Final girl, the ‘ideal victim’, and Goldilocks: Challenging the exceptional criteria for victim status and survival in a gender hierarchy

This paper explores the social construction of victims by triangulating literature on gender hegemony, the Final Girl horror film trope, and the real-world ‘ideal victim’ construct. It may thus be of value to those interested in film analysis, responses to victims of crime, and challenging social norms. It is argued that social and criminal justice understandings of who is worthy of victim status and survival draw on invisible criteria relating to idealised understandings of victims that are themselves underpinned by idealised understandings of gender. Only a tiny number of exceptional cases can meet such idealised criteria resulting in poor responses to victims. Attempts to improve victims’ experiences must therefore be negotiated relative to those gendered victim ‘ideals’ and change can only be attritional. Final Girl may be understood as an attritional tool that can help erode idealised understandings of gender and victimisation, but that continues to be contained by them. A new phase of attrition involving a conscious, collaborative, degendered valorisation of strength and empathy is suggested.