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All the women in the world: an examination of the representation of women onscreen
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Content
Copyright 2020 Catherine Margaret Young
ALL THE WOMEN IN THE WORLD
AN EXAMINATION OF THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN ONSCREEN
by
Catherine Margaret Young
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION AND
JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
May 2020
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to my thesis chair Tim Page, who encouraged me in both my writing and
my skills as an editor from the first day I stepped into his class. His encouragement has
enabled me to extend my critical ability during my time in the program. To Diane Winston,
thank you for your sharp editorial eye and your succinct and effective feedback. To Aniko
Imre, thank you for your feminist political insight and your excellent push to deepen my
analysis.
Thank you to Sasha Anawalt, without whom I would not have been able to attend
this program. Her confidence and continued advocacy gave me the incredible opportunity
to participate in an experience that changed my life. Thank you to Jenny Jidenny and Joel
Meares of Rotten Tomatoes, whose kindness and firm direction pushed me to produce
excellent work, and to Sophie-Marie Prime and Devika Girish who provided counsel and
advice when I needed it most.
Thank you to my therapist Lisa Alberto, who helped me navigate a new city, new friends
and a new environment. To Channing Joseph, thank you for lending a kind ear when I had
trouble adjusting to new expectations.
This thesis would not be possible without the encouragement and counsel of my
mentor Soraya McDonald, whose advice and friendship I treasure deeply. Her success and
accomplishments encourage me to work to meet her at her level. I would also like to
acknowledge the many incredible journalists, writers, and thinkers I have connected with
online like Mikki Kendall, Linda Holmes, Andi Ziesler, Evette Dionne, Clover Hope, Gene
Demby, Emily Naussbaum, Bolu Babalola, Roxane Gay, Anne Helen Petersen, Aminatou
Sow, Ira Madison III, Doreen St. Felix, Michael Hobbes, Aisha Harris, Alanna Bennett, Matt
iii
Zoller Seitz among others. Engaging with them, reading their writing and learning from
their scholarship has made me an exponentially better writer in my own right, and I would
not be the critic I am without them.
Thank you also to my parents Halcyon Yorke-Young and Edward Young, who made
themselves available for complaints, whining and desperation, and always lent a
sympathetic ear.
Finally, I would be remiss not to include my colleagues Zosha Millman and Victoria
Alejandro, whose friendship and companionship made the many personal crises, difficult
weeks and hard to meet deadlines much more bearable. Knowing them has made this
experience unforgettable.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………ii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. v
Introduction: All the Women in The World…………………………………………………………………..………1
Chapter 1: Respecting the Dilettante
Elle Woods And the Power of Pink……………………………………………………………….…….……4
Chapter 2: Sliced and Diced
What Happened to Horror’s Virginal Final Girls? …..………………………………………..….……9
References……………………...…………………………………………………………………………………………………17
v
ABSTRACT
The following essays are the first in a continued series published across both
Ampersand LA and Rotten Tomatoes. The project’s aim was to examine the roles that female
characters are given in popular films, and comment on how they have changed, expanded
and grown during my lifetime through the lens of familiar filmic tropes.
With reference to well-known, female-led films of the last 20 years, the essays in this
thesis serve to underline the shifting perceptions of women onscreen.
These essays and the ones published after them are works of cultural criticism.
Together they give a glimpse into a new way of considering female-characters. My aim is to
reframe established ideas of female representation through a lens of feminist film criticism,
identify positive and negative changes over time and make suggestions on how female
representation can be improved.
This thesis examines the inherent political tension of Legally Blonde’s depiction of
femininity and examines the implications of the rejection of the puritanical in the New Final
Girl trope in horror films. Later essays not included here delve into the seductive appeal of
female thieves, and the necessary empathy of action heroines.
The works included here aim to prompt readers and viewers alike to reconsider
their perceptions of the filmic roles assigned to women moving forward and engage with
the ongoing trend of more progressive character development for women in movies.
1
INTRODUCTION
All the Women in The World
A version of the following essay was originally published in 2019.
