Ginny (Friday the 13th)

Ginny Field is a fictional character in the Friday the 13th series. She first appears in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) as a child psychology student working as a camp counselor assistant trainer, in which she was portrayed by Amy Steel. Writer Ron Kurtz conceptualized the character, while director Steve Miner intended to utilize Ginny to carry further installments as the main protagonist. Ginny has subsequently seen representation in other media such as novels and fan labor.

Ginny Field
Friday the 13th character
Steel portraying Ginny
First appearanceFriday the 13th Part 2
Created by
  • Ron Kurz
  • Phil Scuderi
Portrayed byAmy Steel
In-universe information
Full nameVirginia "Ginny" Field
OccupationCamp counselor (former)
Psychologist
StatusAlive

Steel got the part after moving from Florida to New York to begin a career in both modeling and acting. She got called in for an audition for Ginny and described it as typecasting. Steel was asked by director Steve Miner if she would be willing to return for the sequel, and she declined. Ginny's confrontation with the villain Jason Voorhees (Steve Dash) and her nightmare sequence of the character have been deemed iconic. Film scholar Carol J. Clover cited Ginny among the original examples of the "final girl" theory developed in her 1992 nonfiction book Men, Women, and Chainsaws.

Appearances

Film

Ginny made her first appearance in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). A child psychology major, Ginny is assisting her boyfriend Paul (John Fury) in his new endeavor—running a counselor training center to train upcoming summer camp counselors. The facility is on the shores of Crystal Lake, which is infamous for the legend of Jason Voorhees (Steve Dash). Ginny believes it and deduces that Jason kills as vengeance for his mother. Ginny faces Jason and retreats to his makeshift hut in the woods. She discovers the shrine of Pamela Voorhees and Alice and decides to put on Pamela's deteriorating sweater—to impersonate Jason's mother. While it initially works, Jason realizes her tactic, and after a brief altercation with Paul, Ginny slices his shoulder with a machete. Ginny has a nightmare sequence of Jason attacking her through a window. The film ends ambiguously with her being pulled away on a stretcher with Paul missing.[1] In Part III (1982), Ginny appears in the films cold open flashbacking her confrontation with Jason and is later confirmed to have survived on a news report detailing her ordeal.[2]

Literature

Ginny makes her first literary appearance in the novelization of Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982), which states that she is in "serious condition" and is suffering from "severe hysterical shock" because of her battle with Jason Voorhees. She subsequently appears as the lead protagonist in Friday the 13th Part II: A Novel, a novelization of the 1981 film Friday the 13th Part 2, which was released seven years after the film premiered in February 1988. The novel was written by Simon Hawke and based on Ron Kurz's screenplay.[3] The aftermath of her encounter with Jason is once again referenced in the novel Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs, which states that her claims of finding Jason's shack in the woods went ignored, due to the authorities doubting her sanity. Ginny is a prominent recurring character featured in the designs of the apparel company Fright-Rags.[4][5] Artist Matthew Therrien featured Ginny in his "Final Girl and Cinema Survivors" digital series.[6]

Development
Jason and Ginny during the nightmare sequence in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). This sequence was challenging to film for Ginny's actress, Amy Steel
Steel describes filming the window sequence as her least favorite part of filming.

Victor Miller, the writer of Friday the 13th (1980), declined to write the sequel as the idea of Jason being the villain was illogical to him. Ginny, instead, was conceptualized by writer Ron Kurtz. Once Kurtz joined the production, one of his goals was to kill off the protagonist of the first film, Alice (Adrienne King). Kurtz had a misconception that King's agent was trying to bribe the production for more money. Kurtz created a new group of counselors and wanted them to be believable and likable characters.

Ginny was created by Ron Kurtz, following the original film's writer Victor Miller refusal to return—who found Jason's transformation into a villain illogical. Ginny serves as the successor to the original main character Alice (Adrienne King) who Kurtz killed off in the prologue. Partial inspiration for Ginny came from numerous women Kurtz had known throughout his life that he characterized as "intelligent."

While Ginny is not in Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982), this was not intentional. Steve Miner intended for the character to return in the sequel as the protagonist and wanted the film to have a more psychological element to it—with Ginny's trauma being the focal point. One concept he worked on with writer Martin Kitrosser would have been set in a mental institution and featured Jason stalking her.

