the black girl lives! and more on the "final girls" of modern horror

warning: i'm going to talk about a film that absolutely no one saw or gives a damn about. last year, around january, there was a film that snuck past everyone called escape room. now, there was not a single person who say this film  and thought that it was doing something special (myself included), because it was one of those horror films that comes out during  "dumb month" season. this "dump month" consists of really terrible horror that most studios have little-to-no hope for in terms of profit. whether it be weather, the lack of spending due to the holidays or the distractions of the Oscars, Golden Globes and the Superbowl, people just don't seem to go out to the movies as much in january and feburary, so to fill up slots, theaters fill up with low budget, b-horror, dump films like escape room.  however, again, while absolutely no one had anything to say about this film, i am here to tell you today, that was a lie. 

 

it was all a lie. i have things to say!

 

escape room is a film about a group of people who meet in order complete an escape room and win $10,000. once they're in the room, they realize that the room is, in fact, more complicated than they thought and they have to work together to solve the puzzles or they will die. and while i don't really care about the plot or a majority of the characters, it was engaging enough to keep me interested while completely sober. moreover, the specifics of one character kept me interested and that is the one Black girl in the film. a Black girl who survives till the very end, i might add!

thus, enter, zoe (taylor russell). zoe is a bright-eyed and overly anxious physics student. she, like the many others, was invited to the escape room for the chance to win $10,000. she, also like the others, was brought there because she survived a disaster and the nasty individuals that brought them together decided it would be fun to see these lucky survivors duke it out for some coin. in the end, *spoiler*  she makes it out alive! and while this shouldn't surprise me, it does. the history of horror has a bad track record in keeping its Black characters alive. this track record especially extends itself towards Black women who act as side characters that barely get enough screen time to warn the main characters of whatever impending doom that is coming their way. however, what interests me most about zoe is not only is she Black and lives, but that zoe is the "final girl" of escape room because she uses her wits and smarts to get her out of the sticky situation she's in.

 

traditionally in horror, there is usually one character left to face off against the villain of the film. whether it be a single person, a group of people or even a monster of some sort, after everyone has been picked off by the villian(s), there's usually one person left to defeat the evil, and more than often, they're a woman. this concept was coined in 1992 by carol j. clover in her book men, women, and chainsaws: gender in the modern horror film and its a phenomenon that's stood the test of time. in the book, clover describes the "final girl" as sexually unavailable or virginal. she avoids drinking and drug usage as well, which are behaviors that help her stay alive throughout the film. while her friends are off doing drugs and drinking and having sex, the "final girl" is alert and aware of her surroundings and the impending evil coming after her. clover also writes that this is how the "final girl" operates as the "investigative consciousness" of the film. 

 

we, the audience, follow the film through the eyes of this intelligent and curious person and as she moves forward, so does the plot of the film. one of clover's theories behind why this trope exists is voyeurism through audience identification. the horror genre is very male-oriented and, thus, forcing male audience members relate to and empathize with female characters seemingly puts women at the forefront of a genre they've both been exploited by and denied access to. horror, on the surface level, is often a genre that actually glorfies violence against women for the sake of entertainment. the "final girl" subverts that by making the viewer (namely men) view violence from the perspective of a victimized women and thus, making them empathize with her agaisnt the killer .however, while the trope does seemingly stand as a symbol of female empowerment, it does raise several questions about what kinds of women are allowed to be "final girls" in the first place??

 

now, i'm not going to talk about the phallic argument to talk about how women in horror are constantly being penetrated by objects by the killer to talk about how sexist this is.so, i've sat through enough lectures on horror to understand that man holding knife + conservative, virginal woman = sex through violence. so, we're not going to do that, but i will say that while the genre is built around fomulae and symbolism like this. in wes craven's scream, (an OG horror classic) our favorite film buff, randy (jamie kennedy) breaks down the rules as following:

 

   1.  sex = death (meaning, if you have sex, you are distracted and thus, you will die. however, this idea comes also from a very conservative mindset in order to deter women from having premarital sex.)

