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Scream Queens: Horror Royalty · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you production of I Heart Radio. Before
0:18
Speaker 1: we start, just a quick content warning for this one,
0:21
Speaker 1: because we are talking about slashers, So there's some sort
0:23
Speaker 1: of violence and gruesome stuff. We're talking about some Harvey
0:26
Speaker 1: Wine scene stuff, so some sexual abuse and assault, some
0:29
Speaker 1: stuff with um just not great treatment of women. Also
0:33
Speaker 1: some sluch shaming victim blaming stuff because again slashers and
0:36
Speaker 1: horror movies. But all right, let's get into it today. Um.
0:41
Speaker 1: We want to thank a listener who sent in a
0:44
Speaker 1: bunch of recent suggestions for our ongoing Halloween slash spooky content, Jessica.
0:51
Speaker 1: So thank you Jessica for suggesting we look into scream queens. Yes,
1:00
Speaker 1: Ach hast been very, very fun. There are surprisingly a
1:08
Speaker 1: lot of definitions around screen queens and some confusion about
1:12
Speaker 1: what they were. I will say for me, I thought
1:16
Speaker 1: a scream queen was basically a final girl, but iconic,
1:24
Speaker 1: like in multiple movies, has reached sort of legendary status.
1:28
Speaker 1: That's what I thought A screen creen was. My idea
1:32
Speaker 1: of screen queen was literally those who screamed really well,
1:35
Speaker 1: you know, like I may have been two on the
1:37
Speaker 1: nose because in my mind I have a picture of
1:40
Speaker 1: Sarah Michelle Geller. I think from I know what you
1:43
Speaker 1: did last summer, where's that scream? Where was like the
1:45
Speaker 1: horrid face? But is that shrill, perfect scream? And I
1:49
Speaker 1: feel like maybe because I've watched Supernatural way too many times,
1:51
Speaker 1: and you know there's often someone's screams like I would
1:54
Speaker 1: compare who could do it well? And because I do
1:58
Speaker 1: that scream that high like you like terrified scream, so
2:02
Speaker 1: I thought it was someone who could master that and
2:05
Speaker 1: would be for that had a completely different take. I
2:10
Speaker 1: think together we're kind of correct, We're still we're missing
2:15
Speaker 1: some pieces of it. Together, that's that's pretty much what
2:19
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, I will say as an actor, I
2:22
Speaker 1: actually have trouble screaming. And it's not to do with
2:26
Speaker 1: I can't do it, but it's just the ingrained nature
2:30
Speaker 1: of being quiet and not bothering people is so damned
2:34
Speaker 1: strong that I have trouble screaming. And it actually concerns
2:38
Speaker 1: me how difficult I find it to let go and do.
2:42
Speaker 1: Maybe that's fine, but I think that the reason behind
2:45
Speaker 1: it is not good. Well, I think about when we
2:47
Speaker 1: go on roller coasters and how different people do it,
2:50
Speaker 1: and there's still a truly scream. I usually just curse
2:53
Speaker 1: the entire time in panic, that's my scream. Or I
2:57
Speaker 1: also laugh cry. I've discovered that that. Yeah, I feel
3:04
Speaker 1: like I usually like cheer or or just some silent anyway,
3:12
Speaker 1: So that's what we thought it was. We're also going
3:14
Speaker 1: to we're gonna go or some definition, some history, some evolution,
3:17
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna look at some examples, both modern
3:22
Speaker 1: and more classic. Yeah, examples. And I'm also going to
3:25
Speaker 1: put this disclaimer here. I'm pretty sure miss Annie here
3:29
Speaker 1: found the perfect excuse to talk about her theories on
3:33
Speaker 1: the Scream movie trilogy. Now has to become more of
3:37
Speaker 1: those because she doesn't love it. And then I looked
3:39
Speaker 1: at what we were working and I was like, oh, okay,
3:41
Speaker 1: I see half of this. Okay. I did not intend
3:47
Speaker 1: for that to happen, but it did. I knew I
3:49
Speaker 1: wanted to talk like immediately, I was like, I want
3:51
Speaker 1: to talk about her. And actually, in our recent Dana
3:55
Speaker 1: Scully episode when I said I had already picked someone out,
3:57
Speaker 1: I had picked her out. But then I was like, no,
3:59
Speaker 1: I want to Scully. I want to do this Skully effect.
4:02
Speaker 1: But then this I was like, well, I guess I
4:06
Speaker 1: do get to talk about her, after all, Halloween has
4:09
Speaker 1: come early for me. Yes, there's quite a bit of
4:12
Speaker 1: discussion about scream. I can't wait to get to it.
4:15
Speaker 1: But before we do, let's talk about some of these
4:18
Speaker 1: definitions floating around. For scream queen, Cambridge Dictionary gives this
4:24
Speaker 1: definition a female actor who plays the main character in
4:28
Speaker 1: a horror movie who gets frightened or attacked, or the
4:30
Speaker 1: character she plays. In other definitions, the screen queen refers
4:34
Speaker 1: to a specific, typically iconic character in the horror genre.
4:39
Speaker 1: While there aren't have been many damsel and distress elements
4:42
Speaker 1: to scream queen, and we're gonna unpack that in a minute. Um,
4:44
Speaker 1: they are often smart and capable, especially the more modern
4:49
Speaker 1: iterations of them. The editor in chief of Rue Morgue magazine,
4:54
Speaker 1: Dave Alexander, said, a scream queen is a female actor
4:57
Speaker 1: in a horror film that is both intelligent, pro active, tough,
5:00
Speaker 1: and overall a survivor, so she's generally the focus of
5:04
Speaker 1: the antagonist rage. I would definitely say that screen queens
5:08
Speaker 1: are one of the strongest troops, one of the more
5:10
Speaker 1: modern ones, and they are absolutely key in defining certain subgenres,
5:13
Speaker 1: such as slasher movies. Yeah, I think that's a good one.