Like a generation of millennial women, I deeply identify with Andrea Sachs. The
plucky heroine of The Devil Wears Prada endured a journey many of us know well; she
evolved from a haughty girl to a more humble, self-actualized woman, and under the
unrelenting gaze of an exacting boss and the benevolence of a mentor, Andrea learned how
to find value in the fashion industry. At the start of the film, she’s an ill-dressed reporter in
need of a job who thinks she’s above a general awareness of famed photographer Patrick
Demarchelier. By the end, she’s much better dressed, with a deeper understanding of how
much more difficult it is to succeed as a woman in business, regardless of the industry.
Andy had things to teach us about women at work and the value of investing
emotionally when it comes to your calling. She’s not the only one. The last 30 years are
littered with stories of women who made lives that mattered. But those stories are rarely
included in conversations about essential cultural texts that should be recognized. It often
feels as though if a film’s lasting impact is felt mostly by a female viewing audience, it’s the
same as having no impact at all. To make it plain, women’s pleasures aren’t often taken
seriously.
But screen stars like Ellen Ripley, Cady Heron and Torrance Shipman brought new
dimensions to who women could be onscreen. With their various lives, choices and moral
conundrums, they reaffirmed that there is no one way to be a woman. They were fully
realized characters who had their own wants and desires and were allowed to grapple with
2
what it meant to seek them out. Sometimes that aligned with the social feminine ideal.
Often it directly conflicted with them. But their existence allowed women’s full range of
humanity to be represented where everyone could see them, learn from them and emulate
them. They were their best and worst selves, and they taught us how to navigate the tough
binaries women are forced to contort themselves into. They didn’t have to choose between
sinner or saint, Madonna or whore. They made space in the ambiguous middle and invited
us all to join them.
These women aren’t perfect. For starters, they aren’t real! Their circumstances are
necessarily extraordinary. That is the nature of film. But they embody the various tropes
and vague ideas of what womanhood encapsulates. Looking at them and scrutinizing them
with clear, critical eyes means recognizing the lessons they have to teach, the mistakes
they’ll help us avoid and the virtues we can carry forward into our own lives.
The women like Regina George (Mean Girls) who wore pink and played up their
feminine wiles are just as valuable and necessary as the ones like Imperator Furiosa (Mad
Max: Fury Road’s) who picked up a gun and ran into battle. It’s time we recognize them as
different individual points along the same spectrum of the expression of femininity, instead
of as competing versions of an outdated and incalculable ideal. There is no one way to be a
woman. There are many.
“All the Women in The World” will make a case for our filmic heroines: the fictional
women who taught us how to be, how to love and how to exist in the world. These women’s
impact looms large. They are, for the most part, female characters who influenced the ones
who came after them, reshaping the world in their wake. From the feminist evolutions to
3
the retrograde tropes, this thesis will serve as an argument for their implicit collective
cultural value.
A version of this essay was originally published in Ampersand, an online magazine run by the
Specialized Journalism (The Arts) Master’s candidates at the University of Southern
California, on November 20, 2019. It has been republished here with permission from the
editor.
4
RESPECTING THE DILLETANTE
Elle Woods And the Power of Pink
A version of the following essay was originally published in 2019.
It’s a tale as old as time: Boy meets girl. Boy dumps girl. Girl follows boy to Harvard
Law School and bests him at every turn. Such is the story of one Elle Woods (Reese
Witherspoon) the paradigmatic, vaguely feminist heroine of 2001’s Legally Blonde. A
dabbler turned Juris Doctor, Elle’s journey from lovesick puppy to legal eagle is both wildly
improbable and highly aspirational. Ever the over-achiever, she one-ups the fickle fantasy
of showing up an ex by dismissing him entirely to find both herself and the perfect pair of
Prada heels.
But what makes Elle stand the test of time as a pop culture heroine is her specific
insistence on taking up space as a woman. Elle draws her strength and confidence not just
from her smarts and her ingenuity, but from the performance of femininity itself, and she
uses that performance as a means to create and signify power. Colors and clothing don’t
make a woman who she is, but they can both be used to concretize the image she wants to
project to the world.
With a sequel, a Tony-nominated musical and a third film originally scheduled for
2020, it’s clear that Elle Woods has never lost her appeal. But what remains so uniquely
compelling about her as a character is her story’s defiant insistence that the ditzy, looks-
obsessed tinkerer can still have value in the world in a way that isn’t attached to her body.