   2. drinking (or drug) = death (same difference. if you do these things, you're distracting yourself)

  3. never say "i'll be right back" (you won't)

 

of course, half the people that randy is explaining these rules to are drunk and therefore, are written away or will pass away throughout the movie. however, its important to note that even though randy states that these are the rules, these are rules that are forever being reinvented as horror becomes more modern.

not only does the "final girl' of scream actually have sex and live to tell the tale, but in 2014's it follows and 2015's the witch, our "final girls" use their sexuality to their advantage in order to defeat the evil oppressing them. moreover, in scream, sidney (neve campbell) talks about how unlike the typical "final girl" she is. i mean, most of them are bookish and quiet and sidney is that to an extent, but she does fully punch a bitch in the face. hell, sidney even fully shoots the killer again after they're on the group because she fears they may come back. moreover, in 2019's ready or not and 2011's you're next, we have two women who are actively hunting the people after them. this is, again, unlike the women of before who are simply just trying to get away. in 2019's midsommar, dani (florence pugh) is the only one that questions the behavior of the cult and moreover, ends up falling in align with them and murdering her fuckboy boyfriend. 

 

good for them, right? but where does that leave Black women?

 

and so, this is why zoe is so important to me. zoe is Black. therefore, she is not the traditional "final girl." while we're getting better in terms of making the final girl less like the perfect, preppy, little white girl we've seen time-and-time again in horror, it is evident we still have a bit of a ways to go. Black characters are typically written off and typecast as "strong" and "funny", but in horror they are usually the first to go. this is because they're typically seen as disposable and violence against them isn't treated with the same urgency and intensity of that of white characters.  this reflects real world issues of violence against Black women and how violence against Black women is met with memes, jokes and mistrust (i.e: what happened with megan thee stallion when she was shot). Black women in horror are more likely to be used as an lesson for the actual "final girl" rather than actually getting to survive the horrors alongside her. 

 

and then we have 2019's us. in us, we have adelaide (lupita nyong'o), a dark skinned Black woman as the final girl. the film has a lot to say about race, class and the intersections between them, but it does so in a way, that, like the "final girl" trope as a whole, we question where our loyalties lie. SPOILER ALERT. (AS IN I AM ABOUT TO SPOIL ALL OF THE 2019 FILM US, SO IF YOU DIDN'T SEE IT, GO AWAY AND WATCH IT OR GET SPOILED):

 

the film is about adelaide and her family being hunted by a family that looks exactly them. while we are obviously rooting for them to survive, the twist of the film reveals that the adelaide doppelganger is actually the real adelaide and that the women we follow throughout the film is an actual member of the murderous family. the family is revealed to be a group of government clones called the tethered and they live underground. the adelaide we follow in us initially lured the fake one into the tethered underground as a child and trapped her there and took her spot. there, she made her way in the world and found success and happiness in a nice suburban neighborhood or what she deemed to be the epitome of success in america (which she's not wrong even though the american dream is mad wack). but this life was not one that could have been afforded to her underground, so she instead took it and she's not entirely in the wrong for this. she saw something was unfair and she fixed it. although it was at the extent of young adelaide's childhood, you can see where she's coming from in simply wanting a chance to survive. much like the real adelaide is simply trying to right that wrong by coming out of the underground and take back the life that she had stolen from her in the first place.

 

the very ending of the film, instead of having her just get away, instead of us wanting to hate her, instead of rooting entirely for her, challenges us to consider both adelaides' motives, making her both villain and victim, which is much more complex than many of the white final girls have been in the past. as for escape room, zoe gets away and unlike the other final girls, she' excited and ready to continue the fight. she's been changed by the wild events of the film and she's not going back, but the transformation is impeccable to see because most Black girls, final or not, aren't giving the chance to be vulnerable and anxious to begin with.

 

 however, i mean, while i'm not going to the theatres anytime soon, but i may have to rent escape room 2 on amc on demand because....it kind of hit and i'm all here for Black characters getting to finally make the sequel for once.