5:16
Speaker 1: So from wy s Geek, he says, a screen queen
5:19
Speaker 1: is an actress who does a great deal of work
5:22
Speaker 1: in the horror genre. Screen queens often become closely associated
5:26
Speaker 1: with this genre of film and television, sometimes despite a
5:30
Speaker 1: desire to break out and work in other aspects of
5:33
Speaker 1: the industry. Some examples of notable screen queens include Faye
5:38
Speaker 1: Ray Scout, Taylor Compton, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
5:43
Speaker 1: Depending on the film and the actress, a screen queen
5:46
Speaker 1: may be a victim or a female protagonist. Whatever type
5:51
Speaker 1: of role she plays, a screen queen is classically young
5:54
Speaker 1: and beautiful, though her beauty maybe more quote girl next
5:58
Speaker 1: door than supermodel. Oh I guess you want to come
6:01
Speaker 1: up on our slumber party. There's point of this in there,
6:05
Speaker 1: with an emphasis on the idea that screen queen could
6:09
Speaker 1: be a real woman. Yes, So, I feel like from
6:12
Speaker 1: these definitions, one of the big standouts to me is
6:15
Speaker 1: I it makes sense now that I read these, but
6:17
Speaker 1: I never thought it was the actor, And I think
6:20
Speaker 1: that's why I got it mixed up with like when
6:22
Speaker 1: I say iconic, because a lot of the ones we've chosen,
6:26
Speaker 1: not all of them, but a lot of them, like
6:27
Speaker 1: we're this they're known for this one role, right, and
6:31
Speaker 1: so they kind of it gets interchangeable almost of you know,
6:35
Speaker 1: Laurie Joe, Jamie Lee Curtis. So I always thought of
6:38
Speaker 1: it as more of the fictional character. But I think
6:40
Speaker 1: it does make sense that it's the actor, or like
6:43
Speaker 1: at least it started that way, or like, oh, she's
6:46
Speaker 1: the screen queen, she can be in all these horror
6:48
Speaker 1: movies and screen really were right. And of course, but
6:50
Speaker 1: the pipe that originated from screen queen, they said one
6:54
Speaker 1: one definition stated without really telling us why. But maybe
6:57
Speaker 1: it's tell it the leading lady in very qualify situations.
7:01
Speaker 1: Who knows, right, Yeah, it's sort of a take on
7:03
Speaker 1: that that makes sense. And yeah, because I am such
7:07
Speaker 1: a nerd, I looked up why do we scream? Very briefly.
7:12
Speaker 1: Recent science suggests that screaming is dual purpose, alerting others
7:16
Speaker 1: and sharpening our awareness. The brain processes screams differently than
7:19
Speaker 1: others sounds. It's like quicker, it goes to the brain
7:21
Speaker 1: more quickly. So it makes sense that these scream queens
7:24
Speaker 1: are screaming, it's actually not. I feel like it's usually
7:28
Speaker 1: portrayed as like, oh look how dumb she is or
7:30
Speaker 1: how helpless she is, But screaming is it does surface
7:33
Speaker 1: purpose and it is useful. There are damsel in distress
7:35
Speaker 1: elements we're going to talk about, but I just found
7:38
Speaker 1: that interesting. I was also trying to get into, like
7:42
Speaker 1: because there's a certain range that works the best, and
7:45
Speaker 1: I don't know much about the audio, which is silly
7:49
Speaker 1: in the industry I work in, But I was like,
7:51
Speaker 1: is that what women normally hit or men normally hit
7:54
Speaker 1: or anyway future episode perhaps I had to stop myself
7:58
Speaker 1: that there you go. I did want to talk about
8:00
Speaker 1: Final Girls because screen queens are closely related to the
8:04
Speaker 1: Final Girl's trope UM, and this is a trope that
8:07
Speaker 1: was first coined by Carol Clover in you can go
8:11
Speaker 1: check out the episode we did on that UM. One
8:13
Speaker 1: of the very first episodes I did as a host
8:15
Speaker 1: on the show was actually the one I did as
8:17
Speaker 1: a test run to see if I could if I
8:19
Speaker 1: was had the stuff to be was Final Girls. So
8:23
Speaker 1: it might be a bit rough because I was a
8:25
Speaker 1: new host, but the content was pretty good. But basically,
8:29
Speaker 1: a final girl is the last girl to confront the
8:32
Speaker 1: killer in a slasher movie. She usually is young, white,
8:36
Speaker 1: brown haired, more quote innocent than others, which means like
8:40
Speaker 1: doesn't really drink, smoke, have sex. Again, horror movies are
8:43
Speaker 1: largely moralistic, especially towards younger people, and she has spent
8:47
Speaker 1: the film being terrorized. Yeah, so this is such a
8:52
Speaker 1: big trope that there are now movies called the Final Girl,
8:56
Speaker 1: the Final Girls. I think there's a show it was
8:59
Speaker 1: like Key and Cabin in the Woods is the Final Girls.
9:02
Speaker 1: So you know what it is like. Even if you're
9:04
Speaker 1: kind of you never heard that term before, if you've
9:06
Speaker 1: seen like a couple of horror movies, you know what
9:08
Speaker 1: this is exactly. It's somebody you're meant to fill sympathy for,
9:12
Speaker 1: and we're going to unpack that a little later as well,
9:17
Speaker 1: but basically somebody the audience can really get behind and
9:20
Speaker 1: really doesn't want this killer to hurt. Not all screen
9:24
Speaker 1: queens are final girls. Scream queens don't always survive, though
9:27
Speaker 1: they often do. Some argue that the final girl is
9:30
Speaker 1: essentially another step in the evolution of the scream queen,
9:34
Speaker 1: and when we get to the evolution section. We will
9:36
Speaker 1: dig more into that, right. And also, not all actresses
9:40
Speaker 1: were thrilled at being typecasted as a scream queen. A
9:44
Speaker 1: lot of them were not taken seriously and have spoken
9:47
Speaker 1: about the emotional and even physical strain of portraying these characters.