Her near-delusional sense of confidence is an asset in situations that presume she is
incapable. She barrels forward because she has set her mind to it, and it never occurs to her
that she cannot.
5
2001 feels like a lifetime ago, and a modern-day viewing will show the film’s age.
Elle’s presentation of gender and femininity is stubbornly binary in a way that would
rightly attract critique today. But most aspects of Legally Blonde hold up, and in many ways,
it’s ahead of its time. In contrast to popularly accepted ideas, the movie reinforces again
and again that embracing the feminine is not an inherent deterrent to professional success,
but can, in fact, be a valuable asset that should be cultivated and lauded.
The film begins when Elle’s college sweetheart Warner Huntington III (Matthew
Davis) dumps her because she isn’t “serious” enough to bring along on his hypothetical
future senate run. After a period of protracted mourning, she conceives of a plan to get into
Harvard Law alongside him so that he’ll see just how serious she can be and eventually take
her back. But instead of rewarding Elle’s single-minded focus on love with a happy
reconciliation, Legally Blonde allows her to learn that the peppy enthusiasm that Warner
sees as a liability is simply a different path to success.
Refreshingly, the story never punishes Elle for her naivete or optimism. Rather, her
setbacks all come from her own decision to focus not on law school, but on Warner. When
she is embarrassed or humiliated, it is usually due to a failed attempt to impress him.
In fact, the villains of her story are the people who denigrate her for her kindness
and willingness to have faith in others. The film’s initial antagonist is Warner’s new fiancée
Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair) who treats Elle like a pinup girl who doesn’t belong. And in
true early-aughts fashion, the only other significant female character in the class is Enid
Wexler, (Meredith Scott Lynn) a snobby, self-identified feminist who shames Elle for the
way she dresses and contributes to upholding the very stereotypes feminism seeks to
disavow.
6
But part of Elle’s understanding of femininity is a reliance on other women for
friendship and solidarity, demonstrated most clearly by her involvement in the fictional
sorority Delta Nu. Given that, it’s not a surprise that she ultimately wins over all the other
women in the film. By the story’s midpoint, she has befriended both Vivian and Enid, partly
by demonstrating her dedication to the law and dismantling the easy perceptions they had
initially constructed of her. Vivian in particular, (intentionally established as a plainer,
more dour foil to our heroine) bonds with her over the abysmal way they are treated while
working together on a high-profile case, and the apparent ineptitude of the men around
them. She makes special mention of Elle’s loyalty to their client Brooke Windham (Ali
Larter) and demonstrates that she too values friendship and fidelity. They may be very
different women from very different backgrounds, but they are still dealing with the same
professional challenges, even if they may be encountering them from opposite ends of the
spectrum.
Ultimately, the film’s actual villain is Professor Callahan (Victor Garber). In a plotline
that feels plucked from the #MeToo stories of today, Callahan “rewards” Elle’s hard work
with an unwanted sexual advance that leaves her questioning her skills and doubting her
abilities. Has she actually been excelling in the program? Or has Callahan simply been
allowing her to fail upward, all the better to grant himself access to her? Like many of the
women whose stories have been reported over the last two years, Elle initially decides that
the solution is to quit the profession altogether.
But one of the recurring motifs of Legally Blonde is that women always help Elle find
her way back to herself, and it is the elder stateswoman Professor Stromwell (Holland
Taylor) who tells her point-blank that she’s stronger and more capable than simply turning
7
tail. (Encouraging, but perhaps not altogether useful or practical advice outside the internal
world of a movie.) Brooke’s faith in her follows next when she fires Callahan from her
employ and opts to have Elle defend her instead. When she wins the case, she proves her
detractors wrong once and for all.
There’s an argument to be made that Legally Blonde is actually a cruel reflection of
the things women won’t be able to achieve. What are the chances of a 1L law student going
up against a major law firm? But the revolution is in the fantasy. Elle doesn’t win the case
by using her “superior legal mind,” but with her knowledge of hair care and grooming. Like
Marvel’s Agent Carter did later (and to slightly better effect) Legally Blonde leans into Elle’s
femininity as a way to help her achieve her goals. She doesn’t win the big case despite her
bouncy hair and pink suit, but because of it. She doesn’t adopt the masculine as a means to
excel but instead brings the masculine into a feminine realm.
