Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Hub Challenge: Final Girl Series

I've completed only about a third of my hub challenge hubs for the month of March but I'm still working on articles. I managed to get the "Final Girl" series completed. The Final Girl Series is a series all on "Final Girl" archetypes from the movies. Featured are 4 Final Girls and also, surprisingly, a Final GUY character that fits right in to the characteristics and attributes that female final girl personas exude.

In this series, I've dealt with the Final Girls from the movies Psycho (Lila Crane), Nightmare On Elm Street - the original first film (Nancy Thompson), Scream (Sidney Prescott), Hostel (final guy - Paxton - no last name), and Hostel II (Beth - no last name).

Just to reiterate on what a Final Girl is:

The Final Girl, particularly in horror films, slasher films, and some types of thriller genre films, is a character that represents "the last one standing" who confronts a killer or the main threat in a horror/slasher/thriller storyline. Our final girl is usually a sole survivor. Almost always a female, this character is resourceful, sexually pure or unavailable, curious and brave. All of these qualities help her defeat the killer/threat or escape from the killer/threat.

She/he usually will have some shared history with the killer/threat, even if this history is shown on film with the killer/threat being aware of our final girl while the final girl is unaware of the killer/threat. Often in the latter case, the killer/threat enforces this history through stalking the final girl character, whether she/he is aware of this or not.

Often, this tactic of forcing a history to be present between final girl and threat is the bridging information which makes the killer's actions 'make sense' and also identifies who our final girl is. You see - the killer/threat will almost always balk at killing the final girl at some point just BECAUSE of the history the killer/threat is sharing with the final girl. The final girl may become the ONLY persona in the killer's viewpoint who seems human. Sometimes the killer/threat starts to perceive of the familiarity between killer and final girl as proof that the final girl will be an easy target...which ends up being an error of judgment, thus, the main reason why the final girl is able to survive...she/he usually outwits the killer/threat with a surprise tactic of her/his own.

Here are the links for the articles in the Final Girl Series:
Final Girl Series: Lila II Final Girl Series: Nancy II Final Girl Series: Sid II Final Girl Series: Final Guy "Paxton" II Final Girl Series: Beth

ALTERNATE LINKS:
Final Girl: Lila II Final Girl: Nancy II Final Girl: Sid II Final Girl: Final Guy "Paxton" II Final Girl: Beth

For more information on the Final Girl trope/archetype in general, see:

Article: "Final Girl" and an alternate link: Final Girl (featuring information on the Halloween movie final girl)

Additional series articles I've completed in the March 2010 Hub Challenge will be posted on the blog soon. I've managed to complete 3 other series, so I just need a chance to arrange some links and alternative links.

Enjoy the Final Girls Series!

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