Laurie Strode has been a part of pop culture, and an icon within the section of that culture most interested in horror, for almost 50 years. As Halloween is seen as the film that introduces mass audiences to the slasher sub genre, popularizing it through it’s runaway success, Laurie is also considered the character that introduces this same audience to the archetype that has come to be called the Final Girl. It’s an archetype that reverberates through horror from that point forward, as well as other more generally mainstream and commercially successful genres. There’s a credible argument to be made that the action movie heroine has some debt to the Final Girl, with the connection being clearest in action horror franchises like Underworld and Resident Evil that come to popularity in the nineties. We could also trace the influence of the Final Girl through horror, into the action heroines who've been populating film and tv since the archetype was introduced, and characters outside of film, like Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider video games series and so on. 

That original film, written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, directed by Carpenter, has spawned a franchise with ten more films, including Halloween III, which has nothing at all to do with any of the other films, as well as two other branching and independent continuities featuring The Shape, and seven of which feature the Laurie Strode. Like other iconic stories and characters, Laurie Strode and her story from the original Halloween has been iterated, variated, retold, reimagined and so on.

There has also been a remake and sequel to it, written and directed by Rob Zombie featuring new iterations of the principle characters from the original film, including Michael Myers and Laurie. 

Rightly or not, the various sequels and continuities that have sprung from that original 1978 film are regarded as a semi-comic example of the film industry’s desire to separate audiences from their money. They can be seen as absurdity appreciated as entertaining camp, sometimes with the creative intention of continuing the stories of beloved characters. Those with a more cynical, pessimistic perspective on audiences, see an example of the worst aspects of art meeting commerce. Rarely is anything having to do with the creation and reception of storytelling as simple and straightforward as either of these perspectives suggests alone though. Both of these can be true at the same time. Art is born, in part, from the interaction between the response and interaction between human beings and our social environments. A society whose commerce is run by the rules of capitalism is going to effect that society's art, and the art is going to reflect that back. Beyond this, human beings have been revisiting, reinterpreting, reiterating and creating variations on the stories and characters that we find meaningful, since storytelling was an inherently aural tradition.

If we can accept the interaction between creative intent and commerce, the stories that result from it, and the reception of that story by audiences is complicated, layered and nuanced, shaped by and shaping the society they exist in, it suggests the length of time Laurie Strode has had purchase in pop culture is worth asking questions about. Box office receipts, critical reception, public interest in the form of other media dedicated to Laurie and Halloween more broadly, all suggest Laurie Strode has weight in our collective consciousness, and is as essential to what audiences find fulfilling as they do Michael Myers. The films in the Halloween franchise that don't include Laurie have been much less successful at the box office, and they have (for good or ill) become a footnote in consideration of the films, outside of the fanbase specifically to the franchise.

If we take these into consideration, and accept that the art which is afforded respect and legitimacy by the institutions that convey these things isn't the only art that speaks about and influences a society, what do we see when we look at the way Laurie Strode has been portrayed as a character? If we accept it’s all storytelling and there’s some validity to the idea that the number of people who continue to choose to engage with a particular story or character, and the length of time they continue to says something about that character and story’s usefulness to us, what do we see in Laurie Strode? 

The Many Lives of Laurie Strode

Not only does Halloween introduce audiences to Laurie Strode as the Final Girl, it introduces them to Jamie Lee Curtis. The child of a celebrity union in Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Jamie Lee would go on to become the first properly recognized Scream Queen. Halloween is often attributed to be the first slasher film, even as Bob Clark’s Black Christmas has a more credible claim to that title. Like there are films before Halloween that could be more accurately recognized as "the first slasher," there had been others who’d fit the definition of Scream Queen in the years and decades prior to Jamie Lee Curtis playing Laurie Strode, but lacking the same commercial success and cultural impact, Curtis becomes the first to be widely recognized with the title. In some ways, the title is invented because Halloween, its and imitators have the impact on pop culture more broadly. The previous films, sub genres and women who’d animated them, just didn’t have the same depth or immediacy of impact. 

