"I thought I heard a scream." (Alice Hardy)

I've spent a lot of my life being frightened - being scared.

And you know what?

I'm good with that.

I'm fine with the phantoms dwelling in haunted houses.

I'm good with the the monsters lurking under beds.

I'm cool with the creatures hiding in closets.

And - in my life - do I ever know from closets.

It's why I've had to learn to accept what scares me - and that there will be lots of times when I'll have to be scared.  Learning this has proved over and over in my life to be my only option to survive, let alone flourish.  Acknowledging my childhood fears has proved to be the only way I can ever really gain any traction in this world.  

By accepting what scares me, I try to take control of my fears.  I try to break the metaphorical chains that try to hold me in place when I'm too scared.  I try to use that turn those fears into something I can more easily handle.

I don't like to be chained.  I don't like to see others chained.  It doesn't even matter if the chains are literal or metaphorical in terms of what I accept for myself or others.  Restricting an innocent person is wrong - period.

And there sure were a lot of those metaphorical chains as I grew up; I've discussed many of them throughout my blog.  

Not least among them was seeing myself as a girl in a world and at a time that didn't always treat girls or women with the greatest of dignity or respect, particularly in the media.  

You see, as a child, I looked everywhere for role models.  Lacking people in real-life I felt like I could or wanted to emulate, I looked to fiction.  And that meant I was looking to girls and women in the media who seemed like they could handle a life I often found so difficult to understand or control.  I felt a tremendous amount of vulnerability as a child because of this lack of real-life role models.  I felt like everything I was doing, I was making up as I went along - and that feeling didn't go away for a long time.  

Heck, I still feel vulnerable in writing all of these pieces and putting them out into the world, exposing my history - memories - emotions.  But, throughout my life, I've found characters who could inspire me, characters I could see as role models for various reasons.

One of them was a movie character named Alice Hardy.

For those unfamiliar with the character: Alice Hardy is a young woman who takes up a job as one of a number of counselors at a long-shuttered summer camp that a man named Steve Christy is hoping to reopen after he and the others fix up the place.

Oh, and and the camp?  It's called Camp Crystal Lake.

And the movie is called Friday the 13th.

Now, wait a minute, Dee, I can hear people say.  Isn't Friday the 13th a slasher movie?  Isn't it one of those infamous movies where people die horribly, often in bizarre ways, usually depicted on-camera and in graphic detail?  Because if it is, how can it be empowering and inspiring to you?

My answers: yes, yes, and because it is.  But that's not much of an answer, so I'll elaborate.  And in elaborating, I'll be spoiling some of the major plot points and surprises in Friday the 13th.  I'd tell you to watch it at this point, before you go any further, if you'd be cool with that.  I hope you are!  But, on to the elaboration.

Come back here when you've finished watching it.

Now, the picture directly above this paragraph is the cover of an edition of a book called Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, written by Carol J. Clover.  

If you're a fan of horror films but you haven't read the book, you should.  If you're not a fan of horror, you should read it anyway - especially if you're a fan of gender studies and of theory on the presentation of women in popular media.  

In short, everyone should read it.  Go get yourself a copy.  Once again, I'll be here when you get back from acquiring it.

I hope you enjoyed the book.  It's really good.  But for those who don't feel like listening to my advice - or who can't afford a copy and/or don't have access to a library that carries it - I'll summarize.

Basically, Ms. Clover's theories argue that one of the chief elements of slasher horror movies is to generate empathy in the audience not for the killers but for the characters who are struggling to survive against impossible odds.  She argues that. for men who are viewing these films, the situations depicted give these men the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what it means to be victimized - an empathy men often lack in everyday situations.  The extreme settings of horror films help to afford this empathy, and the male audience is rewarded in that empathy by seeing the character with whom they empathize get the upper hand by film's end, as the trope of the "Final Girl" who survives a horror onslaught sees a heroine emerge - often out of a situation that seems completely hopeless.

And for women, these so-called Final Girls really can be heroes.

