Heroic Girls as Figures of Resistance and Futurity in Popular Culture

Book excerpt: Heroic Girls looks at the recent proliferation of young girl heroes in many recent mainstream films and books. These contemporary ‘final’ girls do not just survive but rather suggest that in doing so they have fundamentally changed something about themselves and or the world around them, seeing them become the ‘First Girls’ of this altered reality. The collection brings together a wide range of perspectives and cultural viewpoints that describe many recent narratives that explore the idea of a Final Girl and her “after-story”. The essays are divided into four sections, beginning with more theoretical approaches; cross-cultural examples; the ways in which fictional narratives bear strong relation to real-world circumstances; examples that more strongly depict themes of resistance, survival, and individual agency; and, finally, those that describe something more fundamental and transformative. Films and television shows covered in the collection include The Girl with All the Gifts, The Witcher, The Hunger Games, Star Wars, The Fear Street and Pan’s Labyrinth. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of film studies, gender studies, and media studies.