‘Scream’ Rewrites a Harmful Trope About Girls

The final girl trope in the horror genre has been simultaneously loved and hated since the mid-1970s. While the term was not officially coined until 1992 by author Carol J. Clover, the “final girl” is defined as the one who gets a final confrontation with the villain where she either kills him or is saved at the last minute by someone else such as a police officer. 

In the early days of the slasher genre, movies such as “Friday The 13th” declared that the final girl was portrayed as the girl who follows the rules, suppresses her sexuality and is thus deemed more valuable than her female counterparts in the films because of her moral high ground. But, in recent years, one franchise has challenged what it means to be deserving of the final girl trope: “Scream.”

Moving away from the oppressed, misogynistic portrayal of the final girl in true meta fashion, the “Scream” franchise has changed the slasher sub-genre forever and redefined what it means to be the final girl. The final girls in “Scream” have always been empowered and progressive. Sidney Prescott came onto the scene as our final girl in the first “Scream” in 1996. Sidney was one of the first major female characters in horror history to both have sex and survive the movie. This was unheard of when the film came out. One of the longest running and most misogynistic tropes in the horror genre is the likelihood that sexually active female characters are the ones who die. In fact, Prescott has sex with the movie's killer before learning he is the murderous psychopath. By rule of the genre, it's about the most egregious mistake a character can make and, yet, Sidney is able to overcome it. 

Over the course of five movies she is gaslit, maimed and manipulated by the world around her. The final girls before her were shown to never make mistakes — they were the good girls. “Scream” completely destroyed that narrative by writing Sidney's character to be human. It humanized her by making her relatable to the audience because she is fallible. She guesses incorrectly and trusts the wrong people, yet never doubts her own cunning ability to solve the mystery and survive. 

She continues to reappear as the final girl in six of the “Scream” movies. The films do not try to glide over Sydney's immense trauma but instead use it to further the narrative of the franchise. The result is a strong emotional thread that is spun through the long-running series. Sidney uses her past trauma to her advantage and displays emotional vulnerability as a strength, rather than a weakness. 

We watch her transform through this franchise from a high school girl-next-door into a college student navigating her future. She grows from a fearful adult paralyzed by her own trauma into a loving mother who has taken agency of her own story. We can see ourselves in this fallible, puzzling heroine and we know that, like Sidney, we will survive. The “Scream” franchise successfully challenged and rewrote a once-problematic character archetype by creating Sidney Prescott. 

This character showed women and girls everywhere that no matter what your trauma or missteps are, you can always be the architect of your own life. Sidney's character in “Scream” is relatable and has transformed the final girl trope into something that was once misogynistic and outdated into a progressive empowering trait with strong conviction.