In 1980, there would be the sequel, Halloween II, which picks up at the moment the original film ended. The general consensus is that as a slasher film, it’s a standard entry in the genre, but it doesn’t have the impact on the audience the original did. No small part of that failure to evoke as intense a response from audiences is that it relegates Curtis as Laurie to a hospital bed for 3/4 of its run time, removing what agency she had in the original. It effectively splits the narrative perspective of the film between three characters, including Laurie who spends the majority of the film barely conscious due to sedation, realistically struggling with the immediate aftermath of what she’d experienced the first film. Realistic or not, it doesn’t make for a compelling narrative. For this reason, Halloween II will only figure into more of this discussion where absolutely necessary. 

John Carpenter was brought back write the script Halloween II, which he has for many years openly admitted he had no real interest in writing or being involved in, and was heavily aided by a six pack of beer a day to write it. It's the film which introduces the idea that Michael Meyers and Laurie Strode are siblings. This has importance because the original film opens with Michael killing his older sister, at the tender age of six. Halloween II injects the idea some part of Michael’s motivation is related to family members, especially apparently, those female family members. When Curtis doesn’t want to return to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers, eight years later, a whole storyline is created around Laurie having died, and Michael now being obsessed with her daughter, his niece. That storyline continues for three films, that are regarded as the most unintentionally comic and absurd of the franchise. Like Halloween II, Halloween 4 is regarded as a standard, derivative, relatively uninteresting slasher film.

Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, as the title clearly states, is released 20 years after Carpenter's original. It presents us with a Laurie Strode, 20 years after the Night He Came Home (the now famous tagline from the original film). Outside of horror circles, its considered a forgettable bauble, a chance for Jamie Lee Curtis to exert more control over an artistic legacy she’d been attempting to avoid being pigeon holed into. It was Curtis return not just to the character, but the the horror genre she’d been avoiding for over a decade, because it was threatening to be the only option available to her both artistically and as a career. Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to be seen as more than just a Scream Queen, and after she'd established herself as "credible" to the rest of the film industry, she returned to H20 as a producer, with more control over the both the film, and how Laurie Strode would be portrayed.

In H20, Laurie has changed her name, left the small hometown of Haddonfield, and become the headmistress of a posh, private, high school. Over the course of the film, we learn Laurie is struggling with the legacy of the traumatic experience she survived at the hands of Michael Meyers/The Shape, in 1978. Though she’s successful in her career as an educator, her personal life is in shambles. Her relationship with her son is effected by her drive for control not quite suited to his age and maturity, while he’s also somewhat saddled with caretaking for her, she’s divorced from his father whom we’re given the suggestion isn’t so well adjusted or healthy himself. Her current love interest doesn’t know anything about her past. She’s what would colloquially be called a functioning alcoholic, as well. Her life has been and continues to be shaped by a fear Michael/The Shape is going to return, and by golly, the entire reason for the film to exist is to bring Laurie and The Shape back together. 

H20 was successful at the box office, but critically it was chided as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the 20th anniversary of a culturally significant, beloved classic film. Within the smaller horror focused audience, it’s generally considered a fun, if superficial exercise in a beloved character being given closure. Curtis gives moments which are really just hints of characterization more weight than the script provides, by way of talent and experience. The moments she gets with the other principal characters are the only draw for more than one viewing of H20, outside of the dedicated fanbase. It delivers on being a standard entry in the slasher genre, leaning more toward the fun side than gruesome and grueling. The entire point of this film is bringing Laurie back, and giving the audience the chance to experience her doing away with The Shape. In essence, its a celebration of the first Final Girl, and a chance to make her the hero of her own story, in line with what audiences had come to understand a Final Girl was and could be after 40 years of evolution.

In one of the most absurd, ridiculous, hilarious or cynical money driven decisions made in the life of the franchise, Laurie (and Curtis) returns in the opening of Halloween Resurrection, and is unceremoniously killed by The Shape. Resurrection is broadly considered one of the worst films in the snaking, labyrinthian Halloween franchise, by critics, the horror audience and even with dedicated fans of the franchise. It also wasn’t exactly a success at the box office. It earned it’s budget back, but little more. It’s lack of consideration for Laurie as a character, her importance to the franchise and fans, plays a part in that reception, and nothing else in it is impactful enough to overcome that.

