She is mysterious, sexualized, and her death is the centre of the plot. This is the Dead Girl film trope. Blonde hair mixed with blood, an extra long shot that travels the length of her plastic covered blue body never seen alive only talked about. In 1990, the Dead Girl trope was introduced to the public in the form of Laura Palmer, the Prom Queen of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.
This is how we see dead women, stylized, placed perfectly in an appeasing composition for our entertainment. This character set the parameters for how dead women and girls have been shown in film and television ever since. The project Blonde Beautiful Dead aims to critique and reframe this trope and genre within film and television. Through a series of print pieces the project explores themes of misogyny, fetishization and lack of agency. Asking “Who gets to tell these women’s stories?”
Visual Communication, Photography, Typography, Gender, Film Critic, Publication, Authorship
(2020)
are represented. Aiming to give viewers the space to reflect and critic this genre on their own.