Blonde Beautiful Dead
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

Featured in DesignTO Festival 2020; as part of Off Course, a work in progress exhibition which received the Juror’s Choice Award

Featured in Recession Grads: Digital Exhibition & Archive (2020)

Featured in Ocadu's Gradex 105 | Digital Exhibition (2020)

(2020)

Photography by Ben Bonsu @ Offcourse Exhibition (as part of DesignTO Festival 2020) which received the Jurors Choice Award

"The Dead Girl trope inherently lacks agency as she exists only through the memory of others and the small piece of her they knew." The poster series is meant to act as a supporting project, introducing the audience to key themes present in the Dead girl genre and trope.

Let’s Watch the Dead Girl introduces the Dead Girl trope and genre in film/television. Featuring short writings on topics of misogyny, fetishization and how art and history has influenced the genre.

Killer Dreamboat delves into the online communities that fetishize real and fictional men who have committed violent crime. These discussions and "fandoms" occur on tumblr, twitter and reddit thread

The film test is intended to be applied to films + tv shows within the Dead Girl genre. Asking how women
are represented. Aiming to give viewers the space to reflect and critic this genre on their own.

→ Click here to read the full "Making the Dead Girl" Process Book