9:50
Speaker 1: And I think I told you earlier we're going to
9:53
Speaker 1: be doing a review for Slumber Party Massacre. And one
9:57
Speaker 1: of the women in that movie had done several other
10:01
Speaker 1: B list, seed list horror movies and then ended up
10:05
Speaker 1: dying at a really young age, dying by suicide. She
10:07
Speaker 1: like had a whole rough go of it, and I'm
10:09
Speaker 1: sure there's so much to her life, but I found
10:11
Speaker 1: that tragic that that was kind of her whole thing.
10:14
Speaker 1: And I think it partially it did say within some
10:17
Speaker 1: of the biography of her that she couldn't land any
10:20
Speaker 1: other roles, So her career was very stagnant, and maybe
10:25
Speaker 1: because of stuff like this. And I've seen this talked
10:28
Speaker 1: about in any typecasting, that once you become that iconic character,
10:32
Speaker 1: it's hard to shake it. So yeah, And I mean
10:35
Speaker 1: I was reading an essay by somebody who loves horror,
10:38
Speaker 1: and I was talking about this tripe and just saying,
10:40
Speaker 1: you know, like imagine it's very physical, like you're running
10:43
Speaker 1: and dodging and being scared, and it's just a it's
10:46
Speaker 1: a drain. Yeah, very intense. So we're gonna talk about
10:50
Speaker 1: some of the fact that some of these screen queens
10:52
Speaker 1: were tormented to get that better reaction, which is ridiculous.
10:57
Speaker 1: Here's another definition, which is a screen queen can also
11:01
Speaker 1: be referred to someone who is a fan of horror
11:04
Speaker 1: and may have even starred in one or two films.
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Speaker 1: So I guess you could be a scream queen Anny,
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Speaker 1: I could be scream create. Weren't you in that vampire movie?
11:13
Speaker 1: I've been a few horror movies title to add to
11:19
Speaker 1: my name. There is also a show called Scream Queens
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Speaker 1: that originally appeared in created by Ryan Murphy. It was
11:28
Speaker 1: canceled after two seasons, but is getting a revival, and
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Speaker 1: the show followed some hilarious, unaware and privileged sorority girls
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Speaker 1: as they tried to discover the identity of a murder.
11:37
Speaker 1: I guess hilarious was like editorial of me, but it's
11:40
Speaker 1: supposed to be funny. They're not necessarily trying to be hilarious,
11:43
Speaker 1: but it's supposed to be funny. Uh, and all these
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Speaker 1: murders are linked to a death caused by a childbirth
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Speaker 1: at a house party twenty years earlier that the sorority
11:52
Speaker 1: members trying to cover up and has a really amazing
11:54
Speaker 1: cast Um Billy Lord, Ariana Grande, Abigail Breslin, and Robert's
11:58
Speaker 1: Kiki Palmer, Lee, Michelle Jonas, Taylor Lawtner, John Stamos, and
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Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly for our conversation today, Jamie Lee Curtis
12:07
Speaker 1: as the Dean, who is very much not the role
12:10
Speaker 1: she typically plays, scream clean. That's like she flirts with
12:14
Speaker 1: younger dudes. He doesn't just flirt, y'all. Oh, so you've
12:18
Speaker 1: seen it? Yes, I saw the first season. Okay, did
12:21
Speaker 1: you like it? Yeah? It definitely so. Have you watched
12:27
Speaker 1: many of Ryan Murphy series. I've seen a few American
12:30
Speaker 1: horror stories, so it's very much follows his typical style.
12:34
Speaker 1: So it's kind of one of those The first season
12:36
Speaker 1: is typically really good, like it has a new way
12:39
Speaker 1: of doing things and has a great idea, and then
12:42
Speaker 1: it kind of falls apart slowly and like it goes
12:44
Speaker 1: too far, it goes too long, it's too abrupt. All
12:48
Speaker 1: those things to say. But I did enjoy the first season.
12:51
Speaker 1: It was very tongue in cheek, over the top. It
12:53
Speaker 1: kind of did that whole parody level. There was no
12:57
Speaker 1: mistake in the fact that it was a parody to
12:59
Speaker 1: anything to it. Yeah, and of course I had to
13:02
Speaker 1: watch Jamie Lee Carters because I pretty much loved her
13:05
Speaker 1: and almost everything. And Nissy Nash is in this too,
13:07
Speaker 1: so she was fantastic in her role in this. But yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: so I enjoyed it. There's some scenes in there that
13:13
Speaker 1: I'm like, what just happened? What am I watching? And
13:17
Speaker 1: of course the opening scenes. The reason that the young
13:19
Speaker 1: girl giving birth dies is because the sorority girls here
13:24
Speaker 1: don't go chasing waterfalls by TLC. And they're like, we
13:28
Speaker 1: have to go dance and leave her to die so
13:30
Speaker 1: they can go dance to the song at the parting.
13:33
Speaker 1: It's a very tongue in cheek from the very beginning. Okay, wow,
13:38
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it is interesting
13:44
Speaker 1: I heard in researching this. I think I knew this before,
13:47
Speaker 1: but I forgotten. But Jamie Lee Curtis is kind of
13:49
Speaker 1: afraid of horror movies, so I didn't know this. Yeah,
13:53
Speaker 1: I think That is interesting when we're talking again about
13:55
Speaker 1: like the straight and emotional physical that they can date
14:00
Speaker 1: and in hair saying like, I don't even like the
14:02
Speaker 1: horror movies, and I can just imagine that being really intense.
14:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, from what I hear, this show is very
14:07
Speaker 1: it's meant to be very meta, very parodies Scream is.