The reception to Halloween Resurrection, critically and from fans, rendered the Halloween franchise untouchable for sixteen years. Though the majority of the films had been profitable based on the strategy of keeping budgets low and producing horror films featuring popular characters, even the likes of Harvey and Bob Weinstein (not human beings well known for self reflection as a skill) recognized Resurrection had turned the fanbase against them, and Resurrection had poisoned the well.

In 2018, Curtis returns to the role of Laurie to battle it out with The Shape in theaters again in Halloween, one of those unfortunate instances in the recent trend of a "legacy sequel" being given a name identical to the original. For the purpose of clarity and brevity, I’ll be referring to it as H40. It’s storyline continues as if the only other film in the franchise is the original. It disregards the continuity that included Halloween II and H20. The 2018 film begins a new trilogy featuring Laurie and The Shape. Whatever one might say about David Gordon Greene (the director of this trilogy), Danny McBride (the principle writer) and Blumhouse, they did at least understand that the draw for audiences, as well as the more interesting storytelling was centered on Laurie and Micheal. All three of these films do well at the box office.

H40 proposes The Shape was captured by police after the events of the original film (a sequence that we see play out in the opening of the second film of this trilogy’s timeline), and has been in an asylum for the criminally insane for the forty years that followed. It gives audiences a Laurie who has spent the years since 1978 in Haddonfield, the small town where The Shape attempted to murder her, after creating a funhouse of horrors for her to find, with the bodies of her friends. 

Laurie’s obsession with the possibility of The Shape/Michael Meyers returning to try to succeed where he failed in 1978 has been her singular focus in the forty years since. She has an adult daughter, whom she lost custody of when that daughter was a child due to Laurie’s obsessive preparation for what she believes ss The Shape’s inevitable return. She also has a granddaughter that she has been kept at a distance from, because of her relationship with her daughter has been so strained. Laurie's granddaughter Allyson is seventeen, the same age as Laurie was 1978, and Allyson has some similarities to Laurie, but is also different in significant ways. H40 has a mixed reception from critics, but was more positive among horror fans and fans of the franchise, overall.

That film is followed by Halloween Kills. Laurie, again, spends the length of the film in a hospital bed, but not under full sedation this time. The important scenes for Laurie in this film involve different kinds of reckoning with her daughter and other characters who’ve been part of her life in the forty years since the original. It’s less concerned with Laurie than it is with the town of Haddonfield, and the way the legacy of The Shape's violence has effected the town. It's a divisive film. There are some horror fans and Halloween fans who find it satisfying as a fun, silly, grisly entry in the slasher genre. Others find it so absurdly ridiculous, poorly written and at odds with itself they thoroughly and savagely lambast it at every opportunity.

After this comes the film most controversial among horror fans since Halloween III attempted to take the franchise focus away from Michael or Laurie. Halloween Ends focuses on a new character, Corey, and the way Michael’s legacy of violence contributes to the creation of a new generation of killer. Laurie becomes a supporting character, but Corey’s relationship with her granddaughter keeps her involved as the elder who recognizes The Shape when she sees it. The trilogy, overall, presents Laurie as a matriarch, trying to protect her family from The Shape that so negatively effected her life in 1978. Reception to Halloween Ends was more negative than positive, though there is a vocal portion of the horror audience and the Halloween fanbase who appreciate that it took a new direction, and has some interesting ideas. [Not to readers, the opening sequence in Halloween Ends is worth seeing, even if just taken as its own short film. It's the best opening sequence of the franchise, since the original.]

Separate from these are the Rob Zombie remake and its sequel, a timeline and continuity of their own. The first of these films being released in 2007, it essentially updates Laurie to be a character to fit the time. Those updates are mostly aesthetic, and the core aspects of the character stay the same. It also attempts to paint some picture of childhood abuse and neglect being responsible for Michael’s violence, where the original treats Michael’s motivation as a complete mystery. 

Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 takes place a few years after the events of the remake. It finds this version of Laurie (played by Scout Taylor Compton) spiraling in her struggle with the trauma of her experience in the previous film. 

This gives us three separate continuities, and in turn, three separate iterations of the character of Laurie Strode. The list that follows is to establish as shorthand for the purpose of the rest of this discussion.

