The most notable example of a feminist film theorist is Carol Clover, who studied the portrayal of females in the horror genre, particularly focusing on the ‘final girl’ and the significance of the idea to the slasher film genre. She argues the necessity of such character to the horror genre, defining them as “the embodiment of what a woman should be”. She justifies the need for protagonists in horror to be female, by suggesting that the surviving character needs to experience abject terror. Therefore the typically male dominated horror audience would reject a horror film showing abject terror as part of a male character.

However, she also argues that the ‘final girl’ isn’t necessarily a true representation of feminism because the characters would becomes masculinized in their final showdown with the antgonist through “phallic appropriation” (taking up a weapon – typically a large knife or chainsaw against their male antagonist).