The way Legally Blonde presents Elle’s transformation is significant because it casts
aside the assumption that women are the characters who need to assimilate into hostile
conditions. Elle adapts, but she remains her true self, bending her circumstances to fit into
her world on her own terms. The film demonstrates an understanding that there are
different kinds of knowledge that are all contextually important. The likelihood that after-
perm care will factor into a murder case are slim to none, but that small detail of the story
allows the audience to enter into Elle’s area of expertise and gives her a venue to display
the hard-won knowledge she has earned through her cultivation of the feminine.
Elle is merely one of many ways that women have been depicted onscreen. In many
circles, she likely would not be counted among the most significant. But her existence
signals an understanding that even when women exist in a way that is theoretically
8
identical to the social ideal, there will always be ways in which she falls short and must
work to make up the difference. Elle had to work to make it at Harvard, but there are lots of
women who’d have to work to make it in Malibu, too.
A version of this essay was originally published in Ampersand, an online magazine run by the
Specialized Journalism (The Arts) Master’s candidates at the University of Southern
California, on November 20, 2019. It has been republished here with permission from the
editor.
9
SLICED AND DICED
What Happened to Horror’s Virginal Final Girls?
A version of the following essay was originally published in 2019.
Horror movie fans will be familiar with the concept of the Final Girl. The term was
originally conceived in 1992 by Carol J. Clover as a way to describe the traits of the sole
female victim who remains alive to tell the story of a film’s violent crime – or many violent
crimes. Clover’s central idea was that in the films where the trope is evident, the viewer
initially sees the Final Girl through the killer’s perspective, but that partway through the
movie, they begin to identify directly with her instead.
Final Girls illustrated the moral split between the chaste and the virtuous. First,
there are the hard-drinking, promiscuous girls who die first, and then there are the
demure, virginal girls who survive to take down the murderer. The latter is the Final Girl.
Pop culture is replete with characters that fit the bill—Jess Bradford in Black Christmas,
Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nancy Thompson in The Nightmare on Elm
Street—and their existence has become as integral to the slasher genre as the killers
themselves.
As our cultural attitudes about women have changed over time, that change has
gradually been reflected on screen. As a result, the original Final Girl is slowly but surely
being crowded out by a newer, more progressive iteration that acknowledges the
restrictive ideas that initially gave birth to her. Over the last couple of decades, and
particularly in the last ten years, the last girl standing has looked a lot different from the
final girls of the past. In films like Scream, The Cabin in The Woods and It Follows, final girls
have complicated the existing frame of the trope by pushing against its restrictions.
10
Whether it’s by having sex, refusing to be constricted by archaic ideas of femininity,
or simply by teaming up to fight together, these women now survive despite leading lives
the genre used to consider wholly immoral and in need of corrective punishment—they’re
a new kind of Final Girl. The Final Girls who were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s have
become more nuanced over time, and that progress paved the way for the Finals Girls of
Ready or Not and 2019’s Black Christmas who directly confront issues of misogyny and sex-
negativity.
In some ways, the New Final Girl is almost the original Final Girl’s polar opposite.
Rather than surviving because of her innocence, naivete or virginity, the New Final Girl is
the woman who makes it to the end of the film alive specifically because of her rejection of
the old norms about what makes a woman morally deserving. The New Final Girl embraces
drink, drugs, and sex and defends her engagement in each of them. She insists on being
seen as a full human being and actively, often violently defends her right to do so. Most of
all, the New Final Girl is still an active participant in her own survival—she knows the
original Final Girl shouldn’t have had to sand off her edges to stay alive. The New Final Girl
is not a virginal survivor but an intentional fighter who asserts her right to exist despite
perceived moral flaws.