Played by actress Adrienne King, Alice Hardy is one of those heroes - and one of my favorites.  

But I want to point out that Alice isn't a hero to me because she's physically strong, or stoically brave or unstoppably powerful.  She's none of those things in Friday the 13th.  She's portrayed as a quiet, artistic woman by Ms. King, who imbues her with a visible vulnerability - like someone who has been hurt in their past.  Snippets of dialogue here and there suggest that this may be the case, but it is mostly in Ms. King's non-verbal performance that these elements become clear.  So, no - she's not a conventional hero in the typical sense of the American cinematic tradition.

What she is, though, is human.

And, being human, she's frightened sometimes.  She's worried sometimes.  She fails sometimes.  She fumbles in the dark, gets her clothes caught on appliances, panics, cries.  She's not perfect.

And that's why she reminds me of myself.

And not just because we both have red hair.

It's specifically because of how vulnerable Alice seems until she's pushed by crisis.  I'm like that.  I know from self-analysis and from the words of others that I don't give off the appearance of being tough.  

I don't put out that kind of energy, and neither does Alice.

And I know that sometimes, in my desire not to be hurt, I can rebuff people who might be earnest.  I know that sometimes, I'm too careful - too unwilling to trust other people.  Sometimes, people can come to me with the best of intentions and I shut them down and turn them away, even when I might not necessarily want to ... out of a desire not to be hurt, to experience pain I've already felt too many times in my past.  So, I turn away from them - and Alice is like that in Friday the 13th, too.  

  

And she also reminds me of myself because - when her battle for survival starts - she shows that she's a  fighter, but not a warrior ... until the situation calls for it.

And in today's world, as has always been true, women have to at least be fighters to survive - and have to rise to the level of warriors to defend themselves when the situation calls for it.

And Alice defends herself like a warrior, even though it is not her nature as a default.  She becomes a warrior, takes on that warrior spirit because she has to do so if she wants to see another day in the film's story.  She realizes that she can't let her fears weaken her.  She discovers that she must take ownership of that fear, and use it to heighten her capacities as an individual.

And, what's more, this transformation from fighter to warrior in Alice's nature is made even more apparent in Friday the 13th, to me, because the film's chief antagonist isn't a maniacal supernatural demon or an undead creature in a hockey mask.

Because the villain in Friday the 13th isn't supernatural at all.

Instead, the villain of the piece is a tragic figure - a woman who has given in to the grief of losing her beloved son to a terrible fate.

"Did you know a young boy drowned the year before those two others were killed? The counselors weren't paying any attention... They were making love while that young boy drowned. His name was Jason. I was working the day that it happened. Preparing meals... here. I was the cook. Jason should've been watched. Every minute. He was - he wasn't a very good swimmer. We can go now, dear."

Those are fateful words spoken toward the end of Friday the 13th by its chief antagonist, Pamela Voorhees - and for those who are surprised by this revelation, remember that I did warn you that there would be spoilers.

But for those of us who watched the film, we were shocked when Mrs. Voorhees was revealed to be the hidden killer - and reminded that sometimes it's right not to be so quick to trust others.

Trust, to me, has to be earned.  And, as tempting as it can be to put one's faith in others, one must  only ever truly depend on oneself.  This doesn't mean that a person has to become cold and distant, but it does mean that a person has to be careful.

And that's a lesson I learned from Alice Hardy - the idea of balancing trust and caution, of the need to open up to others, but also to be attentive to reality.  She taught me that there can be severe and serious consequences when we lose sight of either of those ends of the scale by straying too far from the place that's right in-between them.  

And those consequences can be dire, indeed.

And this is another element of horror films I want to talk about in terms of finding in them heroes.

In the end of the story of Friday the 13th, there's no heroic male knight saving a gorgeous female damsel.  There's no Darth Vader villain with imperious intent.  

Instead, there is only an emotionally-devastated woman fighting for her mad love of her deceased son and another woman who is struggling for her very life.  

