This article analyzes characterization (of the monster and the “Final Girl”) and identification (of the male audience) in the slasher film. The author engages in a critical dialogue with key theories of gender in the horror film, particularly Carol Clover's work, arguing that these films, despite their formal deviance from Hollywood (gender) formulas—such as positioning a female figure at the center of the narrative—do not usually depart from that cinema's patriarchal signification. Indeed, most slasher films are violently misogynist and homophobic—punishing female sexuality, equating feminity with victimhood, and portraying the killer/monster as a queer figure. It is also argued that the male audience does not straightforwardly identify with the Final Girl. Instead, slasher films rely on primary identification and offer empathy rather than identification. Moreover, insofar as secondary identification with the female protagonist does occur, its aggressive impulses are projected onto the monster.
In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of this forum contribution:
My contribution to this forum on life writing contemplates life narrative practices in documentary film and proposes two theses that also bear relevance for other fields and media under discussion here. Firstly, it problematizes the concepts of autobiography and life writing for their applicability to (documentary) film, arguing with Alisa Lebow for a notion of "first person film."[1] Secondly, it contends that representations of the self in documentary film are more appropriately comprehended as a discourse rather than a genre.
What happens when we imagine the sonic worlds of literary texts, when we focus on voice in film, or when we study the sound of social protest? How can we integrate sound studies into our academic practices? How does sound relate to space and place? How can American studies scholars understand the link between sonic and social relations? Music, voices, noise, and silence are constitutive elements of phenomena that we as American studies scholars regularly investigate. However, in contrast to the well-established prominence of visual culture studies, sound features less prominently in our field's research—an oversight (pardon the pun!) this issue of JAAAS seeks to remedy.
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