14:11
Speaker 1: I know it's well loved, I know it has some
14:12
Speaker 1: problematic elements, but yeah, I want to put that in there. Yes,
14:18
Speaker 1: hopefull I get to watch it somethin I'm I didn't
14:21
Speaker 1: know there was going to be a revival, and I
14:22
Speaker 1: don't understand why there's gonna be a revival. So it's
14:25
Speaker 1: a revival of almost literally everything we're talking about on
14:28
Speaker 1: here right now, and that is not a joke. When
14:30
Speaker 1: we get to the characters that we chose, the screencreency chose,
14:35
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure every single one. Okay, alright, interesting, So
14:54
Speaker 1: let's talk about the evolution. As mentioned, the screen Queen
14:59
Speaker 1: has evolved over the years. As we said, many of
15:02
Speaker 1: the early Scream Queens, like Fay Ray in King Kong
15:06
Speaker 1: are very much damseled in distress. Again, we're thinking is
15:09
Speaker 1: coming from screen Queen, so she's very iconic, blonde, beautiful,
15:14
Speaker 1: you know, tormented by monsters who spent the entire time
15:18
Speaker 1: screaming and crying and fainting and kneeding rescuing. I just
15:21
Speaker 1: remember her like flopping about and you know, um King
15:26
Speaker 1: Kong's arms as just like when it passes out. Yeah,
15:29
Speaker 1: I forgot about the fainting. Yeah, how common used to be.
15:33
Speaker 1: She looks up and face again, and looks up and
15:35
Speaker 1: face again. Yes, she's often sexualized for the male gaze. Yes,
15:41
Speaker 1: she has less and less close throughout the movie, more
15:44
Speaker 1: of an object than a fleshed out character. And she
15:48
Speaker 1: was not the one to confront the villain, but rather
15:50
Speaker 1: coward from them, serving as the prize for the man
15:54
Speaker 1: who did um or she died at the hands of
15:56
Speaker 1: the villain like Jane at Lee's naked in the shower
15:59
Speaker 1: and I go. But Lee also helped give birth to
16:03
Speaker 1: the next generation of screen queens, literally and figuratively, yes,
16:07
Speaker 1: which I did not know until you pointed the sound. Yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the daughter. Like she brought on
16:12
Speaker 1: a whole new generation of screen queens. Yes, because Janey
16:17
Speaker 1: is Jamie Lee Curtis's mother. I diuld not know. As
16:21
Speaker 1: audiences taste and attitude shifted, and awareness of the genre
16:25
Speaker 1: and his problematic trips grew. The scream Queen evolved. She
16:28
Speaker 1: became more self aware and dependent and intelligent. She was
16:32
Speaker 1: still sexualized, though not as much like one of those
16:34
Speaker 1: definitions said earlier, kind of more of that girl next
16:36
Speaker 1: door sort of thing. Innocent Definitely. She spent a lot
16:41
Speaker 1: of time screaming and crying, but she had more agency
16:44
Speaker 1: and competency. She was often a hero, able to survive
16:48
Speaker 1: and out with the villain even in the face of terror,
16:50
Speaker 1: though sometimes she did still need saving. I totally forgotten
16:53
Speaker 1: original Halloween the doctor psychiatrist guy. Yeah, I totally forgot.
16:58
Speaker 1: He showed up and was like, oh, knew it, but yes.
17:01
Speaker 1: Jamie Lee Curtis speaking of is one of the most
17:04
Speaker 1: iconic screen queens from this period right and nowadays, as
17:08
Speaker 1: some of the classic screen queens are reprising their roles
17:12
Speaker 1: in a new additions to their franchises, the two has
17:15
Speaker 1: expanded to include proactive, traumatized vengeful seekers. Uh. They spend
17:21
Speaker 1: the entire film show facing off with a villain instead
17:25
Speaker 1: of spending most of it as a terrified victim before
17:27
Speaker 1: becoming the empowered survivor I know, and a lot of them.
17:31
Speaker 1: When they do have old characters come back, they're the
17:34
Speaker 1: ones that usually die. Yeah, a lot of kerry. So
17:41
Speaker 1: they had the original young lady who survived the whole thing.
17:46
Speaker 1: Because she did, she wasn't allowed to go to the
17:47
Speaker 1: prom in the remake that just happened. She actually dies
17:52
Speaker 1: saved them, I believe. I feel like that's a it's
17:55
Speaker 1: a narrative tool of both, like here's this character you
18:00
Speaker 1: probably loved, so you can have that nostalgia factor and
18:03
Speaker 1: then taking the risky move of killing them off, which
18:07
Speaker 1: is either going to really make people angry or make
18:09
Speaker 1: them care h losses real In this movie, there are
18:13
Speaker 1: emotional steaks, but I feel like that happens a lot
18:16
Speaker 1: when something's being revived. They bring back the whole character
18:19
Speaker 1: and then kill them. They did um. Yeah. They also
18:23
Speaker 1: do a lot of teaching and educating the new generation
18:26
Speaker 1: on how to survive, and the new generation usually ignores
18:29
Speaker 1: them until it comes back to flashback. I was like, oh, yeah,
18:31
Speaker 1: they said do this. They're they're crazy, they don't know
18:35
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. That person is a cuckoo, right,
18:40
Speaker 1: which is what I saw with Silent Hill. Annie. Oh,
18:45
Speaker 1: I can't wait till we talk about that anyway, and
18:49
Speaker 1: their trauma is more apparent and explore, so they do
18:52
Speaker 1: do a little bit of a fleshing out at least
18:54
Speaker 1: like past traumas um and some have even become feminist
18:59
Speaker 1: icons us again, like we look at Jamie Lee Cardis
19:02
Speaker 1: as a feminist icon as being a scream coein that survives,
19:06
Speaker 1: yeah all the stuff. Yeah, well, and that's interesting. As
19:10
Speaker 1: as I said it, I think I wonder if one
19:12
Speaker 1: of the kind of evolution of the scream queen is
19:16
Speaker 1: you know, it goes from Jamie Lee Curtis is too
19:20
Speaker 1: pure and still does need saving and the original Halloween, like,
19:24
Speaker 1: even if she did survive and she was competent, a
19:26
Speaker 1: man still had to come in because they didn't want
19:28
Speaker 1: her to be the killer and like dirty herself in
19:31
Speaker 1: that way, whereas this next evolution is they're coming for you.