The 1st Final Girl

• Halloween (1978)

• Halloween 2 (1980) 

• H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

• Halloween Resurrection (2002)

The 21st Century Matriarch 

• Halloween (1978)

• Halloween (2018)

• Halloween Kills (2021) 

• Halloween Ends (2022) 

The Inconvenience

• Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) 

• Halloween 2 (2009) [Note: I will be referring to the Director’s Cut of this film, because it’s a richer text in relation to Laurie as a character, and generally recognized as the better version of the film]

The Ever Present Danger and The Many Survivors

Even if the intent behind many of these films is the closest thing a producer can find to a guaranteed return on investment, what they end up creating is something much more than that.

What all of these films have in common is Michael/The Shape and Laurie, the violator and the survivor. It’s not completely necessary for the purpose of this discussion, but if you would like a more in depth exploration of Michael Myers (whom I’ll be referring to as The Shape for the duration of the discussion) as a symbol of the ever presence of masculine violence, you can find it here. Carpenter’s original, which is the foundation of all of these films, more specifically represents the masculine violence hidden by what I call the Suburban Utopia Myth. Some of the sequels remove the suburban setting, but in all of the continuities and timelines that follow it, he is The Shape masculine violence takes in Laurie Strode's life. The Shape is a constant, and less a character than a void defined by the will to and capability for violence. Even in the Rob Zombie remake and its sequel, which attempt to locate some kind of rationale or reason for his violence, he represents the ever presence of masculine violence and the predatory behaviors it creates toward women. This isn’t a violence reserved solely for women, but it is a violence focused on women, Laurie most specifically for our purposes, and what we see throughout is that the danger he poses to men is related only to that focus. The Shape is a danger to men who are between him and Laurie or are in proximity to her. 

Laurie is the character that changes, depending on the continuity. What we get through those changes are three different representations of what being a survivor of this violence can look like, and in turn, and how we as an audience react to those different representations. In many ways, this is would also explain why the slasher film has been such a popular sub genre. It represents many iterations of masculine violence, as well as the many iterations of our cultural ideas about the victims most worthy of our empathy, sympathy, attention and care. We can see a microcosm of this in Laurie Strode. 

The fan favorite is The 1st Final Girl version of Laurie, and part of the reason the 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie was met with a certain degree of backlash, dubbed MAGA Laurie by the most fervent critics of the character. Yet, both versions of Laurie represent heightened versions of different ways people respond to violent trauma.

The 1st Final Girl version of Laurie is hiding in anonymity, and not just by changing her name. She is, in a way, hiding in plain sight and using social standards as a way to give herself some control over her environment. She’s the headmistress of what seems to be an exclusive, secluded private school. At least in her career, she’s been successful, and projects the image of a woman who “has it all together.” The need for control is threatening her relationship with her teenage son, and she is otherwise personally and emotionally isolated and alone. No one else around her knows who she is or what she’s experienced. Unfortunately for this Laurie, she’s right. The Shape does return, and not even to Haddonfield. He travels to what looks to be northern California to find her specifically. 

The 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie is also living in seclusion and isolation, in response to the fear The Shape will again come for her. She hasn’t tried to retreat to anonymity though. She hasn’t changed her name. She hasn’t even left Haddonfield. She’s living on its outskirts, in what amounts to a compound. She is preparing for The Shape to come for her, not hiding in hopes that he doesn’t find her. It’s cost her, basically everything we would generally consider a “normal” or good life, including her relationship with her family. 

That both of these versions of Laurie are played by Jamie Lee Curtis add something to this, because she is the person who originated the role in 1978. As the 1st Final Girl, this was Curtis return to the genre that started her career, and that she had eschewed for more than a decade. Not only was it a return to the genre, it was a return to the role itself, and the character that had been absent from the franchise, causing the first instance of a Halloween film to retcon a timeline and continuity involving The Shape. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers begins what’s come to be known as The Thorn trilogy, and it explains Laurie has died in the interim, leaving a daughter behind, who becomes the focus. It continues with the idea The Shape is somehow, for some reason, obsessed with members of his bloodline, and tries to create some kind of explanation for this. 

Though Michael Myers returning to screens was notable to fans of the franchise and slasher films in general, Halloween 4 didn’t generate anything like the box office success or cultural impact H20 would. The Shape/Myers, has become a cultural icon of his own, but without Laurie Strode, he’s clearly less interesting to audiences. 

