So here’s a Halloween podcast—Pete Spiliakos & I talked about horror & young women growing up in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm St. (1984), & for a very similar story not usually considered together with them, James Cameron’s Terminator (also 1984—there was something about that period…)
These are stories that mix the liberal emphasis on women, without turning into feminism (no complaints about the patriarchy, on the plausible grounds that there was no real patriarchy in these characters’ lives), & the conservative emphasis on becoming self-reliant & taking adulthood to mean not depending on parents anymore—these young women face choices, indeed realities, like college & motherhood. Seriousness about evil, too, is part of this conservative, perhaps even reactionary attitude, as opposed to teenagers who waste their lives chasing fantasies & adults who think suburbia is paradise.
This is the scene that makes a heroine of Jamie Lee Curtis: She changes from babysitter to a mother by fighting to save these kids.