THE BLACK FINAL GIRL - HOW CULTURE AND ETHNICITY AFFECT OUTCOME

The Final Girl trope has been described in the Slasher film context as where the audience first views the terror through the eyes of the killer, then experiences a shift to the point of view of the Final Girl. (See e.g., Halloween). More recent films have viewed the terror from an omniscient perspective but still shifts focus to the Final Girl who the audience early on views as "not ready for prime time," but who somehow, ultimately beats the odds. Because American horror films have so often used Black people as fodder, i.e., the first to die (Taurean Blacque- DeepSpace Six) or the last to die (Ernie Hudson - Leviathan), how do our Final Girl characters differ from the common trope? Join us as we Discuss it in the OTHERhood!