The Ones Who Did Not Die: Captivity Narratives and Final Girls
In this talk I place two representations of "suffering women" -- the Final Girl and the woman in captivity -- in productive friction. Through this comparative reading, I posit the woman in captivity as a kind of precursor to the Final Girl and show how colonial epistemologies subtend representations of the slasher film female victim-hero figure that is the Final Girl. Stories of suffering white female figures like the Final Girl and the woman in captivity destabilize settler colonialism’s gender binaries and subject-object binaries by enabling white women to temporarily inhabit forms of subjectivity which is usually reserved for white men. In the case of the Final Girl, this character archetype comes to inhabit the traditionally masculine role of the hero by learning to, at least temporarily, control the "looks" of the monster, the camera, and the viewer. Similarly, the Puritan woman who writes of her experiences amongst Indigenous captors occupies, temporarily, the exceptional state of a witness-subject who can attest to her own experiences of suffering and survival, acts of testimony which were largely only accessible to men. Through a comparative close reading of the captivity text A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson alongside notable Final Girl texts such as Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street, I will show that it is through the acquisition of a colonial "knowing gaze" that the suffering white woman is partially afforded a "generic," unmarked (and therefore universal) form of subjectivity.
- Kali Simmons (Portland State University, US)
In this talk I place two representations of "suffering women" -- the Final Girl and the woman in captivity -- in productive friction. Through this comparative reading, I posit the woman in captivity as a kind of precursor to the Final Girl and show how colonial epistemologies subtend representations of the slasher film female victim-hero figure that is the Final Girl. Stories of suffering white female figures like the Final Girl and the woman in captivity destabilize settler colonialism’s gender binaries and subject-object binaries by enabling white women to temporarily inhabit forms of subjectivity which is usually reserved for white men. In the case of the Final Girl, this character archetype comes to inhabit the traditionally masculine role of the hero by learning to, at least temporarily, control the "looks" of the monster, the camera, and the viewer. Similarly, the Puritan woman who writes of her experiences amongst Indigenous captors occupies, temporarily, the exceptional state of a witness-subject who can attest to her own experiences of suffering and survival, acts of testimony which were largely only accessible to men. Through a comparative close reading of the captivity text A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson alongside notable Final Girl texts such as Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street, I will show that it is through the acquisition of a colonial "knowing gaze" that the suffering white woman is partially afforded a "generic," unmarked (and therefore universal) form of subjectivity.
The Fantasy of Whiteness in the Slasher Genre
The paper will analyze the male slasher who wears a white mask in movies and its sequels such as Halloween, Friday 13th and Scream. How can we read this mask in combination with the slashing in a context of critical race and Whiteness studies and what does the figure of the slasher tell us about the construction of White masculinity? And how may "slasher studies and theory" contribute to critical race theory?
Following the assumptions of Whiteness studies it is crucial for the position of White masculinity to be unmarked and invisible. The white mask of the slasher could be read in analogy of this function of Whiteness, that is the cause of racial signification and action, even murder. Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks assumes that Whiteness is a master signifier that produces racial differences, while it itself remains outside the play of signification. She describes Whiteness as a symbolic structure that produces racial visibility through symbolic "cuts" while denying symbolic castration in sexual difference. Following her concept of Whiteness as a regime of looking and categorization, I will examine the "slashes" that kill the victims as a metaphor of a racial differentiation, as a process of inclusions and exclusions that constitutes a pattern of organizing human difference. My hypothesis is that slasher films do not so much reflect a racist ideology, but visualize the usually invisible structures of racial differenciation and the promises that White masculinity offer. This promise is the fantasy of an omnipotent (non-castrated) subject.
- Michaela Wünsch (University of Klagenfurt, AT)
The paper will analyze the male slasher who wears a white mask in movies and its sequels such as Halloween, Friday 13th and Scream. How can we read this mask in combination with the slashing in a context of critical race and Whiteness studies and what does the figure of the slasher tell us about the construction of White masculinity? And how may "slasher studies and theory" contribute to critical race theory?
Following the assumptions of Whiteness studies it is crucial for the position of White masculinity to be unmarked and invisible. The white mask of the slasher could be read in analogy of this function of Whiteness, that is the cause of racial signification and action, even murder. Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks assumes that Whiteness is a master signifier that produces racial differences, while it itself remains outside the play of signification. She describes Whiteness as a symbolic structure that produces racial visibility through symbolic "cuts" while denying symbolic castration in sexual difference. Following her concept of Whiteness as a regime of looking and categorization, I will examine the "slashes" that kill the victims as a metaphor of a racial differentiation, as a process of inclusions and exclusions that constitutes a pattern of organizing human difference. My hypothesis is that slasher films do not so much reflect a racist ideology, but visualize the usually invisible structures of racial differenciation and the promises that White masculinity offer. This promise is the fantasy of an omnipotent (non-castrated) subject.
