Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism, 1968-1980

Eleanor Johnson analyzes the structural link between the American slasher and supernatural horror boom and the legislative battles of second-wave feminism. Examining the years between the release of Night of the Living Dead and the dawn of the Reagan era, she argues that the "final girl" trope functioned as a cinematic mirrors for women's shifting legal status regarding reproductive rights and workplace harassment. Johnson maps specific plot structures in films like Halloween and Black Christmas against the historical timeline of the Equal Rights Amendment and the Title IX mandates.

Scholars of media studies and gender history read this work to understand how commercial cinema reflects political resistance. The text provides a technical framework for evaluating how low-budget genre filmmaking captures cultural anxieties that mainstream dramas often ignore. Readers gain a chronological perspective on how horror tropes evolved from portraying women as passive victims to active survivors, reflecting the social volatility of the 1970s. The analysis offers a clear view of the relationship between pop culture consumption and political mobilization.