any remarks regarding her credentials. He, in fact, totally disregards her skills, claiming that Crawford only chose her to appeal to Lecter's baser instincts. "Crawford's very clever isn't he using you? [...] Pretty young woman to turn him on, I don't believe Lecter's even seen a woman in eight years." (The Silence of the Lambs) As the movie continues, other recruits stare at her while she practices her running and goes over codes for different crimes. Later, Crawford asks a local police officer to discuss the case in private, specifically doing so to have the conversation on the bizarre sex crime out of Starling's earshot. The rest of the local force is left alone with Starling and appraises her up and down, apparently believing she doesn't belong there and has no right to act as if she has authority over them. Starling would later chastise Crawford for it.

     Through all of this, she perseveres through the case, determined to see it through to the end and save the senator's daughter. (Phillips 159) This is perhaps why Clarisse has to be alone to finish her pursuit of "Buffalo Bill". In that way, she is able to prove her worth in the FBI's system by tracking and capturing the killer they missed. In fact, when Crawford ignores Clarisse's evidence of Buffalo Bill's location in favor of his own, it becomes the FBI's final mistake in ignoring the point of view of the female agent. In general, the final proof of the departure of Starling from the "final girls" who preceded her is found in her final battle with Bill. In it, she is continually hunting for him, willing to stop him at all costs, rather than running away. She is willing to lay her life on the line to stop the villain from killing again rather than protect herself and kill the villain as an afterthought. This departure of the female protagonist from being a character that simply runs from the danger or fights only as a last resort is underlined by Clarisse's use of a gun to deal the fatal blow. That particular weapon in many movies tends to be stereotypically male and is associated with masculine power and dominance. Overall, through the gunshot and her actions through the rest of the film, Clarisse adopts the characteristics of the males of her community, becoming a combination hero-heroine focused on achieving both success in resolving the case and advancement in the FBI's male-dominated system. As put by Cynthia Freeland in The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror: 

"Clarice occupies a more standard (male) heroic role within a narrative arc that presents a solution to the evil of at least the inner story of The Silence of the Lambs: she kills off the ‘bad guy' and rescues the ‘damsel'. Thus, this film suggests that a woman can become victorious over evil by taking on stereotypically male attributes and insignia" (210).

And after a long hiatus, we near the end of my paper.  Today we finish the 90s with me discussing Tales from the Crypt Presents:  Demon Knight and its character, Jeryline.  This part had to be done differently than the entire rest of the paper, as there really is no book or essay that analyzes this movie for me to quote.  Thus, most of the citations in this section come from the movie itself and most of the analysis comes from my own interpretation of events in the movie.  In addition, there is a little more in terms of citations:  David Holden's review of the film in the New York Times, and Dave Kronke's review of the film in the Los Angeles Times.  I have yet to decide whether the next part of this will be the final one or not.  I may split the conclusion (about female protagonists in the new millenium) into two parts, may not.  We shall see.  And of course, spoilers be found within.  Continuing:

While The Silence of the Lambs has transcended its genre to be described by some as one of the greatest movies of all time, another movie which features a hybrid female protagonist released in the same decade was passed over by critics and is generally underappreciated by many. That film is Ernest Dickerson's Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight. The movie deserves a place in this essay because an argument can be made that Jeryline, the female hero of the film, does represent a change and departure from characters in previous films, a fact that is not necessarily diminished by a low box-office gross or by a panning given by some critics. The film is slightly different from Silence and the other films discussed thus far in that its main protagonist is a male, nomadic vigilante named Brayker. Brayker's job is to protect an ancient relic that contains a mixture of the bloods of Christ and all the artifact's previous guardians from a demon leader called "The Collector". Prior to the film, they have been chasing each other for years around the world. At the beginning of the film, predator and prey have ended up in Texas after a fiery car crash destroyed both their cars. Brayker escapes to a mission that has been refurbished into a motel. Meanwhile, the Collector manages to convince local law enforcement that Brayker stole the relic from him and leads them to the mission to collect his quarry. Inside the mission, Brayker meets with the group who will become his allies as the movie progresses. The Collector soon arrives with lawmen in tow to retrieve the mysterious relic. However, his plan fails as both men are arrested due to the fact that both of the cars in the accident were found to be stolen. At this point, the Collector chooses to reveal his identity in a very violent manner, killing one of the policemen in the process. After Brayker hurts him by burning his face with the side of the artifact, The Collector calls forth demon hordes to retrieve the instrument for him, thus setting off a gory battle in the mission that lasts throughout the night. Through the fight, almost all of the allies are killed in some way, either by their own choice or through the temptations of The Collector. This includes his seduction of the sexually promiscuous tenant, his plying the town drunk with alcohol, and his double-crossing what one might call the town jerk after tricking him into retrieving the key for him. As the movie reaches its final act, Brayker, a child found in underground mines named Danny and the hotel's housekeeper, Jeryline are the only ones left alive, hiding in the hotel's attic. Brayker realizes at that point that Jeryline is meant to be his successor for multiple reasons. These include the fact the Jeryline has avoided the Collector's seductions thus far and that she understood the appropriate usage and reverence for the blood in the relic. After Brayker is mortally wounded by a possessed Danny, he officially passes the position on to her, burning the relic's seven-star mark into her hand and refilling the vial with his own protective blood.