In the 2019 sequel slasher Happy Death Day 2U, Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) finds
herself once again stuck in the murderous time loop of the first film. Over and over, she
relives the same day, and it ends when she is brutally murdered by a serial killer known as
Babyface. In the first film, the culprit is Tree’s sorority sister and roommate Lori (Ruby
Modine). The two women are both having an affair with the same married professor, and
11
Lori’s jealousy puts Tree in her crosshairs. In the sequel, Babyface is none other than the
philandering professor himself, trying to eliminate any evidence of his transgressions.
What makes Tree’s Final Girl status so interesting is that she begins the story as one
of the “immoral women” who would usually die in a thriller. Tree is by all accounts a typical
sorority mean girl. When we meet her, she is recovering from a night of partying and on her
way to meet the professor she’s carrying on with. And in fact, she does die, over and over
again; punished for her ruthlessness, immorality and general misbehavior. But through the
mechanics of the film itself, she evolves into a New Final Girl through sheer determination.
In both films, Tree breaks her loop and returns to her life not by becoming more
virtuous, but by becoming a more compassionate and considerate person. She improves
and grows as a character—including ending her affair—not because those things make her
unworthy of redemption, but because they are not the best choices for her as a person. She
undergoes significant character growth without ever placing a moral frame on her
sexuality or femininity. And through each of the infinite deaths it takes her to get there, she
plots and schemes to find her killer and thwart them, determined to prevent her eventual
death and save herself.
Tree’s character subverts the trope in an interesting way because it’s her actual
death that furthers her character growth. Where death is usually the ultimate punishment
for a fallen woman in the slasher genre, here it is a means to facilitate her transformation
into a New Final Girl. Several times, Tree intentionally kills herself in service of a larger
goal; sometimes to gather more information about her situation and sometimes to undo the
murders of other characters. As a result, her deaths then become an intentional sacrifice
12
that signals her increasing virtue, instead of confirming its absence. It’s a large departure
from the way the original Final Girl’s has traditionally functioned in films like these.
Similarly, the evolution of Halloween’s Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) into a New
Final Girl in the film’s 2018 sequel of the same name is particularly notable because the
character’s first iteration was in many ways the definitional final girl—most other
examples are direct descendants of her legacy. In the first film, Strode is left as the sole
survivor of the serial killer Michael Myers’ murder spree—the only young woman in the
film who chose to abstain from the usual vices. Her survival largely conformed to
expectations for women in horror at the time and helped to cement the trope in the genre.
But in the film’s most recent sequel—which retroactively erases the several that
came before—Laurie is now an older woman, driven to extremes by her fixation on
stopping Myers’ return. In the 40 years since the events of the first film, Laurie has grown
into an obsessive, battle-worn veteran of the war in her own mind. She is convinced that
Myers will return and has devoted her life to preparing for that eventuality. In the process,
she has lost custody of her daughter and become estranged from her daughter’s family. She
is perceived as a lonely old woman too traumatized by her past to move on.
Of course, Myers does eventually return. But this time Laurie is ready for him,
having rigged her entire house to trap and kill him. Whereas in 1978 she was permitted to
survive by virtue of her moral purity, in 2018 she fights like hell for that survival, taking
active steps to make sure that Myers can no longer victimize her. She takes the lead in
tracking Myers down and trapping him on her home turf. After spending years
contemplating and preparing for the return of his torment, Laurie has transformed herself
13
into the Ultimate Final Girl through sheer force of will. She has no intention of being
defeated yet again.
Critically, Laurie must also protect her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and
granddaughter Allyson (Virginia Gardener) this time around, unwittingly folding them into
a generational legacy of victimization and defense. When the threat they have dismissed for
so long reveals itself to be real, they join forces with Laurie to fight and eliminate it—Myers
is now a specter that haunts them all—he is the source of their estrangement and the origin
of their familial trauma. Defeating Myers together connects the women as Final Girls of a
new generation, forcing them all to overlook their own and each other’s flaws in order to
face the embodiment of their fractured relationships. Laurie leads the charge, but her
family takes up her mantle.
This isn’t to say that the old trope never survives. In fact, Allyson’s best friend Vicky
is killed during a babysitting job soon after letting her wayward boyfriend into the house. It
wouldn’t be a stretch to interpret her death as the same kind of stark moral judgment that
historically happened in slasher films. This is especially true given the contrast with
Allyson’s own encounter with Myers. After her boyfriend’s best friend inappropriately
propositions her, he is immediately murdered while she survives. The message couldn’t be
clearer. Sexual impulses and urges are punishable by death.
