User blog:Idekmandy/Featuring Final Girls on the Final Day of Women's History Month

Hey everyone!

We've had an incredible time celebrating Women's History Month with you as we embrace equity through the lens of women, femme-identifying and non-binary people building the “tables” in industries where they often do not have a seat. We hope you've been enjoying our programming this month, but wait... there's one final thing. On this final day of Women's History Month, we present to you a thematically appropriate final blog - Final Girls: The Feature.

Did you know that men are seen and heard twice as often as women in film? It's a shocking statistic, but with one major exception: horror. It is the only genre where women appear and speak as much as men. For decades, horror films have been revolutionizing the way women are are viewed in entertainment and making strides to provide positive and equal representation, which in turn affects how women view themselves. To tie in with our theme of Embracing Equity, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to shine a light on the powerful women in horror who used their skills, stamina, and smarts to survive 'til the end as the last women standing. Grab your weapon of choice and come join the fight with us as we honor the legacy of Final Girls who brought life (and stayed alive) in some of the most iconic horror films and shows!

Final Girls: The Explanation
So what is a "Final Girl" exactly? The term was first coined by Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film and generally refers to the last girl or woman alive at the end of a horror film, whose role it is to escape and/or confront the killer. Usually, the Final Girl is an unassuming, normal person caught up in events beyond their control that shapes and molds them by the end of the film.

The trope has evolved drastically over the years. In the beginning, the Final Girl was often the "pure woman" who had the "privilege" to survive by living a "virtuous life" and thus having an implied "moral superiority." But as franchises grow, the characters grow with them, and in recent years, the notion of the Final Girl has moved away from depicting them as victims struggling to survive, and instead transforming them into true protagonists taking the fight to their nemesis, being proactive rather than reactive, and driving the plot rather than being subject to it. Final Girls are more than capable of taking down the bad guy by the time the credits roll, exemplifying the true power of what women are capable of. Yes, she's a damsel, and she's in distress, but she can handle it. Have a nice day.

Final Girls: The Playlist
Have you ever wanted to live out your own fantasy as a badass Final Girl? (No? Just me?) Well now you can with our playlist of 100+ songs inspired by the final girl trope, all performed by women and femme-identifying folks! My fellow horror fans will recognize some of these songs from well-known horror soundtracks, while other songs give off the "don't mess with me" vibe we've all come to love and expect from a Final Girl. In fact, the entire playlist itself tells the story of the evolution of a Final Girl: from normal teenager to full-fledged powerhouse seeking to take down the killer by any means necessary (and some close calls with death along the way).

 So sit back, turn up the volume and listen to these hard-hitting tracks. They're the perfect accompaniment to a good editing session on your favorite wiki, and even more perfect to blast as we move on to our next segment...

Final Girls: The Trading Cards*
As you can imagine, the rich horror entertainment culture has resulted in uncountable Final Girls over the years - all queens with their own unique journeys and experiences. We wanted to celebrate their contributions to cinema and showcase their skills, stats, and stories in a fun and unique way, so with the theme of Women's History Month being about Embracing Equity, and our blog series about women in gaming, what better way to highlight these cunning survivors than by making them the star of their own gameplay?

We were inspired by trading card games like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering that are filled with strategic battles and unique card decks, and you won't get any more unique than this newly created Final Girls deck featuring 24 heroines who defied all odds of survival and came out victorious! Each Final Girl starts with basic statistics: year of debut, number of films or episodes they have appeared in, how many times they escaped from their enemies, and how many people (or monsters) they killed. As a testimony to their vital skills, each Final Girl also comes with two special abilities based on their own actions and traits displayed during their films and shows to give them -- and you -- that edge to survive. Whether you’re having fun with friends, or duking it out in a high-stakes competition, these women have your back.

*Disclaimer: This game is completely unplayable and is for fun only. We created cards to emulate a trading card game, not an actual trading card game (even though we were tempted to). We're not stopping you from trying to figure out a way to play a game using these cards though (in fact, we encourage it!), but we take no responsibility for making it work. We will, however, happily take all the credit if you manage to figure it out.

So with that being said, check out all of the cards below! Did your favorite Final Girl make the cut?

Final Girls: The Wiki
As the last piece of our Final Girls project, we of course wanted to tie in our wiki content. Fandom has plenty of horror communities detailing the franchises, films, and television series that feature Final Girls, but we wanted to build a home for these amazing women, where you can read more about them all in one place. The Community Team discovered an abandoned wiki about Final Girls and began to revitalize it. Through the awesome content efforts of TotallyWitchy, and the excellent design efforts of Lady Lostris, we have started the process of rebuilding the wiki to highlight Final Girls in all their glory. We would love to see the Final Girls Wiki continue to grow and thrive, so swing on by if you are interested in helping out!



Final Girls: The Final Thoughts
Oh look, you've made it to the end of the feature. Congrats on becoming an honorary final girl!

I want to give a huge final shoutout to Mike Delaney, who was my partner in crime on this initiative. Without his insane creativity, none of this would have been possible! As with all of our DEI months, we wanted to try something new and engaging, so we hope you all enjoyed it! In all honesty, there are so many phenomenal Final Girls who could have been made into cards, and we truly had a hard time narrowing the list down. We know we left a few iconic girls off the list (sorry Sidney, but Gale got her call this year!).

We would absolutely love to add more card sets in the future, so if that's something you would like to see us do, sound off in the comments! Let us know which of the Final Girls cards are your favorites, who we missed out on that you would love to see us include, or even just share who your favorite Final Girls are and why! Cheers to surviving!