Gender In John Carpenter's The Thing

Polar Opposites - An Examination of Gender within John Carpenter’s The Thing

Within the past half-century, American box offices have found great success through two different genres of film, horror and science fiction. Science fiction’s ability to inspire curiosity of the unknown matches well with the horror genre, which was embraced during the 1950’s. However, the golden age of science fiction horror followed in the early 1980’s. This era marked a change within the subgenre, helping it to break away from the tropes of both parent genres and form unique characteristics. During this time, famous horror producer John Carpenter developed The Thing, a film that challenged one of the most important tropes of the time, the final girl, through the

paints the survivors as heroic and godly in appearance. MacReady is described as “a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked” (6). MacReady’s stubbornness, shown by his unique way of disabling a computer, coupled with his appearance and strength help audiences to quickly identify MacReady as the protagonist. In comparison, the minor characters are scrawnier and often older, lacking the strength and stamina found in the description of MacReady. Meanwhile, Dr. Blair is seen as the most feminized character and is described as a “little bald-pated biologist” who twitches nervously (5). Vint notes Blair’s responsibility in the attack by destroying all of the equipment and locking himself alone in a cabin, leaving the other, manlier characters to solve the problem. In reward for his anxiety, Dr. Blair is given the most gruesome death, appearing the most penetrated and with the most amount of gore (430). By the end of the movie, all of the characters except for the most masculine character within the group, MacReady, and Childs, who appears out of the snow storm after pursuing Blair and is arguably infected, have already been killed. The film ends with them both sitting outside, with MacReady fearing that Childs may have been taken over by the alien, perhaps one of the most feminized creatures within the entire

Although John Carpenter’s version of The Thing leads us away from femininity, the 2011 prequel titled The Thing stars a strong final girl, aligning itself closely to Clover’s stereotypical horror film. While this changes the roles within the universe of The Thing, it shows that science fiction horror is ever changing and adapting. Other examples, including Ripley Scott’s Aliens franchise, along with the film Xenogenesis, follow some of the standards put forth within The Thing, while also changing and adding their own twists to the ever-changing genre. The success of these movies has helped to standardize and popularize this breakout subgenre now seen regularly in theatres. Continuations and branches of the Aliens franchise are still frequently seen in cinemas, while new universes, such as the Resident Evil and Riddick franchises, have seen great success. Other independent films, such as Apollo 18, I Am Legend (and its remakes), and World War Z, have also done extremely well with American audiences within the past decade. In finality, The Thing asks audiences to differentiate between the protagonists and the antagonists, the human and the alien, the predator and the prey, and the masculine and the feminine. These classic questions have since become a staple of science fiction horror that has since been continued