What we get in the 1st Final Girl version of Laurie in H20 is a survivor who is using social conventions to hide. In the kinds of conversations which are usually considered the realm of the horror nerd who needs to go outside or add some other new hobbies to their lives, this version of Laurie is generally preferred to the 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie from H40. I think horror focused audiences are microcosms of the larger population, and their choices in what storytelling in art they are most likely to engage with don’t render them unicorns or mutants. The demographic diversity of the audience, as well as the research emerging about the multiple different reasons why people may prefer horror, are in contrast to the idea there is something so specific about the audience it would exclude it from being representative of the culture they exist within. 

There’s an interesting overlap in the preference for the 1st Final Girl, with the way the wider society responds to victims of masculinity’s violence, because the 1st Final Girl is wrapped in a kind of socially acceptable veneer. The sense is that this is a “better” future for a woman who’s life and sense of identity has been shaped by masculinity's violence. If we really look at it, the biggest difference between the 1st Final Girl and the 21st Century Matriarch versions of Laurie, is that the 1st Final Girl has a job we as an audience find acceptable, and she’s attempting to preserve a veneer of “normalcy.” She hasn’t decided to eschew the social standards and norms. She’s specifically using them to her advantage. Her retreat into the version of anonymity she’s created, is also related to protecting her son. She isn’t experiencing fulfilling personal relationships, contentment, comfort, or anything we associate sense of peace, any more than the 21st Century Matriarch. We like the 1st Final Girl, because she make us feel better about victims of masculinity's violence.

The 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie in H40 was dubbed “MAGA Laurie” by the most ardently critical, presumably because she has shooting range on her compound, where she practices marksmanship, and where she taught her daughter to shoot. This version of Laurie has eschewed social standards and expectations. Outside of extracting $3,000 from podcasters who have come to exploit her story, there’s no reference to how she is employed or makes money. It doesn't matter to the story or the character. She is on the outskirts of Haddonfield, having stayed in the town, because she is convinced The Shape will be coming for her again, and he will return to Haddonfield in looking for her. Another interesting difference between this 21st Century Matriarch is that as far as the wider story is concerned, The Shape isn’t focused on finding her. The 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie isn't hiding from The Shape, she's hiding from us.

Laurie and The Shape are brought together again by the obsession with the relationship between the victimizer and the victim. This version of The Shape, seems to only be driven by attempting to make it back to his childhood home, and is brought to Laurie. For all the guffawing at the in artful portrayal of Dr. Sartain in H40, he is a nod to the degree to which we as a public are obsessed with some connection between perpetrator and victim, when realistically, proximity is the source of the connection. When we’re talking about the violence of masculinity, it is predatory. By definition, the only thing that matters about the victim is that they can be and are perceived by the perpetrator as a candidate for victimization. A particular man may develop a particular victim profile, but that’s not about some connection with the victim, it’s about a set of vulnerabilities they best understand, have developed a strategy to manipulate. In H40, the only reason The Shape ends up having a climactic conflict with Laurie, is a man society has given the power to both study and contain the perpetrator, decided he will get more from the observation of more of that violence, without care for the cost, and he goes to extreme lengths to get what he wants. The Shape, is again, nothing but a symbol for masculinity’s violence, perpetrating it on anyone he comes into proximity with. There’s nothing particular about who he targets, but he ends up in proximity to Laurie, because Sartain is obsessed with the connection between perpetrator and victim. In it’s own way, this speaks to the degree audiences are clearly less interested in a Halloween film that doesn’t feature Laurie surviving yet another traumatic experience at the hands of The Shape. 

The interesting thing about the response to these different iterations of the character, is that they represent different ways victims of masculine violence respond to both the trauma they’ve endured, and the way the society around them responds to the ever presence of that violence. Among the most important things to note, is that with The Shape representing that ever presence of masculine violence, neither version of Laurie is wrong (in the logical or rational sense) in their assessment that this violence will be revisiting their lives again.

In H20, The Shape is specifically seeking Laurie out. In H40, he’s not, and she still has to rely on the preparation she’s made for it. In its way, this mirrors the reality survivors of masculinity’s violence live with. Having been a survivor once, doesn’t render one safe from its intrusion again, and how one performs the role of survivor has far less to do with whether it produces anything like well being or peace for the survivor themselves, than it does with the way that performance calls this reality into question. 

