Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Sidney Prescott?

Writing about slasher movies and writing slasher movies again is like breathing again. I miss it so much.

That said, I've had some thoughts lately! Time for sharing!

They mostly revolve around this lady:

One Miss Sidney Prescott. I might venture to say, my favorite survivorgirl?

But here's what I'm thinking--judging (and I mean JUDGING) by the following things:

-All of her outfits in Scream 3
-Her perpetual singleness
-Her traumatic experience with men
-Her job in Scream 3 working as a councilor for women in crises over the phone,
-Her haircut,

So I'm thinking that perhaps, Sidney is being set up to be a lesbian.

Please don't misunderstand--I don't think all lesbians have short hair and wear sort of androgynous khaki pants (?) and are ultra-feminists, or fit any mold for that matter, but I know how movies work, and if there's a lesbian, it's likely that she's going to have some level of cliche to her, which Sidney certainly seems to. Perhaps it'll be a Dumbledore scenario, or perhaps it'll  be openly addressed in the next installment, whatever that is.

Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part--I think it would be a fantastic aspect to add to Scream 5 (please god, please please let this happen) or the reboot of the Scream franchise (It's too soon. Shut it down. Shut. it. down). Perhaps it's time to comment on the real seriousness of Sidney's loosing her virginity to a serial killer (and perhaps having her only sexual experience be with a serial killer, which is entirely possible with the rest of the plot,) and the fact that the world/God is beginning to accept homosexuality so it's no longer a "sin" that can be punished in a slasher movie situation.

Of course, this thought, along with some jokes about a script I'm working on with my BFF, led me to think about lesbianism in slasher movies in general. has it ever been addressed in a popular movie?

The only instance I could think of in my viewing experience is the lesbians in Stupid Teenagers Must Die.


Let's talk about Stupid Teenagers for a second. It's thought of as a decent parody of bad slasher movies, with "all the normal stereotypes!" This is the movie that originally inspired me and my aforementioned BFF to write slasher movies. The rest is history.

Anyways, one of the stereotypes Stupid Teenagers throws in there is this pair of lesbians who are constantly having sex. Which is all well and good for them, being edgy, whatever--but lesbians are simply not a slasher movie stereotype, at least not from the pool of slasher films that I've been watching. From some very superficial internet research, it seems that the most common slasher film that contains lesbians is the misnomered horror porn, such as Zombie Strippers, etc. (disregarding a few films that are specifically lesbian horror films, such as Femme Fatal)These are different from slasher films. Very different. Really, I think they're based on the misconception of what horror films are.

This begs the question, of course, as to whether or not it would be relevant to address Sydney's apparent sexuality in another Scream film. Even though it isn't a hot button issue in the realm of slasher film, it is a hot button issue in the real world, and current events are addressed in the Scream films (technology and fame in Scream 4 for instance).

Thoughts? Rebuttals? 

2 comments:

  1. The problem I see is that in order to address the issue, there would need to be another Scream movie. The main problem I see would that they'd have to keep playing out the meta-humor on the topic (i.e. "You'll have to be the first person to die because you're a lesbian and that's what horror movies do.") Not even saying that is a stereotype, it wouldn't stop the Scream series from playing it as one. Honestly, I don't think Scream has anywhere near the finesse to be able to be smart, funny, or even tolerant dealing with a topic like this.

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  2. Wes Craven has talked about making a Scream 5, which could be amazing or really terrible--but actually, I was thinking that he might do something like what JK Rowling did with Dumbledore.
    If they did incorporate it into another film, it would be difficult to make it work in a way that wasn't intolerant, especially because of the humor inherent to the films, but because Sidney's character has always been very serious, they might be able to make it work. Of course, it would only become relevant if other films start dealing with the issue, which I don't think is unlikely.

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