19:36
Speaker 1: They're gonna get that killer. But yeah, you could argue
19:40
Speaker 1: that this and the Final Gulf trope plays into the
19:43
Speaker 1: idea of the perfect victim. The fact that these are
19:46
Speaker 1: tropes that revolve around women being victimized was calculated the
19:50
Speaker 1: belief that women would get more sympathy more easily from
19:54
Speaker 1: the audience, that they were weaker so it was scarier
19:58
Speaker 1: um and that they could still be sexualized for them
20:00
Speaker 1: Mail kays. Some researchers even argue that we've fetishized women's pain,
20:04
Speaker 1: particularly when we are looking through the eyes of the
20:06
Speaker 1: killer as he torments women, usually with a phallic weapon.
20:10
Speaker 1: You can again see our past episode on Final Girls
20:14
Speaker 1: for more of my thoughts on that, which there are plenty.
20:19
Speaker 1: And then, while the villain of the movie sometimes gets
20:22
Speaker 1: the credit for keeping franchises going, others point out that
20:26
Speaker 1: really it is the protagonist that the scream queen we're
20:30
Speaker 1: rooting for. Many often point to nine Halloween as the
20:33
Speaker 1: introduction of the menacing villain that can't be killed like
20:36
Speaker 1: that whole trope. Halloween kind of was the beginning of that.
20:41
Speaker 1: Some critics argue as absence and Halloween three season of
20:43
Speaker 1: the which was why that movie bombed. And I also
20:46
Speaker 1: have thoughts on that, and you can see the movie
20:48
Speaker 1: Crush episode I did about that one and Night Road
20:51
Speaker 1: elm Street three Dream Warrior featuring another screen queen, Antsy
20:55
Speaker 1: Yes Nancy also Final Girl. I think she also dies
21:00
Speaker 1: in the newer versions, right, I think she did die
21:03
Speaker 1: in Dream Warrior. She did die, but I think they
21:05
Speaker 1: brought her back. Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought
21:07
Speaker 1: she like it felt like a death that she would
21:09
Speaker 1: return from. But anyway, you could also argue, have weeen
21:13
Speaker 1: introduced this iconic villain's foil, the consummate survivor who rises
21:17
Speaker 1: up and defeats them, only for them to do the
21:19
Speaker 1: whole thing over and over and over and over and
21:21
Speaker 1: over again. So we do have some examples, both classic
21:28
Speaker 1: and more modern. We're going to start with mine, which
21:31
Speaker 1: are the more modern ones, and then and with kind
21:33
Speaker 1: of you know, the the icon And yes, there's kind
21:36
Speaker 1: of a lot of stuff about Scream in the middle,
21:41
Speaker 1: but you mentioned Sarah Michelle Geller, and she is also
21:45
Speaker 1: somebody that I think of when I think of scream Queen,
21:48
Speaker 1: so we wanted to start with her. She earned the
21:51
Speaker 1: Scream Queen designation after landing roles and things like Buffy
21:54
Speaker 1: the Vampire Slayer Screamed too. I know you did Last
21:56
Speaker 1: Summer and The Grudge, and I know what did Last
22:00
Speaker 1: Summer is. I don't know if a reboot is the
22:03
Speaker 1: right word, but there's a show on Amazon Prime right now,
22:05
Speaker 1: so yeah, you can see past host and Lauren over
22:12
Speaker 1: from Savor guested on an episode past host of spent
22:15
Speaker 1: he did on Buffy van Purslayer. If you want to
22:17
Speaker 1: learn more about that role and its impact. I think
22:20
Speaker 1: Lauren and I also talked about her when Lauren was
22:23
Speaker 1: a guest once again to discuss the whole why didn't
22:25
Speaker 1: you believe her? Trope and Horror and I her roles
22:30
Speaker 1: have an interesting dichotomy when it comes to her Scream
22:32
Speaker 1: Queen's status because on the one hand, Buffy was a
22:36
Speaker 1: feminist icon and catapulted her to stardom, and this was
22:39
Speaker 1: a character who was strong and badass feminine, directly confronting
22:43
Speaker 1: the monsters and leading the Scooby Gang. She didn't do
22:46
Speaker 1: a whole lot of screaming from what I remember she did,
22:49
Speaker 1: but not not too much. In the Grudge, she was
22:53
Speaker 1: competent um and confronted her fears and the ghost and
22:57
Speaker 1: slashes like Scream too and I know what you did
22:59
Speaker 1: the summer. Though she has portrayed as something bordering but
23:02
Speaker 1: not quite a bimbo, She's definitely a step above. And
23:07
Speaker 1: I don't want this to sound a great at all,
23:09
Speaker 1: but like in terms of like movie stereotype, tropes. That's
23:13
Speaker 1: sort of the vibe she had. I definitely her death
23:16
Speaker 1: and I Know What You Did Last Summer was the
23:17
Speaker 1: one that hit me the hardest that movie because she
23:19
Speaker 1: was so close. The parade was really right there. Ah,
23:25
Speaker 1: it's slightly different, maybe more like people perceive her as
23:29
Speaker 1: the bimbo because she's beautiful and blond, and that perception
23:34
Speaker 1: influences her life and both. I think she's a twist
23:38
Speaker 1: on the trope um which is often called the horror
23:40
Speaker 1: and horror movies. The horror trope who has to go
23:43
Speaker 1: first because she's beautiful and has sex usually makes what
23:46
Speaker 1: the viewers are meant to interpret his poor survival decisions
23:50
Speaker 1: and scream too. She's a callback to a joke made
23:53
Speaker 1: in the First movie where in Sydney, the main character
23:56
Speaker 1: says she hates horror movies because quote some stupid killer stock,
24:00
Speaker 1: some big breasted girl who can't act, who is always
24:02
Speaker 1: running up the stairs when she should be running out
24:04
Speaker 1: the front door. It's insulting. So this is how Sarah
24:06
Speaker 1: Michelle Geller dies and screamed too, Like she runs up
24:09
Speaker 1: the stair. She does try to go to the front door,
24:11
Speaker 1: She runs up the stairs, then get stabbed and then
24:13
Speaker 1: thrown over the balcony. But I don't think it's ever
24:16
Speaker 1: implied we should be laughing at her that she's dumb um,
24:19
Speaker 1: just more like meta horror commentary and poking fun at
24:22
Speaker 1: the trope. Almost formulaic, but it's making fun of the formula.