And I remember thinking, as a young person watching Friday the 13th for the first time, that I was honestly surprised that here was a movie where the epic final battle was being played out between two women, without a male character in sight.

And it was awesome.  It was terrifying, but it was awesome.

It was awesome because hero and villain were like me - fighting for real emotional and invested reasons instead of for land or property or to "win" a woman.  Theirs was a battle between two wills, with stakes so high that it was clear that only one would emerge alive.

And you just didn't SEE that in movies.  It didn't really exist in the movies I knew.  There weren't any films that I knew of back then where the main characters were women, where their stakes were the focus of the story, where their actions determined the outcome.  And there certainly weren't any movies that I knew of where there were action scenes between women characters.

It seemed rare, and special, and magically epic to me - and also liberating and empowering.  Here was proof that movies could tell stories that were about women and for women that depicted different kinds of women dealing with the same intense crises that were usually restricted for male characters in the movies I knew - life and death, survival and extermination, tragedy that wasn't restricted to disease or a lost romance.  

It was grungy and dirty and brutal - and I loved it because it said that women could be all those things and still be women, and still be strong, and still survive.  Women could be survivors.  Women could be tough.  These women were fighting for their lives, rather than worrying about breaking nails. 

And, in the end, Alice emerges victorious ... though she must resort to the destructive tactics of her opponent, must meet the force enacted against her with force of her own.  

But, in that critical moment, she realizes that she can only survive the confrontation by fighting back in exactly that way - by reversing the circumstances and using Pamela's own weapons against her.

And it works.  And it's tragic, because even as we root for Alice to survive ... we also feel a terrible sadness for Mrs. Voorhees, who has been driven to such madness by being so closely connected to another person that she cannot distinguish herself from her own son ... to the point where the two are only able to be united again in death ... or something maybe a little like it.

Thus, the portion of the ending of Friday the 13th in which Alice dispatches Pamela isn't so much a victory for Alice as an imperfect act of desperation.

And it leaves Alice alive ... but deeply-wounded, physically and mentally.

She is depicted as damaged by these events.  She is not a reveler.  She isn't cheering for the tragic violence that befell her and her friends.  She isn't even cheering for the defeat of her enemy.  When the violent fight for survival ends, Alice is simply ... exhausted.

And I understand that fatigue so much.

I look at that image, and I feel Alice's exhaustion.  I feel the agony of trying to recover from terrible events when they befall me.  I understand the need to sleep away - even if it's just for a time - from the grief and fear and anguish I'm feeling when I've struggled.  

The fight for survival, in my mind, and its sometimes-violent outcomes shouldn't be portrayed in fiction as a time for celebration.  Where there has been death and tragedy, there should instead be a return to peace ... and reflection.

And it is that reflection that I remember being refreshed and surprised by at the end of the movie - that so much suffering and horror had become a memory, but that this was so much different from the way violence was portrayed in, say, the ending of Star Wars.  I remember thinking as a child, watching Star Wars, that it was sad that nobody seemed to care about all the people who had died in the war - that they were celebrating the victory and the destruction of the Death Star and Luke and Han and Chewbacca becoming heroes ... but that the crucial missing piece from the story was what all that death and horror had done to them.  They seemed unaffected, disinterested.  

And yet, there's Alice Hardy - who begins the story, remember, somewhat disattached and distant in terms of how she deals with other people, someone who has been wounded.  But I think the wounds that she felt ... re-opened as they are by Pamela's betrayal and attack ... are what allow her to grieve.  It's as if, by virtue of her already having those wounds and imperfections, her grief and exhaustion doesn't have to go hidden once she has proved her will to survive.  She is beaten down in these moments of the film, but she isn't beaten.  Her hand is draped in the water, and she is clearly in a state of shock even as she is recovering from what she has endured.  

And then, this happens.