The 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie presents a challenge to our reality and how we think about survivors, because she has eschewed the social norms and standards, and her attitude is more or less, “I don’t give a fuck what you think, I’m going to be prepared for the next time this happens,” where the 1st Final Girl version of Laurie is partially using social acceptance as a shield. Neither of these are illogical or irrational, if we accurately assess the reality of what The Shape and Laurie symbolize. Maybe no one knows better than a survivor of masculinity’s violence, just how little the society cares to prevent the ways victim/victimizer roles are played out daily, despite our performance of fascination with it. We accept the ever presence of the violence, and critique how women who are victims perform what we think is acceptable victimhood. We expect people whose lives have been reshaped by the intrusion of this violence to reintegrate into those social norms, despite how their experiences have demonstrated that society has little interest in their well being, before or after.  

The 1st Final Girl version of Laurie is more palatable to us, because in comparison to the 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie, she calls those norms into question less. She fits into an idealized feminism, less interested in liberation than assimilation and being granted control by the same variety of institution which helps insure we do not interrupt the gender dynamics which accept man as victimizer and perpetrator and woman as victim and target. We dislike the 21st Century Matriarch version of Laurie, because she does not give a shit what we think, is attempting in her own broken but not irrational way, to prepare herself, her daughter and granddaughter for the reality, in contrast to the social norms and standards that ignore it. She’s rejecting the society wholly, and attempting to separate herself from it, in her attempt find some sense of security in the reality that she can’t change, because it has no interest in her well being beyond how it can exploit her victimization. 

This is thrown into stark contrast when we look at the way Laurie is portrayed in Rob Zombie’s Halloween films. In the first of those films, it attempts to create some kind of vague sense of reason for The Shape/Michael’s violence in the deeply disturbing reality of his childhood. There is some attempt to create identification with him. He’s a product of the kind of traditional masculinity that values dominance and dehumanization of anything it sees at outside or alternative to it. His rebellion against it, in this way, renders him as bound to it as if he’d adopted it. Dominance, dehumanization and violence are the result, either way. 

Laurie, played this time by Scout Taylor Compton, is essentially only different in that she’s meant to fit more into the 2000s mold of a teen girl than the 1978 version of her character. The ends are similar for both characters. Violence, trauma, survival. 

The consideration of Laurie as an avatar for survivors, comes more clearly into focus in the second film. Interestingly, there are two versions of the film which throw the same contrast into focus, as that of the difference between the 1st Final Girl and 21st Century Matriarch. There is a theatrical cut of the film, and a Director’s Cut. Among those who are even willing to discuss the Rob Zombie films, as a majority of the Halloween fandom has rejected them outright, and the broader horror audience hasn’t seen fit to re-examine them since their release, the Director’s Cut is seen as the superior version of the film (I agree with this consensus). 

The two different cuts of a sequel don’t change the events of the first film, but they do change how Laurie is presented in her experience of living with and dealing with the aftermath of the traumatic violence she’s experienced in the Rob Zombie remake. 

The Director’s Cut adds fifteen minutes to the run time, the majority of which is devoted to demonstrating the ways trauma is effecting Laurie’s ability to go about her life, her ability to behave in ways in keeping with the social norms expected of a young woman her age, and her ability to participate in relationships with even those closest to and trying to support her. In this version of events, her best friend Annie also survives The Shape's violence, and even in that intimacy the relationship is threatened by Laurie's instability. We not only get two different pictures of Laurie as a survivor in the two different version of Rob Zombie's Halloween II, we get another representation of a survivor in Annie, and though they've survived the violence of the same man, its effect on them is different. Crucially, one of the differences between this version of Laurie and the 1st Final Girl and 21st Century Matriarch versions, is that we aren’t jumping through time to an adult Laurie, 20 years or 40 years after her traumatic experience. This version of Laurie is eighteen, a year after the events of the first film. 

