Nancy Doesn't Need a Boyfriend, Freddy: The Early Evolution of the "Final Girl"

In Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Carol J. Clover analyzes some of the icons and tropes of horror movies. One such trope, fairly specific to the slasher/stalker subgenre is that of the Final Girl. As per Clover’s description, the Final Girl is marked by several characteristics that construct her as such. She is often, if not always, literally the last (female) character left alive. Also, she is—unlike her quickly murdered friends—aware for some time of the danger she is in. Finally, and most significantly, the Final Girl is usually the only character to mount an effective defense against the slasher/stalker/killer. The first Final Girl fought back in 1974, but within 10 years, the outlines and core of the role had changed, as exemplified in the Final Girl of 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy.

Clover posits that the first Final Girl is Sally from 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, who watches her friends being dispatched in various ways before fighting, alone, for her survival in the face of terror and torture. A few years later, Halloween’s Laurie is much more proactive in her fight against Michael Myers; she not only runs away, but also uses and even makes weapons, wounding her attacker several times. But both Sally and Laurie are eventually rescued by men: a truck driver and a therapist, respectively. Although their self-defense is admirable and important, subverting the sentiments of young male viewers who minutes before were cheering the killer on during his spree through the sexualized and impure, their salvation ultimately comes not from within or from their own strength, but through the lucky interjection of capable masculinity. Clover argues that the issue of who actually defeats/kills the slasher is not the most important factor in considering the Final Girl, but rather the issue of who looks death in the face, who first knows the true scope of the Horror, who fights back against these revelations and their manifestations (39). But even Sally and Laurie fall somewhat short in this regard. However, ten years after Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the Final Girl finds a new incarnation in A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Nancy, who more fully realizes the potential of the role.

Clover touches upon A Nightmare on Elm Street in her section on Final Girls, but doesn’t go into much depth beyond Nancy being a logical next step from the foundation already laid by the films before hers. This makes sense; in some ways, Nancy is a textbook Final Girl. She witnesses the death of her friends. She is abstinent, or at least abstinent for the duration of the film; her boyfriend sleeps on the couch, or is banished to a chair. She figures out what exactly is going in with regards to Freddy and the dangers of sleep, holds fast to her conviction despite the workings of logic and the admonitions of her friends and family. And she is cognizant/wary of her likely impending death, more so than any of the other characters. And she mounts a fairly successful offense against her assailant, managing to (seemingly) defeat an incorporeal, conceptual foe.

But in other ways, she is decidedly different from Clover’s more formulaic Final Girls. Clover makes an important assertion in terms of how to divine who the Final Girl might be: “The Final Girl of the slasher film is presented from the outset as the main character. The practiced viewer distinguishes from her friends minutes into the film” (39). Nancy is not this person. Instead, the opening sequence of the film sets Tina up as the main character. In subsequent scenes, as more characters are introduced, and Nancy is shown as the one having a steady boyfriend[1], the issue is only confused. It is only after Tina actually has sex with Rod that the audience truly knows she is doomed, as per the Laws of Horror Movies. Also, Nancy is not boyish, except perhaps in the way that she is willful and prepared. And, in contrast to Final Girls who are often wounded physically in their attempts to escape death, suffers injuries that are mostly psychological. Also, her Fight Back is much more aggressive and intelligent than those battled by her filmic predecessors.

To her credit, Clover designates Nancy as the “grittiest of the Final Girls:” “Aware in advance that the killer will be paying her a visit, she plans an elaborate defense. When he enters the house, she dares him to come at her, then charges him in direct attack. As the struggle, he springs the contraptions she has set” (38). But to focus solely on her resourcefulness and spunk, as Clover is mostly doing, is overly simplistic; Nancy is incredibly smart and analytical. Not only does she infer the truth behind Tina’s death and Freddy Kruger’s nature very early in the film, but she works with what evidence she has to attempt to defeat the evil attacking her (inferring that she could pull Freddy out of a dream after doing so with his hat). She plans far in advance for her eventual confrontation, and when it comes, uses her brain to “kill” Freddy: she wills him into non-existence by simply forgetting him, by giving him none of the psychological power he needs in order to survive. It is a tactic that not only takes the bravery she has exhibited up until this point, but, even though she is inspired by something said by another character, a level of analysis and willpower that is fairly astounding. And she does all this after asking time and time again for male help and continually being rebuked/let down. Indeed, she comes into greatest power only after being completely freed from / abandoned by possible male assistance; her boyfriend is dead and her father unbelieving. Her eventually victory (?)[2] is completely her own, won, in fact, in the face of (sometimes direct) opposition not only from her sleep-time nemesis, but also from all the “strong” males in her life. In this way, a way that Sally and Laurie don’t quite reach, Nancy is a feminist character.

There is no doubt that Nancy is one of Clover’s Final Girls. She is literally the last female left alive after Freddy’s killing spree, and embodies most of the qualities that Clover considers vital to Final Girldom. But unlike Sally and Laurie, her fore-screamers, Nancy is a more complete and empowered agent, a feminist character who survives not only by luck and sheer willingness to live, but also by her analytical prowess, intelligence, and self-assuredness.

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[1] And a sexy one at that, a likely source of the Sex Death Sentence if there ever was one.

[2] For the purposes of making a point, this essay will conveniently ignore the fact that Freddy is not actually defeated in the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street and goes on to kill in many sequels, and will chock this up to the fact that the film traffics in dreams and therefore all bets are off.