But one of the starkest examples of this shift in recent years is 2018’s Assassination
Nation which explored the trope in thrilling style. Set in conservative Salem, the movie
focuses on a group of teen girls who find themselves at the center of a small-town lynch
mob when they are blamed for the release of the community's private information. The
14
girls are not guilty of the mass doxing, but their reputations as “loose women” make them
ideal targets for the ire and deranged, violent anger of the town’s men and boys.
The girls—Lily (Odessa Young), Sarah (Suki Waterhouse), Bex (Hari Nef) and Em
(Abra) – are known at their high school for their skimpy outfits, questionable choices in
boys and their perceived promiscuity. They are open about and proud of their burgeoning
sexuality and enjoy exploring their relationships to the men in their lives. Lily is dating an
abusive high school boy and carrying on an illicit affair with a married neighbor. Bex is
trans, and keeping her relationship with the popular football player a secret at his request.
Sarah and Em are living with their mother Nance, who is implied to be operating a brothel
out of her home.
When the community devolves into ultraviolence, the citizens hunt the girls across
the town, determined to punish them for being forced to confront their own once-private
sexual shames. As the balance of power shifts, the horror genre tropes follow in quick
succession. From a coordinated home invasion to a horde of masked killers to rudimentary,
homemade weapons, the girls suddenly find themselves in the middle of their very own
slasher film.
Earlier in the genre’s history, all four of these women would be fated to die before
the credits rolled. Their proximity to vice marks them as fallen women, and only the
morally pure survive the transformative power of abject terror. By facing violent moral
judgment and coming out alive, these girls reinforce their humanity and are reborn as a
new kind of virtuous fighter. But this time, their virtue is measured by feminist ideals
instead of patriarchal ones allowing them to emerge unscathed. As New Final Girls, all four
of them not only survive, but continue on to restore order to the town. The girls rescue
15
each other from the outsized violence the men are trying to inflict on them (including an
attempted rape and hanging) and take up arms to defend themselves. The film ends as they
deliver a call to action to the town’s girls, surrounded by bodies and covered in glitter, both
claiming the righteousness of their femininity and rejecting the ubiquity of patriarchal
terror. Through female solidarity, they all survive and mete out the violence necessary to
do so.
Assassination Nation is unique in that the girls are explicitly targeted because of
their sexuality—usually, this aspect of the genre is left as subtext. But here, the metaphor is
almost deconstructed by bringing both the reasons for their attack and subsequent defense
to the surface. They become New Final Girls because given the plot constraints, their only
options are to transform themselves or die.
The New Final Girl is a natural evolution of the original trope. Stories are becoming
more egalitarian, and with that comes a necessary examination of the moral dimension of
the traditional way women are depicted in film. But in the end, all these Final Girls aren’t as
different from each other as we might think. The virtuous distinction that we make
between them is largely based on an old patriarchal frame that divides women into
Madonnas or Whores, then kills the whores. Part of making the genre more progressive—
or dare I say feminist—is rejecting that binary entirely.
Teenaged Laurie Strode and college-aged Tree Gelman might have led different lives
and made different choices, but when it came down to it, they both survived because they
resolved to fight and refused to die. The haunting specter of violent masculinity came for all
the women mentioned here, and they all triumphed, even under the restrictive gaze of a
society that expects feminine perfection. But no matter how stark the contrast may be,
16
these changes are progressive strides that honor the history of the slasher genre in
inventive ways, while bringing them into the contemporary moment. The Final Girl
survived, but the New Final Girl thrives, and she’s ready to fight again another day.
A version of this essay was originally published in the editorial section of Rotten Tomatoes, a
movie and television critical review aggregator run by Fandango on March 6, 2019. It has
been republished here with permission from the editor. The original version includes
hyperlinked attribution
17
REFERENCES
MOVIES AND FILMS
A Nightmare on Elm Street, dir. Wes Craven, performed by Heather Langenkamp, John
Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Robert Englund and Johnny Depp (1984; New Line Cinema),
film.