What we get here, is The Inconvenience. The original theatrical cut of the film, despite the fact that presumably, audiences know Laurie has been subjected to deeply traumatic violence, including the murder of one of her closest friends, and the attempted murder of herself and another close friend, the fact that the sections of the film more thoroughly exploring how that is effecting Laurie were cut from the film end up presenting her in a way that is less "likable" and evokes less empathy and sympthy. It’s one of the primary criticisms of the film. Laurie Strode, a character beloved in horror history, comes across as selfish, self involved, emotionally imbalanced, all things we associate as being the opposite of “likable” in storytelling terms. Yet, the entire reason this films exists, is because of the trauma she endured in the film previous to it.

This is one of the reasons the Director’s Cut is treated as the superior version of the film. Again, whether or not we as an audience see the broader effects of trauma on Laurie’s ability to live her day to day life, we know that’s the experience she’s had. Without being shown a more detailed picture of how it’s effecting her, she still isn’t given the sense of grace or leeway. Culturally, there is a better understanding of how violence creates long term trauma that negatively effects an individual in the macro and micro than there was 40 years ago, but we have to be invited to apply that understanding, through a survivor exposing even the most intimate aspects of it. 

It’s another of the ways we see the focus being put on the survivor to change the effects of that violence on them, instead of trying to change the conditions continuing to create victimizers, and protecting them from accountability. The Laurie of the theatrical cut of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 is an inconvenience. The response to Laurie being characterized as “not likable,” a disruption to the lives of the people around her, isn’t changed or filtered because we know what’s driven her to it. It demonstrates the other side of the coin that is the acceptable victim. 

One side of the “acceptable victim” coin, is the inferences and questions about what a victim does to invite their victimization. These are well known. “What were you wearing?” “Why were you alone?” “You didn’t have to be so mean when you rejected that man’s advances.” “She has a history of promiscuity.” We all know them. They’ve been around for centuries, and they are all meant to put responsibility on the victim, instead of the man committing the violence. All of it really comes down to making the specific incident of victimization acceptable. There has been a concept called “The Perfect Victim,” which describes a set of unrealistic expectations about purity, virtue, morality, for a victim to be given a consideration which isn’t based in belief that they have responsibility for their victimization. But it lacks accuracy in the context of the way we see victimization treated. It would be more accurate to describe those requirements in order for someone to be an Unacceptable Victim. The only woman who isn’t acceptable as a victim, is the one who upholds and demonstrates a complete loyalty or submission to the traits and roles patriarchy presents as its ideal woman. If a woman hasn’t shaped herself into that ideal (and no ideal can be completely embodied), she is an acceptable victim. 

We apply a different set of standards to how we expect a victim, who inherently becomes a survivor by not dying, is supposed to act in response to their victimization. We can know a woman has been subjected to masculinity’s violence and still reject her based on how she does or does not react to it, despite the very large body of evidence saying that there is a wide spectrum of variation in how it effects women individually. 

It is, in some ways, a good sign that exposure to the more intimate ways masculine violence effects survivors can provide the mechanism by which we overcome this desire to find blame for the victim. At the same time, it requires a survivor to endure the exact same mechanisms which continue to create the permission structure for masculine violence and the lack of accountability it faces. It’s a different kind of violation. One must be willing to expose these deeply personal, intimate struggles, in order to considered something other than The Inconvenience. The knowledge of the previous violation isn’t enough. They have to continue to submit to public judgment, despite the fact that public judgment has been a central part of insuring the conditions preventing accountability for masculine violence have remained in place. 

This speaks to, and exists in conversation with, both the 1st Final Girl Laurie and 21st Century Matriarch Laurie. They represent different responses to the way the society around them treats survivors. They can try and melt into, create anonymity within the society or they can reject it. The H20 Laurie tries to melt into it. She embeds herself in an exclusive, extremely small world of a private school, and ascends to the position affording her most power over that environment through the social standards. She hasn’t completely rejected the society around her, but she has used its standard and requirements as a way to attempt to create as much control as she can rend from it. 

We see in the H40 version of Laurie, a deep resentment of the way her experience has been exploited, and turned into a weapon against her, by institutions wrapped up in and responsible for the trauma she’s experienced. Her response to the podcasters who come to exploit that experience is to turn that exploitation around. She gives them nothing but disdain, and makes them pay her anyway. Her interactions with the police when it becomes clear The Shape is again on a murderous rampage through Haddonfield are expressions of disdain and frustration. There isn't anything irrational or illogical in her coming to the conclusion she has to take control of defending herself, and preventing The Shape from doing more harm, if viewed through the lens of her perspective on her experience.

