Ginny (Friday the 13th)

Ginny Field is a fictional character in the Friday the 13th franchise, portrayed by Amy Steel. Introduced in Steve Miner's sequel Friday the 13th Part 2 in 1981, Ginny is an aspiring child psychologist who is hired as an assistant to Paul Holt at the Packanack Lodge, a site Paul plans to transform into a counselor training center which is located near the infamous Camp Crystal Lake. Ginny, who believes that the legend of Jason Voorhees is more than a myth, soon encounters the vengeful killer and realizes that she must delve into his psyche if she wants to survive.

Ginny Field
Friday the 13th character
Amy Steel portraying Ginny in Friday the 13th Part 2
First appearanceFriday the 13th Part 2
Last 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

Originally in Friday the 13th Part III (1982), the storyline was supposed to focus on a post-traumatic Field who began learning self defense and returned to college after surviving her ordeal in the previous film. After finding Paul's corpse inside her dormitory, she prepares to track down Voorhees and face him in a final confrontation. However, this concept was abandoned when Steel declined to reprise her role.[1][2]

She also appears in the Friday the 13th expanded universe, appearing in the novelizations and merchandise based on the films. Some scholars regard Ginny as an example of the "final girl" archetype.[3]

Appearances

In film

In Friday the 13th Part 2, Ginny is an aspiring child psychologist who is Paul Holt's girlfriend, she arrives at Crystal Lake late for training. At the campfire that night, Paul tells the camp counselors the legend of Jason Voorhees and the disappearance of Alice which occurred months after Jason allegedly witnessed his mother being beheaded, to scare the other counselors from entering Camp Crystal Lake. Later, Paul offers them a trip to the next town, and several counselors attend, including Ginny. At a bar, Ginny admits that she takes the legend of "Camp Blood" seriously. She feels sympathetic towards Jason Voorhees, because of his traumatic childhood and she believes the legend of him witnessing Alice beheading his mother. Meanwhile, Jason begins to murder all of the counselors that stayed at the camp. When Ginny and Paul return, she believes that something is wrong. Ginny is soon forced to fight for her life. After Jason knocks Paul out, Ginny becomes his new target. After evading Jason numerous times and fighting back, Ginny stumbles across Jason's shack in the woods, and finds a shrine for Pamela Voorhees. She puts on an old sweater, belonging to Pamela, in effort to convince Jason Voorhees that she is his mother. Jason believes her, and she manages to calm him down before he notices his mother's head behind Ginny. He then slices open Ginny's leg just as Paul comes in. As Jason prepares to kill Paul, Ginny comes up behind Jason and drives a machete into his shoulder. At the end of the film, Ginny is seen being carried away in a stretcher, crying out for Paul, whose fate is left unknown.[4]

Friday the 13th Part III picks up directly after the second film, with Ginny Field shown being pulled away on a stretcher during a news report detailing the ordeal she survived.[5]

Ginny appears in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) through archive footage; this is currently the last Friday the 13th film that Ginny appears in.[6]

In 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.[7]

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.

In merchandise

In 2014, Fright-Rags released a T-shirt titled "Ginny's Revenge", which prominently featuring Ginny in its design. It received a limited release with only 300 shirts being sold. The cost of the shirts were $27 with sizes ranging from S-5X, Girls S-2X.[8] In 2017, Ginny was featured on the design of another Fright-Rags T-shirt entitled Victims and Survivors.[9]

In video games

In the 2017 video game Friday the 13th: The Game, Ginny is referenced in the Virtual Cabin 2.0 mode. When viewing the statue of Jason's design from Friday the 13th Part 2, his biography states, "Only the aspiring child psychologist, Ginny Field, is able to outsmart and eventually "defeat" Jason. She puts on Pamela's sweater to trigger Jason, and then buries a machete deep into his shoulder..." She is also referenced in the biography for Jason's design from Friday the 13th Part III which states that Jason barely survived his encounter with Ginny.

Development

In an interview, Amy Steel discussed her audition for the film, stating:

"At the time of [making the film], it was before the genre really picked up so I didn’t give it a lot of credit or take it seriously. For me, it was just another audition because I had no idea what it would end up meaning after all this time. When I played Ginny, I was really young and different from a lot of the people working at the time so that came out in my character. I was naturally suspicious of cocky guys at that age, and you see a lot of that when I’m on screen with Paul (John Furey). I tried to put so much behind the actual words in the script just so she felt almost unreachable, to Paul and to audiences. I wanted her to have some power."[10]

While discussing the character, Steel described the parallels between herself and Ginny and praised the character's intelligence and strength, noting:

"I think I got lucky with the role of Ginny, on a couple of fronts. She's pretty much who I am. It wasn't really much of a stretch. We have the same energy, so you could say I was typecast. But the hard part is really owning who we are as women, all the strength, faith, and calm ... at the same time."

