This essay contains spoilers for the 2019 remake of “Black Christmas.”
Before a masked killer invades the sorority house in “Black Christmas,” directed by Sophia Takal and co-written by Ms. Takal and April Wolfe, the movie shows three Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters happily chatting over holiday dinner preparations. One asks her friends what their favorite animals are, and Marty (Lily Donoghue) chooses the ant. You can’t kill an ant, she explains, because they’re all extensions of the others.
This statement turns profound at the film’s climax, when a harried band of women crash into a frat house like Marvel’s Avengers, stopgap weapons at the ready. They have arrived just in time to rescue the protagonist, Riley (Imogen Poots), from being murdered by a lackey to the man who raped her. In any other slasher film, Riley would be the final girl — the lone young woman clever enough to outlast her peers and scrappy enough to kill the killer (or killers).
But in this 2019 remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name — and the second reimagining following a 2006 version — nine other sorority members join her in solidarity to vanquish an army of misogynists. The message is simple: Women need to band together to take down the patriarchy.
The original “Black Christmas” features one of the horror genre’s first final girls. This trope, first outlined by Carol J. Clover in her book “Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film,” typically meets the following criteria: The final girl is virginal or uninterested in dating. She is aware of impending danger before her peers. And she is smart and competent in ways her flirty, flighty friends usually are not, able to rig a whole house with booby traps (as in the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) or turn a wire hanger into a weapon (the original “Halloween”).
While the final girl had more agency than most female characters in her ’70s and ’80s heyday (when the women of slasher films were most often topless or dead), she was alienated from other female characters — so much so that she often even had a masculine name. The final girl, like any male action hero, ultimately triumphed alone.
The sisterly alliance in the newest “Black Christmas” is even more meaningful given its multiple final girl red herrings. Riley’s closest Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters are Marty, Jesse (Brittany O’Grady) and Kris (Aleyse Shannon). None of these four women with androgynous names pursue sex, and all are smart, capable characters with unique personalities and interests. But none of them become the final girl.
Perhaps most subversively, Kris is a radical feminist hellbent on ridding their college of oppression, including Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes), a misogynistic instructor and an adviser to the evil fraternity Delta Kappa Omicron. She urges Riley, who was met with incredulity from the campus police after reporting her rape, to further challenge campus sexism by signing a petition against Professor Gelson. Kris would normally be a parody, easily mocked and murdered for her alarmist insolence. Here, she is a character to be taken seriously. The patriarchy at Hawthorne College is depicted as especially insidious.
And what a patriarchy it is. The frat boys of Delta Kappa, it turns out, are collectively killing sorority sisters in a grab for the halcyon days of male dominance. Led by Professor Gelson and possessed by the spirit of Hawthorne’s malevolent founder, they believe that women’s “true nature” is subservience, while men are “alphas.”
It seems hardly incidental, then, that Professor Gelson, with his eccentric accent and fondness for Camille Paglia, calls to mind the polarizing psychology professor Jordan Peterson. In his best-selling book “12 Rules for Life,” Mr. Peterson posits that an oppressive patriarchy does not exist. He compares the mating rituals of lobsters, whose females are attracted to male aggressors at the expense of male weaklings, to those of humans.
In a blog post on his personal website he’s written, “It’s been a truism among anthropologists and biologically oriented psychologists for decades that all human societies face two primary tasks: regulation of female reproduction (so the babies don’t die, you see) and male aggression (so that everyone doesn’t die).” The solution: heterosexual monogamy, or women coupling with men for the greater good.
Mr. Peterson’s thinking reaches its logical extreme in “Black Christmas,” where a group of fed-up young men exact violence against the women who denied them their sexual supremacy. Though in that blog post Mr. Peterson says he does not excuse or glorify male violence, such bio-essentialist thinking — that women and men need discrete, gendered roles for society to function, and that those roles naturally empower men — is echoed by Professor Gelson and the Delta Kappas.
“Don’t you see?” Professor Gelson asks during the final showdown. “Woman is inextricably tied to man.”
But it is her ties to women, rather than her alienation from them, that gives Riley the strength to survive the film. In an early scene, Marty, Kris and Jesse don “Mean Girls”-esque sexy Santa outfits to perform a number at the Delta Kappa talent show, but Riley feels uncomfortable joining them, knowing her rapist will be in the audience. Kris goads her into the performance: “Be a fighter,” she urges, “for your sisters.”
At first, it seems like a bizarre exchange — how does a provocative skit empower a rape survivor? — until the group’s hidden motive becomes clear. They perform a parody of “Up on the Housetop,” indicting the fraternity for their date rape reputation. (“Up on the housetop click click click, you slipped me a roofie and then your [expletive].”) In one of the most enjoyable scenes of the film, Riley becomes a “fighter” through comedic song and dance, with her sisters by her side.
In the ensuing showdown between the sexes, it’s important to note that the women take up arms only for survival; the rest of their combat is rhetorical. As the film ends, Riley tells Kris: “You were right. I should have been fighting this whole time.” Riley realizes she has the strength to speak up for herself, even in the face of an administration that did not expel her rapist, and the police officers who did not believe her. She can reassert her power, rather than make herself smaller.
The women of “Black Christmas” do not just take down one campus villain, they quash an entire patriarchal army — an impossible feat for Riley, our would-be final girl, on her own. When Kris and the other women barge into the frat house before that final blood bath, Kris announces, “You messed with the wrong sisters.” She is right. Sorority sisters become indistinguishable from radical feminist sisters. Together, these women are unstoppable.
Lena Wilson (@lenalwilson) is a newsroom project manager. In addition to The Times, she has written for Slate, Seventh Row and The Playlist.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | The ‘Black Christmas’ Remake Subverts a Complex Horror Trope
Opinion | The ‘Black Christmas’ Remake Subverts a Complex Horror Trope
This essay contains spoilers for the 2019 remake of “Black Christmas.”