Assassination Nation, dir. Sam Levinson, performed by Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse,
Hari Nef and Abra (2018; Neon), film.
Black Christmas, dir. Sophia Takal, performed by Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily
Donoghue and Brittany O’Grady (2019; Blumhouse Productions), film.
Halloween, dir. John Carpenter, performed by Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence
(1978; Compass International Pictures), film.
Halloween, dir. David Gordon Green, performed by Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, Judy Greer
and Virginia Gardner (2018; Blumhouse Productions), film.
Happy Death Day, dir. Christopher Landon, performed by Jessica Rothe and Israel
Broussard (2017; Blumhouse Productions), film.
Happy Death Day 2 U, dir. Christopher Landon, performed by Jessica Rothe and Israel
Broussard (2019; Blumhouse Productions), film.
It Follows, dir. David Robert Mitchell, performed by Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel
Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi (2014; Northern Lights Films), film.
Legally Blonde, dir. Robert Luketic, performed by Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma
Blair, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber and Jennifer Coolidge (2001; Type A Films), film.
18
Ready or Not, dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, performed by Samara Weaving,
Mark O’Brien, Adam Brody, Henry Czerny and Andie MacDowell (2019; Fox
Searchlight Pictures), film.
Scream, dir. Wes Craven, performed by Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox,
Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich and Drew Barrymore (1996;
Dimension Films), film.
The Cabin in the Woods, dir. Drew Goddard, performed by Kristen Connolly, Chris
Hemsworth, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins and
Bradley Whitford (2011; Lionsgate), film.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, dir. Tobe Hooper, performed by Marilyn Burns, Paul A
Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen (1974; Bryanston Distributing
Company), film.
ESSAYS
Fitzgerald Tom and Lorenzo Marquez. Reviews of “Marvel’s Agent Carter.”
TomandLorenzo.com. to January 7, 2015 to February 10, 2016.
https://tomandlorenzo.com/tag/marvels-agent-carter/
Laird, Emily E. “Updating the Final Girl Theory.” The Film Journal. May 13, 2017.
https://medium.com/@TheFilmJournal/updating-the-final-girl-theory-
b37ec0b1acf4
Lattila, Maria. “How The Final Girl, Trope Has Evolved: From Elm Street To A Vet School In
France.” Film Inquiry. January 29, 2019. https://www.filminquiry.com/final-girl-
trope/
19
Marshall, Sarah. “Remote Control: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan and the Spectacle of
Female Power and Pain.” BelieverMag.com. January 1, 2014.
https://believermag.com/remote-control/
Mc Andrews, Mary Beth. “The History and Transformation of the Final Girl.” Film School
Rejects. September 30, 2019. https://filmschoolrejects.com/final-girl-history/
Squires, John. “’Happy Death Day” Heroine Tree Gelbman is the Perfect Survivor Girl for a
Whole New Generation.” Bloody Disgusting. February 14, 2019. https://bloody-
disgusting.com/editorials/3546634/happy-death-day-heroine-tree-gelbman-
perfect-survivor-girl-whole-new-generation/
Totaro, Donato. “The Final Girl: A Few Thoughts on Feminism and Horror.” Offsecreen.com.
Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2002. https://offscreen.com/view/feminism_and_horror
Young, Cate. “All The Women In The World: An Argument in Favor of Women Onscreen.”
Ampersand. November 20, 2019. http://www.ampersandla.com/all-the-women-in-
the-world-an-argument-in-favor-of-women-onscreen/
Young, Cate. “Assassination Nation and the Cathartic Power of Female Rage.”
TheMuse.Jezebel.com. September 25, 2018.
https://themuse.jezebel.com/assassination-nation-and-the-cathartic-power-of-
female-1829286983
Young, Cate. “Respecting the Dilettante: Elle Woods And the Power of Pink.” Ampersand.
November 20, 2019. http://www.ampersandla.com/respecting-the-dilettante-elle-
woods-and-the-power-of-pink/
Young, Cate. “What Happened to Cinema’s Virginal Final Girl?” Rotten Tomatoes. March 6,
2020. https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/what-happened-to-cinemas-virginal-
final-girl/
20
BOOKS
Fitzgerald, Tom and Lorenzo Marquez. Legendary Children: The First Decade of Rupaul’s
Drag Race and The Last Century of Queer Life. New York: Penguin Random House,
2020.
