Representation

'The Final Girl' 

• This is usually the last character left in the thriller/horror films who confronts the killer.
• Characteristics:
• Sexually unavailable/virginal
• Avoiding the vices of victims
• Unisex name
• Shared history with the killer
• Exhibits intelligence, curiosity and vigilance.

• Representation areas:
• Class
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Sexuality
• Regional ID
• Communicated  through codes. Encoded by sender (producer) and decoded by the receiver (audience). 

Gender

- Our identity and the identities we assume other people to have, come from concepts of gender. 

- Objects /humans represented as masculine or feminine by the media. We grow up with an awareness of what constitutes "appropriate" characteristics.

Laura Mulvey - The Male Gaze, 1975

• 'bearers of the look'
• Physically desirable, sexually submissive female characters who connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness' and denied female gaze.
• Viewers see films from male perspective.
• Gendered and Sexist
• Male controlling characters do the looking who the audience identify with.
• Femme fatales buck this trend.

Winship - digipaks

Judith Butler

• 'Gender is what you do, not what you are'
• Your actions rather than your biological make up, determine your gender.
• Men can act as women and vice versa.