Before a masked killer invades the sorority house in “Black Christmas,” directed by Sophia Takal and co-written by Ms. Takal and April Wolfe, the movie shows three Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters happily chatting over holiday dinner preparations. One asks her friends what their favorite animals are, and Marty (Lily Donoghue) chooses the ant. You can’t kill an ant, she explains, because they’re all extensions of the others.
This statement turns profound at the film’s climax, when a harried band of women crash into a frat house like Marvel’s Avengers, stopgap weapons at the ready. They have arrived just in time to rescue the protagonist, Riley (Imogen Poots), from being murdered by a lackey to the man who raped her. In any other slasher film, Riley would be the final girl — the lone young woman clever enough to outlast her peers and scrappy enough to kill the killer (or killers).
But in this 2019 remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name — and the second reimagining following a 2006 version — nine other sorority members join her in solidarity to vanquish an army of misogynists. The message is simple: Women need to band together to take down the patriarchy.
The original “Black Christmas” features one of the horror genre’s first final girls. This trope, first outlined by Carol J. Clover in her book “Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film,” typically meets the following criteria: The final girl is virginal or uninterested in dating. She is aware of impending danger before her peers. And she is smart and competent in ways her flirty, flighty friends usually are not, able to rig a whole house with booby traps (as in the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) or turn a wire hanger into a weapon (the original “Halloween”).
While the final girl had more agency than most female characters in her ’70s and ’80s heyday (when the women of slasher films were most often topless or dead), she was alienated from other female characters — so much so that she often even had a masculine name. The final girl, like any male action hero, ultimately triumphed alone.
The sisterly alliance in the newest “Black Christmas” is even more meaningful given its multiple final girl red herrings. Riley’s closest Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters are Marty, Jesse (Brittany O’Grady) and Kris (Aleyse Shannon). None of these four women with androgynous names pursue sex, and all are smart, capable characters with unique personalities and interests. But none of them become the final girl.
Perhaps most subversively, Kris is a radical feminist hellbent on ridding their college of oppression, including Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes), a misogynistic instructor and an adviser to the evil fraternity Delta Kappa Omicron. She urges Riley, who was met with incredulity from the campus police after reporting her rape, to further challenge campus sexism by signing a petition against Professor Gelson. Kris would normally be a parody, easily mocked and murdered for her alarmist insolence. Here, she is a character to be taken seriously. The patriarchy at Hawthorne College is depicted as especially insidious.
And what a patriarchy it is. The frat boys of Delta Kappa, it turns out, are collectively killing sorority sisters in a grab for the halcyon days of male dominance. Led by Professor Gelson and possessed by the spirit of Hawthorne’s malevolent founder, they believe that women’s “true nature” is subservience, while men are “alphas.”
It seems hardly incidental, then, that Professor Gelson, with his eccentric accent and fondness for Camille Paglia, calls to mind the polarizing psychology professor Jordan Peterson. In his best-selling book “12 Rules for Life,” Mr. Peterson posits that an oppressive patriarchy does not exist. He compares the mating rituals of lobsters, whose females are attracted to male aggressors at the expense of male weaklings, to those of humans.
In a blog post on his personal website he’s written, “It’s been a truism among anthropologists and biologically oriented psychologists for decades that all human societies face two primary tasks: regulation of female reproduction (so the babies don’t die, you see) and male aggression (so that everyone doesn’t die).” The solution: heterosexual monogamy, or women coupling with men for the greater good.
Mr. Peterson’s thinking reaches its logical extreme in “Black Christmas,” where a group of fed-up young men exact violence against the women who denied them their sexual supremacy. Though in that blog post Mr. Peterson says he does not excuse or glorify male violence, such bio-essentialist thinking — that women and men need discrete, gendered roles for society to function, and that those roles naturally empower men — is echoed by Professor Gelson and the Delta Kappas.
“Don’t you see?” Professor Gelson asks during the final showdown. “Woman is inextricably tied to man.”
But it is her ties to women, rather than her alienation from them, that gives Riley the strength to survive the film. In an early scene, Marty, Kris and Jesse don “Mean Girls”-esque sexy Santa outfits to perform a number at the Delta Kappa talent show, but Riley feels uncomfortable joining them, knowing her rapist will be in the audience. Kris goads her into the performance: “Be a fighter,” she urges, “for your sisters.”
At first, it seems like a bizarre exchange — how does a provocative skit empower a rape survivor? — until the group’s hidden motive becomes clear. They perform a parody of “Up on the Housetop,” indicting the fraternity for their date rape reputation. (“Up on the housetop click click click, you slipped me a roofie and then your [expletive].”) In one of the most enjoyable scenes of the film, Riley becomes a “fighter” through comedic song and dance, with her sisters by her side.
In the ensuing showdown between the sexes, it’s important to note that the women take up arms only for survival; the rest of their combat is rhetorical. As the film ends, Riley tells Kris: “You were right. I should have been fighting this whole time.” Riley realizes she has the strength to speak up for herself, even in the face of an administration that did not expel her rapist, and the police officers who did not believe her. She can reassert her power, rather than make herself smaller.
The women of “Black Christmas” do not just take down one campus villain, they quash an entire patriarchal army — an impossible feat for Riley, our would-be final girl, on her own. When Kris and the other women barge into the frat house before that final blood bath, Kris announces, “You messed with the wrong sisters.” She is right. Sorority sisters become indistinguishable from radical feminist sisters. Together, these women are unstoppable.
Lena Wilson (@lenalwilson) is a newsroom project manager. In addition to The Times, she has written for Slate, Seventh Row and The Playlist.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Source: Read Full Article