24:26
Speaker 1: It's just an interesting kind of trying to suss out,
24:31
Speaker 1: because I mean, at least for me personally, I was
24:33
Speaker 1: never like, oh, she was dumb. Of course she's gonna die,
24:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, but she is kind of filling that trope,
24:41
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah? All right, But okay,
24:46
Speaker 1: speaking of Scream too. In Sydney Prescott, let's talk about
24:50
Speaker 1: Scream and Nev Campbell. Oh my gosh, I have so
24:54
Speaker 1: many thoughts. We've talked about one of her most well
24:57
Speaker 1: known roles before when we did an episode on The Craft,
25:01
Speaker 1: but her turn is Sydney Prescott and the Scream franchises
25:04
Speaker 1: what put her firmly in screen clean territory. And we
25:06
Speaker 1: should also say a lot of these actors have done
25:09
Speaker 1: stuff the ones we were talking about, and we have
25:11
Speaker 1: done stuff outside of horror, but they're sort of known
25:15
Speaker 1: for this one role when it comes to the horror World. Anyway,
25:18
Speaker 1: I know Nev Campbell really made headway as Party of
25:21
Speaker 1: five sad girl, but I think it's that sad girl
25:26
Speaker 1: thing is why she was so perfect for Scream. That
25:29
Speaker 1: whole like persona of being sad, innocent puppy eyes made
25:34
Speaker 1: her the perfect Sydney Prescott. Yes, yes, she's definitely, especially
25:41
Speaker 1: in the first one and especially at the beginning of
25:43
Speaker 1: the first one, she is like kind of a very
25:45
Speaker 1: sweet girl next door innocent character. It does change, and
25:51
Speaker 1: I do. I love this character and I love Scream,
25:53
Speaker 1: and I know there are problematic things in these movies
25:55
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about that, but this is
25:58
Speaker 1: one of the first horror movies and slasher that I saw,
26:00
Speaker 1: which is funny in retrospect because the whole thing is
26:04
Speaker 1: meta and poking fun at the horror genre. So I
26:07
Speaker 1: was like watching these movies that are big joke about horror,
26:10
Speaker 1: and I really hadn't females horror and especially much slashers.
26:15
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen them, they're very tongue and sheet,
26:17
Speaker 1: they're very self aware of the genre. They're firmly in
26:20
Speaker 1: the slasher comedy category. Actually, when we were watching Slumber Party,
26:24
Speaker 1: Masker there were some things where I was like, I
26:26
Speaker 1: wonder if they were inspired by Slumber Party Massacre right.
26:30
Speaker 1: The scene feels very reminiscent. The first movie debuted in
26:49
Speaker 1: and was followed by Screen to Scream three, Screen four,
26:52
Speaker 1: now Scream five, which is set to come out in
26:54
Speaker 1: January two. At their core, they sent her on Sydney
27:00
Speaker 1: Prescott and the serial killer or killers trying to murder
27:02
Speaker 1: her and a bunch of people in her orbit. Sydney
27:06
Speaker 1: Prescott grew up in Woodsborro, surviving being the target of
27:09
Speaker 1: seven serial killers so far, so many. There's gonna at
27:15
Speaker 1: least one more, maybe two or three, including one who
27:20
Speaker 1: was her half brother. And that is one way this
27:24
Speaker 1: franchise is different than something like Halloween. The ghost face
27:28
Speaker 1: serial killer is always someone different. It's not the same
27:30
Speaker 1: person coming back over and over and over again. She
27:34
Speaker 1: has physically confronted them and outsmarted them on several occasions.
27:38
Speaker 1: Calling back to hardship. She always takes the final just
27:41
Speaker 1: in case shot to make sure they're really dead, except
27:45
Speaker 1: one time, so it's in the third one she didn't.
27:49
Speaker 1: So Sydney is quite the kill count and has lost
27:52
Speaker 1: quite a lot of people in the In the movie.
27:54
Speaker 1: She wrote a book about her experiences and hopes of
27:56
Speaker 1: helping others, but the fame and attention just once again
27:59
Speaker 1: made her the target of a serial killer, another family member.
28:01
Speaker 1: In fact, that's something. These movies examine the fame aspect
28:05
Speaker 1: of serial killers and those that survived them, and part
28:09
Speaker 1: with the fictional in world film series based on the
28:11
Speaker 1: events of Scream called Stab. There's a lot of commentary
28:17
Speaker 1: on art imitating life in them. After her mother was murdered,
28:21
Speaker 1: she provided the key testimony against Cotton Weary and yes,
28:23
Speaker 1: the names are fantastic in these movies, the man her
28:26
Speaker 1: mom was having a fair with, though it later turned
28:29
Speaker 1: out she was wrong, not about the affair but about
28:32
Speaker 1: him killing her. I saw the first two movies when
28:35
Speaker 1: I was nine years old. I saved up and purchased
28:38
Speaker 1: about nine horror movies from a shop called media Play
28:41
Speaker 1: that isn't around anymore, but it used to be like
28:43
Speaker 1: a big deal. My family would go. The guy who
28:47
Speaker 1: was checking me out did not say anything, didn't card
28:50
Speaker 1: me or I mean, obviously I was nine, but he
28:52
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. And I mean, looking back, should I
28:55
Speaker 1: have been watching these know? But for some reason I
28:57
Speaker 1: immediately love Scream and I loved Sydney. I loved the
29:00
Speaker 1: fun of pointing out the tropes and still using them,
29:02
Speaker 1: of making you suspect everybody you have, directly discussing the
29:05
Speaker 1: rules of horror movies and surviving them. No sex for women,
29:08
Speaker 1: no showing your tits, no drugs or no alcohol, never
29:12
Speaker 1: say I'll be right back. And the sequels they expound
29:14
Speaker 1: on those rules, and they based it on like what
29:17
Speaker 1: happens in the sequeal, happens in the trilogy, all that stuff.