"There’s a Maniac Loose in the City": Space, Identity and Boundary Crossing in the Urban Slasher
This paper offers a spatial reading of the slasher film that attempts to theorise the use and representation of urban space in the subgenre. As a result of its enduring association with an adolescent demographic, the natural home of the American slasher has, historically, been the suburbs. A quasi-bucolic space, characterised by affluence and homogeny, the suburb is defined by rigid boundaries, both symbolic and actual, that separate out and police racial, class, sexual and gender identities. When a killer stalks the suburbs, these boundaries are momentarily threatened but ultimately reaffirmed. In contrast, urban topographies are dynamic, multivalent sites, where "boundaries can be challenged and unease can occur" (England and Simon 2010: 202). Because cities already function as sites of categorical instability, urban slashers are comparatively rare and often deeply ambivalent about such acts of boundary crossing.
This paper focuses on three controversial slashers set in New York City during the late 1970s and early 1980s -- Driller Killer (1979), Maniac (1980) and The New York Ripper (1982) -- and argues that each of these films associates violence with the permeable boundaries of the cityscape. All three of these films were produced just after the phenomenon of "white flight" resulted in a large-scale exodus of middle-class white Americans from the city and, crucially, just before urban renewal projects led to the redevelopment of notoriously squalid or "vice-ridden" areas like 42nd Street and Times Square. In analysing these films, I draw heavily on Samuel R. Delany’s 1999 study Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and his argument that prior to their renovation New York’s "seedier" neighbourhoods served as cultural loci that promoted contact and communication across the lines of class, race, gender and sexuality. However, where Delany views such boundary crossings as pleasurable and productive, many contemporary commentators feared their capacity to destabilise ingrained social hierarchies. The three films discussed in this paper display a profound ambivalence about the fluidity of boundaries within an urban context, appearing simultaneously intrigued by the dynamism of city spaces and repulsed by their potential for violence and disorder. This paper will also interrogate the notoriously grimy aesthetic of these films, employing Mary Douglas’s theory that "dirt is essentially disorder" (1966: 2) to argue that the texts in question utilise images of filth and decay to visualise the disordered, fluid boundaries of urbanity.
- Miranda Corcoran (University College Cork, IE)
This paper offers a spatial reading of the slasher film that attempts to theorise the use and representation of urban space in the subgenre. As a result of its enduring association with an adolescent demographic, the natural home of the American slasher has, historically, been the suburbs. A quasi-bucolic space, characterised by affluence and homogeny, the suburb is defined by rigid boundaries, both symbolic and actual, that separate out and police racial, class, sexual and gender identities. When a killer stalks the suburbs, these boundaries are momentarily threatened but ultimately reaffirmed. In contrast, urban topographies are dynamic, multivalent sites, where "boundaries can be challenged and unease can occur" (England and Simon 2010: 202). Because cities already function as sites of categorical instability, urban slashers are comparatively rare and often deeply ambivalent about such acts of boundary crossing.
This paper focuses on three controversial slashers set in New York City during the late 1970s and early 1980s -- Driller Killer (1979), Maniac (1980) and The New York Ripper (1982) -- and argues that each of these films associates violence with the permeable boundaries of the cityscape. All three of these films were produced just after the phenomenon of "white flight" resulted in a large-scale exodus of middle-class white Americans from the city and, crucially, just before urban renewal projects led to the redevelopment of notoriously squalid or "vice-ridden" areas like 42nd Street and Times Square. In analysing these films, I draw heavily on Samuel R. Delany’s 1999 study Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and his argument that prior to their renovation New York’s "seedier" neighbourhoods served as cultural loci that promoted contact and communication across the lines of class, race, gender and sexuality. However, where Delany views such boundary crossings as pleasurable and productive, many contemporary commentators feared their capacity to destabilise ingrained social hierarchies. The three films discussed in this paper display a profound ambivalence about the fluidity of boundaries within an urban context, appearing simultaneously intrigued by the dynamism of city spaces and repulsed by their potential for violence and disorder. This paper will also interrogate the notoriously grimy aesthetic of these films, employing Mary Douglas’s theory that "dirt is essentially disorder" (1966: 2) to argue that the texts in question utilise images of filth and decay to visualise the disordered, fluid boundaries of urbanity.