Taking all of this, these different representations of what a survivor is and can be, and the way we collectively react to them, points to a few straightforward conclusions. 

First, the conditions that exist keep creating both masculine violence and survivors, and yet we have no real understanding of how to be responsible to survivors by giving them a place in society that allows the room for the amount of variation we see in how the trauma of that violence effects them. What we have is an unrealistic, factually inaccurate set of expectations about their lives that requires they submit to further violation, if they want any hope of that taking any responsibility in attempting to mend its relationship with them, much less if they want a perpetrator held accountable. 

Second, there is a consistent re-victimization in the way we respond to survivors, which becomes more impactful and severe, the further they deviate from these unrealistic, factually wrong requirements of their behavior. It’s a pattern creating isolation, and there’s nothing illogical or irrational about a survivor rejecting the social structure which allows the conditions that create these repeating patterns to stay in place. 

All of this points to the thing we seem to, collectively, be least willing to deal with. The conditions within our society not only keep producing individuals willing to engage in this masculine violence, but they also create a whole structure of permissions and excuses for it. Realistically, it’s impossible to attempt to create standards or requirements for survivors, without a substantial effort to address this. There is no reason for survivors to trust the society around them, until that effort is undertaken and demonstrated to have determination in the longer term. 

Storytelling as Exploration and Revelation

If we look at all of this, in the larger landscape of storytelling as a whole, it demonstrates one of the things that is useful, and possibly essential, in the ways human beings use storytelling. 

Whether the intention behind these different versions of Laurie Strode began simply as a way to get a dedicated fanbase to separate from their money or they originated in different storytellers attraction and affection for the characters of Halloween and its basic story, we still get all of these variations. Depending on the particular time and particular storyteller, they express and react to different ideas about this character’s traumatic experience with the violence of masculinity. Both how she is portrayed, and how we react to those portrayals, tell us a number of different things. 

This is one of the reasons we go back to characters and stories that have an impact on us. A character that is impactful enough to become a cultural touchstone represents something to the culture that treats them as a touchstone, and returning to them allows us to reconsider, expand, change, add new context and understanding to what that character symbolizes. Whether or not someone finds the Halloween franchise artful, Laurie Strode is still instructive in the different stages and different ways she’s been represented as a survivor of masculinity’s violence. 

This is part of what storytelling does for us, as human beings, and why we go back to stories and characters that have impacted us personally and/or the culture more broadly. We go back to them, as a way to see what they represent through new eyes, as a way to ask different questions, to imagine different possibilities, to uphold or challenge ideas their creation touches on or encompasses. 

The areas of our lives we are taught to see as being the places human beings go to explore “important” ideas, have biases built into them. When we’re talking about things like survivors of masculinity’s violence, the documented record of that bias is undeniable. Yet, at the same time, a film franchise which is far afield from what the social and cultural norms would consider as “important art” is still tackling an important subject, whether or not that was the intent, because whether we like it or not, storytelling always reveals something about the ideas and beliefs of the culture it comes from. 

These many iterations of Laurie Strode and our reaction to them as audiences, highlight what victim’s and advocates have been saying for generations. That they’ve been saying these things for generations is the evidence of how seriously the culture and its institutions have been taking them and the patterns and problems they’re highlighting. And this is again, part of what storytelling does for us, and why it is important to us. It is far less direct, but it is part of how we develop an understanding of the things we deem important, how we discuss, explore and reveal them. One of the reasons authoritarian powers have always attempted to control the storytelling arts, is the understanding of how important it is to a societies organization, cohesion and the parameters of what is permissible. Authoritarian power, for this reason is brittle and paranoid, because it is impossible to establish and enforce the degree of total control that can prevent any story from being told and passed. 

In the case of the character we know as Laurie Strode, the original 1978 Halloween is the only one that might be considered legitimate by the kinds of academic, archival and other cultural institutions that convey legitimacy, a sense of being “important” or worthy of consideration, but the way the rest of the films centered on the character, as lowly and unartful as they may be in the estimation of those who’ve appointed themselves the experts and rightful defenders of art’s legitimacy, have something important to say about something our institutions are pretty clearly incapable of addressing with effective and substantial solutions.