Heroic Girls as Figures of Resistance and Futurity in Popular Culture (Interdisciplinary Research in Gender)

Heroic Girls looks at the recent proliferation of young girl heroes in many recent mainstream films and books. These contemporary ‘final'girls do not just survive but rather suggest that in doing so they have fundamentally changed something about themselves and or the world around them, seeing them become the ‘First Girls'of this altered reality. The collection brings together a wide range of perspectives and cultural viewpoints that describe many recent narratives that explore the idea of a Final Girl and her “after-story”. The essays are divided into four sections, beginning with more theoretical approaches; cross-cultural examples; the ways in which fictional narratives bear strong relation to real-world circumstances; examples that more strongly depict themes of resistance, survival, and individual agency; and, finally, those that describe something more fundamental and transformative. Films and television shows covered in the collection include The Girl with All the Gifts, The Witcher, The Hunger Games, Star Wars, The Fear Street and Pan's Labyrinth. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of film studies, gender studies, and media studies. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction Heroic Girls in the 21st Century The Journey from ‘Last’ to ‘First’ Notes Works Cited Part I: Theoretical Approaches Chapter 1: The Narratives of Survival: Final Girls in Videogames The Tortured Survivor The Final Girl and Videogame Genre The Final Girl and Videogame Narrative Works Cited Chapter 2: Fighting Fate: Representations of a ‘New Order’ in Beautiful Creatures Note Works Cited Chapter 3: The Shadow Self and the New Girl: Breaking Down the Old Worlds in Ursula Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan and N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky Works Cited Chapter 4: ‘She would never fall, because her friend was flying with her’: Gothic Hybridity, Queer Girls and Exceptional States in Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl (2005) and M. R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts (2014) Note Works Cited Chapter 5: Cheerleaders, Orphans, School Girls: The Persistent Sounding Riot (Grrrl) in the (Televisual) Apocalypse Not Another White Man’s Lament ‘This Is How Many Apocalypses for Us Now?’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2002) ‘How Dare You?’ (Thunberg 2019) The Spectacle of Our Own Destruction Notes Works Cited Part II: Cross-Cultural Heroes Chapter 6: Tranquilas: Monstrous Resistance and Feminist Storytelling Tranquilas and Violence Girls Becoming Monsters Women Becoming Storytellers Notes Works Cited Chapter 7: Sister-matic Cannibalism in the Dying Breed: Heterotopic Representations of Australia’s Lingering Colonial Connectivity Introduction: The End Is the Beginning Paratextual Pointers: The Sliding Emergence of the Cannibal From Paratext to Cinematic Text: Sounds of Silence Conclusion Works Cited Chapter 8: Seeking Resistance in Tropes: A Reading of the Final Girl Tropes Used in NH10 and Stree and Its Socio-Cultural Significance Women with Agency: A Post-2012 Trend in Bollywood A Final Girl for a Bollywood Trend: The Research Model NH10: Slashing Patriarchy with Swag Stree: A Final Girl Who Can Do Anything Conclusion Note Works Cited Chapter 9: A Gothic Agent of Revolt: The Rebel Child Hero in Pan’s Labyrinth Gothic Settings and Gothic Heroes in Fascist Spain From Resistance to Domestication Rebellious Actions and Fatal Consequences Conclusion: An Antifascist Fairy Tale Works Cited Chapter 10: From Vancouver Island to the City of Troy: Prophecy, Heroism, and Indigenous Classical Reception in Catherine Knutsson’s Shadows Cast by Stars Introduction Some Thoughts on Indigenous Classical Reception (Not) Believing the Prophetess: Cassandra and the Idea of Heroism Claiming and Being Claimed: Cassandra and Sisiutl Conclusion Notes Works Cited Part III: Resistance, Revenge, Reimagining Chapter 11: Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge (2017) and the Rape-Revenge Action Hero Introduction The Set-Up: Jen as Object of the Male Gaze The Rape: Objectification Turns Violent The Revenge: Jen as Formidable Action Hero Updating the Rape-Revenge Film Notes Works Cited Chapter 12: ‘What about you, Maxine? What’s your American Dream?’: X and Pearl Radically Refit the Final Girl with an Axe and Hack Apart the American Pastoral Final Girls Growing Up over the Decades X and Pearl A Prequel: Conceptual Framework for Femmeslay Interjection Conclusion Notes Works Cited Chapter 13: After the Credits Roll: Jade Daniels, Trauma, and the Postmodern Final Girl Introduction Meet Jade, Final Girl Jade Daniels, Final Girls, and the Spectres of Trauma Jade Daniels, The Postmodern Final Girl Final Words Works Cited Chapter 14: Killer Girls: Red Riding Hood, Girlhood, and the Final Girl Blood and Bestial Urges: The Killer (Wolf) Girl in Ginger Snaps Female Rage and the Heroic Vigilante Killer Girl Note Acknowledgement Works Cited Chapter 15: The Witcher and Ciri of Cintra as the Heroic Final Girl Introduction The Ordeal of the Final Girl The Survival of the Final Girl The Final Girl as a Monstress The Final Girl as the Figure of Futurity and Hope Conclusion Notes Works Cited Part IV: Into the Future Chapter 16: Persephone Distorted: From Teen Witch to Queen of Hell — The Evolution of Sabrina Introduction Which Witch Is Which? Comic Sabrina Millennial Sabrina Horror Sabrina Coming of Age and Defining the (Female) Self Notes Works Cited Chapter 17: ‘The Witch Forever Lives’: Redefining the Path for Empowered Final Girls in the Trilogy Fear Street Survival Mode: Behavioural Dynamics in Slasher Narratives Fear Street: New Avenues for the Final Girl Embracing Transgression Looking Back Intra-female Relationships Sarah Fier: The Witch Forever Lives Works Cited Chapter 18: Last Jedi, Final Girl: Rey, Resistance, and the Future of Star Wars Introduction ‘You Have No Place in This Story’: Locating Rey as Final Girl ‘You Know I Can Take Whatever I Want’: Surviving the Unsurvivable Surviving Ever After Conclusion Note Works Cited Chapter 19: The Environmental Context for Hope and Heroism in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy and M. R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts Introduction The Anthropocene Space and Its Heroine: Katniss in the Arena Stepping out of the Anthropocene: Melanie in the Infected World Conclusion: The Heroic ‘Bettering’ of the World Notes Works Cited Index