That would be Jason, of course - making his first appearance in the last few minutes of the original Friday the 13th.  And, really, if you've just been spoiled by this, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

It's also one of the scariest moments in a horror film in the entire history of horror cinema, in my opinion.  The first time I saw this image, it haunted me for months.  More than the visual qualities of this moment is the use of sound - the gentle, calming music broken up by Jason's undead rage.  And I felt exactly like Alice in that moment, like something had grabbed me that instantly turned my blood to ice.

And then Alice wakes up.

Now, normally, I would hate for a movie to end with a dream sequence.  But here, it's perfect, because of the exchange between Alice and Sergeant Tierney:

Alice: The boy - is he dead, too?

Tierney: Who?

Alice: The boy!  Jason!

Tierney: Jason?

Alice: In the lake, the o- ... - the one who attacked me! - the one who pulled me underneath the water.

Tierney: Ma'am - we didn't find any boy.

Alice: But he- ... then he's still there.

This ending is perfect to me because it reminds me of myself so very much.  To me, the way Alice says the last line about Jason being there is a complex work.  She says it with awe, fear and great sadness ... all put together into one.  It's a perfect ending to the tragic story of Pamela and Jason in this film, because while Alice has escaped the horrors of that terrible Friday the 13th at the camp, she will still be changed and haunted by all that's happened to her.  She doesn't brush it aside, and even in this moment of respite from evil ... her thoughts are of the sad little boy who surely must be lying below that lake somewhere - at least to Alice's way of thinking.

It reminds me of myself because of how obvious it is - thanks to Adrienne King's performance - that Alice feels so many conflicted emotions.  In my experience, artists tend to be thoughtful people who - by virtue of what they do and how they create - often see situations and events from a multitude of different perspectives.  

This can make for beautiful art, but it can also complicate how artists feel about what happens in their lives.  

Nothing for an artist can be quite as simple and cut-and-dried as even artists might like, including tragedy and violence.  It's just not in an artist's nature, as I understand it.  And artists must take what has happened to them in life, and ponder it, consider it; and, most of all, create from it.

And Adrienne King knows what she's talking about in terms of portraying an artist, because she is one in real-life, too.

I got permission from her to display her beautiful painting called "Alice's Dream" here on my blog, and I am honored to do so.  To me, it paints a perfect picture of what the ending of Friday the 13th really is to me - beautiful, sad, tragic, quiet, violent, scary, tranquil ... a perfect blend of different states of being all represented in color and light and texture and shape.

You can see more of Adrienne King's gorgeous art on her website by clicking here.  I encourage everyone who visits to become a patron of her work.  She also is the force behind Crystal Lake Wines, which you can find out more about by clicking here.  

Just above this paragraph is a much more current photograph of Adrienne King.  You'll notice that the label on the bottle of wine features Ms. King's art and is a depiction of the final scene shown above on my blog for Friday the 13th.  This leads me to one last moment of observation for this piece, which is this: as a horror fan, I have had the opportunity to read the thoughts and ideas of performers who have starred in horror films at the beginning of their careers.  Actors like Johnny Depp and Kevin Bacon got their early movie careers going in horror (Kevin in Friday the 13th, actually!).  For some performers, these are bitter memories of past embarrassments.

But, as you can tell from visiting Ms. King's website and looking at her art and tasting her wine, she has made these events part of herself.  She has incorporated an infamous slasher movie into who she is today, despite some self-described difficult times and challenges associated with her connection to the Friday the 13th film series.  And every single time I hear anyone talk about meeting Ms. King, they describe the experience as warm and gracious and inviting, that she talks with fans and enjoys hearing how they were affected by what she created in the character of Alice Hardy.  While I have never met her, myself, I'd say that's an indication of the kind of will to survive that left me so inspired by Alice Hardy.

It means that, even after rough times, people who've been through difficulties can emerge on the other side stronger and better and more successful in life.

We who survive the troubles and tragedies in our lives are all Final Girls, and we all share the solidarity of surviving difficult events.

But, ultimately,  we are more than our histories, and we are not bound by them.  Because we aren't still there.

We're still here.