Abstract
The following chapter utilizes close, textual and feminist analysis of fictitious, teen, “bad girl” characters Othered and punished within the misogynistic moral narratives of erotic thriller films of the 1990s. Specifically, the chapter explores how ambitious, confident, (hyper)sexual “bad” girls are constructed within these popular film narratives, through gendered social class myths. The author argues that these intersecting, class-shaming, slut-shaming myths also reflect reactionary cultural anxieties about female upward social mobility and popular girl power in the 1990s. The chapter interrogates the intersecting class-based assumptions, stereotypes and rape culture myths repeated across these representative film case studies, especially those which may inadvertently function to blame teenage victims and excuse older male predators. The author takes issue with the (mis)representation of the monstrous, bad or shadow girl (who is supposedly “asking for it” by asking for too much) and challenges the punitive heterosexual male gaze and moral economy of these films.