It is at this point that the protagonist role in the movie shifts from Brayker to Jeryline as she goes on to defeat the Collector through multiple methods. These included covering herself with the blood in the vial to trick the Collector into thinking she was injured, and storing some of the blood in her mouth after the Collector had captured and begun to clean the blood off her and empty the vial. By doing this, she was able to spit it in his face, vanquishing him instantly. The movie ends with her refilling the vial and embarking on her personal quest to protect the artifact from the new Collector.

One of the most interesting aspects of this film is the examination of the evolution of Jeryline through the movie from her initial appearances as a housekeeper with a problem with authority into the heroine who is protecting us all. Jada Pinkett Smith's portrayal of Jeryline, in one of her least remembered yet most underrated roles, has been described in reviews as "[bringing] a depth to her role that the script never even hints at" (Kronke) and "[playing] a crucial role in the story" (Holden). From the beginning, Jeryline does not look feminine in almost any way. Her hair is cut very close to her head, and she wears jeans and dress shirts in a style that seems to show that she does not particularly care about looking like the perfect woman or sex object, contrasting with the character of Cordelia who embodies the stereotypical sexually-active prostitute stock female horror character. The first time we see her in the movie, Jeryline is shown to have a form of an independent streak, butting heads continually with the manager, Irene. A back story is then told in which Jeryline is revealed to have served time in jail for stealing and is only working in the hotel as part of a work release program. Interestingly, Brayker appears to realize from the moment he enters the house that she will be the one to carry on the fight as he tends to focus on her and her past more than any other tenant. Jeryline even seems to test the idea of being a heroine at certain points during the film. At these times, she goes at the head of the group in attempts to lead tenants to safety. She is also the first to ask Brayker about what is inside of the vial. She is the one who is the primary caretaker of Irene shortly after her arm is removed in an attack. She is also the only member of the clan to decide to separate from the group during the mine sequence, rescuing a survivor in the process.

While throughout the movie she tends to appear to be just as terrified and weak as the other characters (both male and female) in the face of the demons, she does show her true self at one point by willingly disobeying Brayker's orders and following him while he sealed the upstairs. When questioned about why she came upstairs, Jeryline's simple response speaks volumes about her similarity to Brayker and her incongruity with the rest of the tenants: "I just thought you might need some help" (Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight). As the sequence goes on, Jeryline's trust in Brayker is revealed as is her curiosity about him as a whole. However, the most interesting aspect of Jeryline's character, and the action that appears to be central to Brayker's assurance that she is the one to protect the relic and the world, can be seen during the two separate times where The Collector attempts to seduce Jeryline in much the same way as he overtook many of her colleagues.

His first such attempt occurs while the tenants are hunting for the missing Danny. Shortly after Jeryline searches under a bed, she resurfaces in a dream-like world which The Collector has created. Over the course of this sequence, The Collector makes numerous promises. They particularly involve the idea that, by joining him, she will be able to escape the middle-of-nowhere lifestyle she has been forced to take and will be able to see the world. He also argues that Brayker will die in attempting to save them and protect the key, showing Jeryline a vision of Brayker being devoured by the demons. He concludes by promising her that, if she helps him, he will let her go and will make sure that nothing bad happens to her in the new era his ascension to power will create. After she spits in his face, thus vehemently declining his offer, The Collector attempts to gain control over her in general, saying: "You will give me what I want, that's just the way it is. And the sooner you figure that out, the better" (Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight). While Jeryline is visibly shaken by this and does outwardly appear to be in a trance-like state, she has the strength and self-control to break free of the Collector's grasp in the end. It is unfortunate, however, that this willpower is not enough to protect Brayker from dying in the attic. Intriguingly, though Brayker does appear to realize that The Collector has attempted to make a deal with Jeryline and acts on faith that she has fully refused it when he passes the key on to her:

-"Brayker look I can't do this, all right? I'm not the right type of person for this shit."
-"He tried to seduce you didn't he?"
-"He tried."
-"You're exactly the right type of person" (Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight).

Shortly after Brayker's demise, Jeryline succeeds in fooling The Collector with the aforementioned blood trick, only to be captured in a shower curtain shortly thereafter and cleaned off. The Collector brings her downstairs, takes the key, and begins his second seduction. In this attempt, he claims he wants to bring her back to hell with him to be his wife. While making this proposition he dances with and spins her rapidly, thus raising the question of whether or not he suspected the ruse of the blood in her mouth. At one point, The Collector becomes increasingly frustrated at her lack of response and even makes a remark that perfectly underlines the difference between Jeryline and many of the female protagonists who preceded her: "WHAT THE HELL IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT? There was a time when a coy silence was appreciated in a woman. Well this is not one of those times! And you're really starting to piss me off!" (Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight). He also attempts to claim that he loves her, though he is unable to speak the words. It is shortly after this that Jeryline spews the blood at him and kills him. In that way, Jeryline is both vanquishing her demons in the movie and attempting to vanquish a stereotypical feminine role. In both of The Collector's seductions, he attempts to gain Jeryline's trust through claims of love, wealth, prosperity, or beauty. However, none of these matter enough to her to cause her to ally with evil. It is interesting to note that in the same movie, Jeryline's foil character, Cordelia, does fall for this particular trick willingly, owing to her history with an abusive boyfriend. In many ways, Jeryline's two acts of defiance in this movie define her as a hybrid protagonist. Through her assertions she vanquishes previously held stereotypes of a woman's role in film and assumes the role and characteristics held by the male hero through much of the movie. In this way, some claim that her character has become just as memorable in retrospect as Brayker and The Collector, even if the movie itself was forgotten somewhat.