Amy Steel recollects receiving a script that features the character returning to university to finish her psychology degree and being an outcast amongst her peers. The screenplay features Ginny in a post-traumatic state, taking jiu-jitsu as a means of coping with her trauma. This version of the script also confirms Paul's fate (whose survival was left ambiguous in the second film)—with Jason placing his head in her dormitory. It would have featured Ginny taking proactive steps, joining supporting character Ted as they hunt Jason down.[7]

Characteristics

Journalist Brendan Morrow (The Week) wrote that Ginny is the Friday the 13th series most likable heroine due to her charismatic personality and her final encounter with Jason—which Morrow deems as depicting the character as being fearless and intelligent.[8]

Eric Goldman (IGN) wrote of the franchise's lead characters that Ginny is "one of the most appealing in the entire series," attributing it to Steel being likable.[9] Matthew Chernov (Variety) wrote "actress Amy Steel gives a loveable performance that elevates her to the top ranks of horror movie heroines."[10] Jeremiah Kipp (Slant) describes Steel's performance as an "enjoyably low-key and naturalistic" that resembles Jamie Lee Curtis's performance as Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978).[11]

The Friday the 13th Part 2 script describes Ginny as an aspiring child psychologist working as a camp counselor over the summer. Steel describes liking the character as she wasn't scripted as "total bimbo" and highlights Ginny for having intelligence and confidence.[12] Writer Jason Norman describes Ginny as being likable to the viewers and having a charismatic personality.[12] Scholar Bruce F. Kawin notes Ginny's major in child psychology and writes her empathy towards Jason Voorhees and understanding children's emotions as attributing to her survival.[13]

Critic Barry Keith Grant questions the morality of Ginny impersonating Pamela Voorhees as means of survival and writes that the film's ending undermines Ginny's independence.[14] Conversely, literary critic John Kenneth Muir commended Ginny for being "resourceful" during the film's climax and writes that she upstages Alice (Adrienne King) and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) during her impersonation of Pamela.[15] Writer Richard Nowell praised the character's "self-confident" entrance and "combining masculine traits with feminine attributes."[16]

Writer J. A. Kerswell characterizes Ginny as "warm, resourceful, and plucky."[17] Similarly, writer Jon O'Brien (Inverse) describes the character as tenacious and states that she is the franchise's "ultimate final girl."[18] Adam Charles Hart states that Ginny is a shift in 1980's horror heroines due to her intelligence.[19] In 2016, Paste ranked Ginny 17th on their list of The 20 Best "Final Girls" in Horror Movie History, calling her "a realistic girl of her time period who, at the same time, has the guts and resolve to face off against Jason and come out on top."[20]

See also

References
  1. Steve Miner (Director) (1981). Friday the 13th Part 2 (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures.
  2. Steve Miner (Director) (1982). Friday the 13th Part 3 (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures.
  3. Hawke, Simon (1988). Friday the 13th Part II: A Novel. New American Library. ISBN 0-451-15337-5.
  4. Parker, Jason (September 15, 2014). "Fright-Rags Releases 'Ginny's Revenge' Part 2 Themed T-Shirt". Friday the 13th The Franchise. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  5. Galluzzo, Rob (January 11, 2017). "MOTEL HELL, The FRIDAY THE 13TH Victims & Alfred Hitchcock Get Their Due In New FRIGHT-RAGS Line!". Blumhouse Productions. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  6. Sprague, Mike (May 4, 2017). "Exclusive: Artist Matthew Therrien Talks Final Girls & Cinema Survivors". JoBlo.com. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  7. Volmers, Eric. "Friday the 13th: How a real-life stalker, Greek mask theory and child psychology helped shape the history of horror's most enduring franchise". Calgary Herald. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  8. Morrow, Brendan (January 13, 2023). "Every Friday the 13th movie, ranked". The Week. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
  9. Goldman, Eric (December 25, 2018). "Friday the 13th Part 2 DVD Review". IGN. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  10. Chernov, Matthew (May 7, 2020). "'Friday the 13th' Turns 40: Ranking All the Jason Voorhees Films". Variety. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  11. Kipp, Jeremiah (February 4, 2009). "DVD Review: Friday the 13th Part 2 on Paramount Home Entertainment". Slant Magazine. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
  12. Norman, Jason (November 11, 2014). Welcome to Our Nightmares. McFarland. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-78-647986-3.
  13. Kawin, Bruce (2012). Horror and the Horror Film. Anthem Press. ISBN 978-0857284501.
  14. Grant, Barry (2015). The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292772458.
  15. Muir, John Kenneth (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1. MacFarland. ISBN 978-0786455010.
  16. Nowell, Richard (2010). Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 210. ISBN 978-1441188502.
  17. Kerswell, J. A. (2018). The Teenage Slasher Movie Book. CompanionHouse Books. p. 210. ISBN 9781620083086.
  18. O'Brien, Jon. "How 'Friday the 13th Part 2' accidentally created horror's biggest franchise ever". Inverse. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  19. Hart, Adam Charles (2019). Monstrous Forms. Oxford University Press. p. 49. ISBN 9780190916251.
  20. Vorel, Jim (October 4, 2016). "The 20 Best "Final Girls" in Horror Movie History". Paste. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
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