She then said she liked the character because she wasn't a "total bimbo" and that she was "smart and confident and you knew she had something driving her."[11]

Originally, Ginny was set to return as a main character in Part III but Amy Steel feared being typecast and officially decided to not return when her agent of the time convinced her to decline the offer. Her role in the film would have been similar to Laurie Strode's in Halloween II (1981). According to Kelly Konda, "Director Steve Miner and Martin Kitrosser, the script supervisor for Parts 1 and 2 and co-writer of Part 3, wanted Ginny to go to a mental institution as a result of her trauma after Part 2. Jason would eventually arrive to settle his vendetta against her, killing any guards, doctors, or patients that got in his way." However, producers soon became skeptical of the idea and eventually abandoned it when Steel officially declined to return.[12]

When asked why she didn't reprise her role as the lead character in Part III, Steel confirmed her fear of being typecast and her subsequent regret of declining the offer to return, stating:

"When I finished filming Part 2, I was trashed. I was exhausted. But that’s not why I didn’t do Part 3. I wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. At the time there was still a stigma associated with horror movies. Jamie Lee Curtis changed that . . . but the roles were limited. It was mostly about screaming. I regret not doing the third film. It’s one of my biggest regrets."[13]

She has also stated that her agents had recommended her to turn the film down in order to advance her career beyond the slasher-genre.[14]

Reception

In The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, Barry Keith Grant stated that, "Ginny temporarily adopts Mrs. Voorhees's authoritarian role to survive. Although circumstances necessitate this, she clearly uses her enemy's strategy to become a phallic mother herself. This posture really questions the positive image of the Final Girl." He then called her "not victorious" when she called out for her boyfriend at the end of the film saying that it was done in a "non-independent manner".[15]

John Kenneth Muir references Ginny in Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1, saying "Amy Steel is introduced as Ginny, our final girl and heroine, and the only person who seems to have an inkling of the nearby danger. She's more resourceful than Alice and nearly upstages even Laurie Strode during the film's tense finale, wherein she brazenly dresses up as Jason's dead mother and starts barking orders at the confused serial killer."[16]

In Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle, Richard Nowell said "The shift in characterization of the female leads was also trumpeted during Ginny's self-confident entrance (Amy Steel) in Friday the 13th Part II. Where the makers of its predecessor introduced Alice as she prepared cabins while dressed in denim jeans and a shapeless lumberjack shirt, the sequel's conventionally attractive lead is established immediately as combining masculine traits with feminine attributes. Ginny exits a battered VW bug in a flowing fuchsia skirt and a low-cut t-shirt."[17]

In Horror and the Horror Film, Bruce F. Kawin states that "The heroine and survivor, Ginny (Amy Steel), is not a virgin, though she is having her period and may gain from that some blood power against Jason. Ginny is majoring in Child Psychology, which lets her deal with Jason (who, she deduces, has the mind of child fixated on the mother he saw killed because she loved him) when she pretends to be his mother. She survives partly because she takes children's emotions seriously."[18] In 2012, Complex ranked Ginny 16th on their list of The 25 Most Badass Horror Movie Heroines.[19]

Brendan Morrow on Bloody Disgusting writes that "Amy Steel beautifully portrays Ginny as an independent woman who is getting a bit sick of being looked down upon" and that

"Not only is Ginny not the dumb blonde archetype we might expect, but she’s actually studying to become a child psychologist. How often do we meet a slasher character whose academic pursuits are even a point of discussion and whose book smarts are exalted rather than mocked or used as an example of how boring they are?"

Morrow also argues that Ginny is more than capable of standing up for herself without venturing into Mary Sue territory, and that imposturing Pamela Voorhees to stall Jason also proves her to be a reasonable and compassionate person. He also criticizes Ginny's successor Chris Higgins of Friday the 13th Part III to have no personality to speak of in comparison with Ginny.[20]

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 (sans hockey mask, which he didn’t get until the third film) and come out on top."[21]

See also

References
  1. Erickson, Steve. "Crypticon 2018 St Joseph MO Adrienne King Amy Steel panel Friday the 13th 1 & 2 sole survivors". YouTube. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  2. Ferri, Jessica (January 13, 2017). "The Girl That Got Away from Jason: An Interview with Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2". The Lineup. Retrieved September 24, 2019.
  3. Rayner, Karly (February 26, 2016). "They Survived It All, But What Do These Iconic Final Girls Of Horror Look Like Now ?". Moviepilot. Archived from the original on 2016-03-01. Retrieved July 8, 2017.
  4. Steve Miner (Director) (1981). Friday the 13th Part 2 (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures.
  5. Steve Miner (Director) (1982). Friday the 13th Part 3 (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures.
  6. Joseph Zito (Director) (1984). Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (DVD). United States: Paramount Pictures.
  7. Hawke, Simon (1988). Friday the 13th Part II: A Novel. New American Library. ISBN 0-451-15337-5.
  8. 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.
  9. Galluzzo, Rob (January 11, 2017). "MOTEL HELL, The FRIDAY THE 13TH Victims & Alfred Hitchcock Get Their Due In New FRIGHT-RAGS Line!". blumhouse.com. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  10. Wixson, Heather (March 5, 2010). "Dread Central's Final Girls: Amy Steel". Dread Central. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  11. Norman, Jason (2014). Welcome to Our Nightmares: Behind the Scene with Today's Horror Actors. McFarland. ISBN 0786479868.
  12. "13 Things You May Not Know About Friday the 13th Part 3". We Minored In Film. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  13. "The Girl That Got Away from Jason: An Interview with Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2".
  14. Marc Shapiro (June 1989). "The Women of Crystal Lake Part One". Fangoria. No. 83. p. 18-21. ISSN 0164-2111.
  15. Grant, Barry (2015). The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292772459.
  16. Muir, John Kenneth (2012). Horror Films of the 1980s, Volume 1. MacFarland. ISBN 0786455012.
  17. Nowell, Richard (2010). Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 210. ISBN 1441188509.
  18. Kawin, Bruce (2012). Horror and the Horror Film. Anthem Press. ISBN 0857284509.
  19. "The 25 Most Badass Horror Movie Heroines". Complex. October 25, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  20. Brendan Morrow (January 13, 2017). "A Tribute to 'Friday the 13th Part 2's' Ginny Field, One of the Great Horror Heroines". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  21. Vorel, Jim (October 4, 2016). "The 20 Best "Final Girls" in Horror Movie History". Paste. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
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