Final Fatal Girls - Horror and the Legal Subject

• Published in: The Australian feminist law journal Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 113 - 129
• Main Authors: Crofts, Penny, van Rijswijk, Honni
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nathan, Qld Routledge 02.01.2024; Taylor & Francis (UK); Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Audiences; Conservatism; Females; Feminism; Feminist theory; Genre; horror; Horror films; Imagination; Intersectionality; Intersectionality (Sociology); Justice; Law; Law and film; legal subject; Mass media images; Motion pictures; Psychological aspects; Racism; Sexuality; Taboos; Women in motion pictures
• ISSN: 1320-0968; 2204-0064
• DOI: 10.1080/13200968.2024.2333541

In mainstream culture, the horror genre is frequently looked down upon as trivial, shlocky and nasty - horror films are seen as being cheap to make, made for a younger, mass audience, and horror films tend to dwell on society's taboos, phobias and anxieties. Horror can also be a conservative genre - racist, misogynistic and queer phobic - enforcing rules that lead to horrible endings for characters that are non-white, queer or who are women. However, the horror genre also has the potential to be progressive, subversive and critical. We argue that if horror can rethink and renegotiate the meaning of gender, race, politics and power, then so should law. Despite the longevity of feminist legal theoretical recognition of intersectionality, the law still has an outdated and conservative conceptualisation of the legal subject and of its audience - for whom the law is written. Through our reading of the trajectory of the figure of the Final Girl, we argue that the law should see the evolution of the horror genre as a didactic text. We draw upon the insights of transformations of the Final Girl over recent decades and the remaking of the cultural imagination, to argue that the legal imagination likewise needs to be transformed.