29:20
Speaker 1: They even comment on Jamie Lee Curtis being a Scream
29:23
Speaker 1: queen and also her boobs. Of course I bought the soundtracks.
29:27
Speaker 1: I tried to pull off the haircut, which I was like,
29:29
Speaker 1: I'm kind of doing it now for sure. I did
29:33
Speaker 1: not pull it off when I was a kid. No, no, no,
29:35
Speaker 1: no no. But I did love Sydney. I loved how
29:37
Speaker 1: she flipped the tables on the killers at the end,
29:39
Speaker 1: how she toyed with them and she scared them ultimately
29:42
Speaker 1: killed them. We see her standing up for herself and
29:45
Speaker 1: punching Courtney Cox's character Gale Weathers, not once but twice,
29:49
Speaker 1: and they still have like an interesting friendship thing going on.
29:54
Speaker 1: Later how I I really appreciated how they did explore
29:56
Speaker 1: her trauma and or PTSD and her survivals, guilt, um
29:59
Speaker 1: things all. And people used to dismiss her like, oh,
30:02
Speaker 1: there's not another killer, it's just you have had trauma.
30:06
Speaker 1: She's like, but there's dead bodies and I yeah. She
30:12
Speaker 1: was suspicious of boyfriends and eventually everyone, but she still
30:15
Speaker 1: wanted to help. In the beginning of the third film,
30:18
Speaker 1: she's working in anonymously at a women's crisis counseling center
30:21
Speaker 1: and her trust and boundaries are repeatedly violated. And the
30:24
Speaker 1: second one, she is compared to Cassandra, which is also
30:27
Speaker 1: comparison that comes up in the Last of Us. Able
30:30
Speaker 1: to see the future, but cursed so that no one
30:32
Speaker 1: will listen to her. She's clever and cunning, brave and resilient,
30:36
Speaker 1: often funny, ready with aquip of her own to the killer.
30:38
Speaker 1: She has so many good quotes, so many good quotes. Yeah,
30:42
Speaker 1: and she also has like equips for reporters or print callers.
30:46
Speaker 1: And she's strong and fast and good with weapons, often improvised,
30:50
Speaker 1: always pretty determined to uncover the killer's identity. Um. She's
30:54
Speaker 1: definitely the heart of these movies and the killers always
30:56
Speaker 1: target her and they say Hello Sydney, which is sort
30:59
Speaker 1: of the catchphrase. Um. In fact, when I told somebody
31:02
Speaker 1: I was doing an episode on screen Queens, the first
31:04
Speaker 1: thing she said was Hello Sidney. So while these movies
31:11
Speaker 1: are in a lot of ways satirizing, the slashers, she's
31:13
Speaker 1: not portrayed for comedic value are made fun of. She
31:17
Speaker 1: is funny, she's not really made fun of. I did
31:21
Speaker 1: want to talk about some of the things around six
31:25
Speaker 1: and her mom in these servies because Sydney has a
31:28
Speaker 1: lot of trauma around sex and the first movie, she
31:31
Speaker 1: is a high schooler who's painted as the innocent girl
31:33
Speaker 1: next door type when her boyfriend Billy Loomis, who she
31:37
Speaker 1: later finds out as the killer who has just been
31:40
Speaker 1: dating her for revenge, which is awful, sneaks into her
31:43
Speaker 1: bedroom at the beginning of the movie. He pressures her
31:45
Speaker 1: to have sex, saying he's ready to move their relationship
31:48
Speaker 1: to rated R and that she has a chastity belt
31:52
Speaker 1: on and he would like her to remove it. She
31:54
Speaker 1: asked if he's okay with a PG thirt movie instead
31:56
Speaker 1: and flashes him, but the audience doesn't see her breast
32:00
Speaker 1: right before the climax movie, she does have sex with
32:01
Speaker 1: Billy just before he reveals himself and his friends to
32:04
Speaker 1: as the killers. And just a note, she did suspect
32:07
Speaker 1: Billy early in the movie and she was right too,
32:11
Speaker 1: but he gaslighted her real hard and made her feel
32:13
Speaker 1: really guilty about it, which is in part why she
32:15
Speaker 1: agrees to have sex. Um that the only reason, but
32:18
Speaker 1: it is a factor. After they called her, they said
32:21
Speaker 1: because she had sex, she loses and has to die
32:25
Speaker 1: and that she shouldn't have quote given it up um
32:28
Speaker 1: And later this is flipped when her trauma was manipulated
32:31
Speaker 1: to make her suspect her boyfriend, only for the killer
32:34
Speaker 1: to kill him after she realizes he did not in
32:36
Speaker 1: fact do it, which was very very sad. Okay, but
32:40
Speaker 1: speaking of the whole plot is essentially spurred on by
32:46
Speaker 1: Sydney's mother cheating. Are some other grievance against her, including
32:50
Speaker 1: her turning away her child, Sydney's half brother once again
32:54
Speaker 1: blaming it on the mother, so the killer blames her
32:58
Speaker 1: for their killing. In fact, the killer in the second
33:01
Speaker 1: movie brings that up. It's like you always blame the mother,
33:04
Speaker 1: which is interesting because she is the mother and she
33:06
Speaker 1: is the killer, but that's neither here and r there. Um.