Irby, Samantha. Meaty. New York: Vintage Books, 2013.
Kantor, Jodi and Megan Twohey. She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That
Helped Ignite a Movement. Penguin Press, 2019.
Massey, Alana. All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen To Be
Famous Strangers. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2017
Nussbaum, Emily. I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. New York:
Random House, 2019.
Petersen, Anne Helen. Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly
Woman. New York: Penguin Random House, 2017
Rivers, Caryl. Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women. New Hampshire:
University Press of New England, 2007.
Nussbaum, Emily. I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution. New York:
Random House, 2019.
Zeisler, Andi. We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and
Selling of a Political Movement. New York: PublicAffairs™, 2016.
21
PUBLICATIONS AND ARTICLES
Christensen, Kyle. "The Final Girl versus Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street”:
Proposing a Stronger Model of Feminism in Slasher Horror Cinema." Studies in
Popular Culture34, no. 1 (2011): 23-47. Accessed February 18, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/23416349.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Updated
Edition. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 1992. Accessed February
18, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc7776m.
Foster, Gwendolyn. Prairie Schooner 69, no. 2 (1995): 156-61. Accessed February 18, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/40633958.
Orgad, Shani. The Cruel Optimism of The Good Wife: The Fantastic Working Mother on the
Fantastical Treadmill. Sage Publications, Television & New Media 2017, Vol, 18 (2)
2016. Accessed September 2019.
LIVE PERFORMANCES
Hach, Heather. Legally Blonde (The Musical), New York; Broadway, 2007.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKMsllsH0zI
RECORDINGS
Artists, Various. Legally Blonde: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording),
Ghostlight Records, 2007, compact disc.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
The following essays are the first in a continued series published across both Ampersand LA and Rotten Tomatoes. The project’s aim was to examine the roles that female characters are given in popular films, and comment on how they have changed, expanded and grown during my lifetime through the lens of familiar filmic tropes. ❧ With reference to well-known, female-led films of the last 20 years, the essays in this thesis serve to underline the shifting perceptions of women onscreen. ❧ These essays and the ones published after them are works of cultural criticism. Together they give a glimpse into a new way of considering female-characters. My aim is to reframe established ideas of female representation through a lens of feminist film criticism, identify positive and negative changes over time and make suggestions on how female representation can be improved. ❧ This thesis examines the inherent political tension of Legally Blonde’s depiction of femininity and examines the implications of the rejection of the puritanical in the New Final Girl trope in horror films. Later essays not included here delve into the seductive appeal of female thieves, and the necessary empathy of action heroines. ❧ The works included here aim to prompt readers and viewers alike to reconsider their perceptions of the filmic roles assigned to women moving forward and engage with the ongoing trend of more progressive character development for women in movies.
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Young, Catherine Margaret
(author)
Core Title
All the women in the world: an examination of the representation of women onscreen
School
Annenberg School for Communication
Degree
Master of Arts
Degree Program
Specialized Journalism (The Arts)
Publication Date
05/12/2020
Defense Date
05/11/2020
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
#MeToo,action,action heroes,Andrea Sachs,Assassination Nation,Criticism,Elle Woods,feminism,feminist,film,film criticism,Final Girl,Halloween,Happy Death Day,horror,Legally Blonde,Miranda Priestly,movies,OAI-PMH Harvest,representation,The Devil Wears Prada,Warner Huntington III
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Page, Tim (
committee chair
), Imre, Aniko (
committee member
), Winston, Diane (
committee member
)
Creator Email
cate@cate-young.com,cmyoung@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-304720
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UC11664028
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Thesis
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Young, Catherine Margaret
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texts
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(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...
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Tags
#MeToo
action
action heroes
Andrea Sachs
Assassination Nation
Elle Woods
feminism
feminist
film criticism
Final Girl
Happy Death Day
horror
Legally Blonde
Miranda Priestly
representation
The Devil Wears Prada
Warner Huntington III