Narrative Representations in 2 Slasher Films

Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)

The first character is a blonde woman. Her blonde hair signifies she is the scream queen of the film. As well as having the stereotypical appearance of a scream queen, she is home alone, which is a common signifier of the slasher genre. We learn that the girl has a boyfriend, which is also anchorage to signify she is the scream queen figure. Equilibrium is portrayed at the very start as well, as the girl is simply preparing popcorn and is on the phone, although she does not know that the man she is talking to is the killer. As she begins to realise, the equilibrium becomes disrupted. This is another example of Todorov's theory being applied to a slasher film. Barthes' theory of narrative engima is also slightly applied to the opening. To begin with we only hear the voice and don't see the physical body. When we do see the killer, he is wearing a mask, so we still do not entirely know who it is and what their motive is. 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel, 2003) 

The start of this opening goes against Todorov's theory of equilibrium as he said that we should start with equilibrium, encounter a dis-equilibrium and then solve this by creating a new equilibrium. The film starts off with images of a crime scene and police officers, which signifies dis-equilibrium. We then go to equilibrium as we view the 5 main characters, which is not the order in which Todorov suggested it should be. Carole Clover's theory of the final girl is also reflected. The first character the camera fully focuses on has brunette hair and appears to be the sensible one out of the group. This character is the stereotypical final girl, used in many slasher films. However, she appears to have a relationship with one of the boys in the group, which goes against the stereotypical final girl character, who, in Clover's book, supposedly does not have a boyfriend. We then see people in the back kissing. Both the boy and girl are blonde, which signify that these characters are most likely dumb, and sexually active. The girl is the stereotypical scream queen, which is the binary opposite of the final girl character - the theory of binary opposition was created by Levi-Strauss. Within the group, there is a character who is framed as 'the other'. He wears glasses and is nerdy and appears to be the only character within the group to not be in some kind of relationship which signifies he is different. He appears to be the annoying one, who the others do not like very much which therefore means the audience do not empathize very much with him.