33:10
Speaker 1: One of the killers said that Sydney's mom was flashing
33:12
Speaker 1: her all around town even though she's no Sharon Stone.
33:17
Speaker 1: Because of this, Sydney is understandably reticent around sex and
33:20
Speaker 1: talks about she has trauma around the fact that the
33:23
Speaker 1: whole country knows about how her mom cheated and that
33:25
Speaker 1: they seem to blame her for her own death i e.
33:28
Speaker 1: Sex she was having led to her mom's death in
33:31
Speaker 1: Sydney's mind, and everyone knows it and has an opinion
33:34
Speaker 1: they're happy to discuss about it. She sees how her
33:37
Speaker 1: mom is let shamed and victim blamed, and she's kind
33:40
Speaker 1: of taking these precautions to make sure she is not.
33:43
Speaker 1: In fact, in the first one. No one takes her
33:45
Speaker 1: seriously because of her mom's bad reputation, thinking Sydney is
33:49
Speaker 1: just out for more attention, and as the movies explored
33:54
Speaker 1: this idea more. It turns out her mom, Maureen, went
33:57
Speaker 1: to Hollywood to become an actor, starring in many B
34:00
Speaker 1: horror movies, becoming something of a scream queen. However, the
34:04
Speaker 1: producers took her to some party whereas implied, she was
34:08
Speaker 1: promised roles that she never got an exchange for sex,
34:12
Speaker 1: and she was so triviatized by the whole thing she
34:14
Speaker 1: went on to have a lot of sex and a
34:16
Speaker 1: lot of outside marriage, thus leading to all these serial
34:19
Speaker 1: killers looking to get revenge on her and her daughter.
34:22
Speaker 1: This is what the serial killers kind of say. This
34:23
Speaker 1: is sort of their explanation of it um which, yes,
34:27
Speaker 1: a lot of blaming of women and the mother going on,
34:29
Speaker 1: and that moralizing that horror movies often do. So I
34:32
Speaker 1: would argue I never personally blamed Sid's mom for these
34:35
Speaker 1: mostly dudes killing people, and a lot of it is
34:38
Speaker 1: painted a Sydney struggling with her mom's past and feeling
34:41
Speaker 1: hurt that there was so much about her she didn't know.
34:43
Speaker 1: Sidney directly comments on this in the third one, telling
34:45
Speaker 1: the killer he only kills because he wants to. Why
34:48
Speaker 1: don't you take some big responsibility? And that part also
34:51
Speaker 1: has one of my favorite curses in film history, damn
34:55
Speaker 1: it so good. And here's where it gets really interesting.
35:01
Speaker 1: Slash real world upsetting. Scream three takes place in Hollywood
35:06
Speaker 1: on the set of Stab three and brings to light
35:08
Speaker 1: the trauma her mother went through there. The producers saying
35:10
Speaker 1: something along the lines like she was asking for it.
35:12
Speaker 1: This is Hollywood, that's just what happens. That's how women
35:15
Speaker 1: get parts. That there were these parties where men in
35:18
Speaker 1: power in the entertainment industry would get women drunk and high,
35:21
Speaker 1: and then the women would be taking advantage of the
35:24
Speaker 1: actress playing Sydney and stabbed three later says she slept
35:27
Speaker 1: with the producer to get this part. These movies were
35:31
Speaker 1: executive produced in part by Harvey Weinstein, so it's very
35:35
Speaker 1: hard not to think that this is a commentary on
35:38
Speaker 1: what was going on, not just with him, but with
35:40
Speaker 1: Hollywood at large. Rose McGowan, who started in the First Scream,
35:44
Speaker 1: later described mine scene raping her. A year after the
35:46
Speaker 1: movie came out. Many articles have been written about this.
35:49
Speaker 1: Um Adam White wrote in the film was quote an
35:52
Speaker 1: angry indictment of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, predatory men and
35:56
Speaker 1: the casting couch. The editor said that Wes Craven's intentions
36:00
Speaker 1: around this. Weinstein asked producer in screen three word quote, West,
36:05
Speaker 1: I think was very interested in that character as not
36:07
Speaker 1: necessarily the villain. He certainly is a villain, but as
36:09
Speaker 1: a catalyst for the villain's motivation, he's really the spark
36:12
Speaker 1: for the events, or retcond that he is the spark
36:15
Speaker 1: for the events in the entire series. Sydney's half brother,
36:19
Speaker 1: the killer and child of their mother, Maureen. The producer
36:23
Speaker 1: says that what they did to their mom made her
36:27
Speaker 1: a slut that's his words again, not mine, and ruined
36:29
Speaker 1: their lives. Also, Carrie Fisher has a cameo as a
36:34
Speaker 1: carry Fisher look alike, saying Carrie Fisher only got the
36:37
Speaker 1: role of Princess Leiah because she slept with George Lukiss
36:40
Speaker 1: And with a lot of movies I've watched lately, it
36:42
Speaker 1: has been interesting this. This even comes up in White
36:46
Speaker 1: Black Swan is kind of the woman must have slept
36:49
Speaker 1: with them to get whatever they got. That is the
36:51
Speaker 1: only way. So yeah, it is upsetting that this is
36:57
Speaker 1: enough of a thing that they're like, yeah, we'll make
36:58
Speaker 1: a movie on it. And then, just to wrap up
37:01
Speaker 1: this very long Sidney Prescott section, I did watch the trailer.
37:05
Speaker 1: I was kind of putting it off because I think
37:06
Speaker 1: I actually would be devastated if she did right, But
37:09
Speaker 1: the trailer for screen five came out like the day
37:11
Speaker 1: we were talking about doing this, but it had a
37:14
Speaker 1: lot of things we're talking about, where she says like,
37:16
Speaker 1: I'm Sydney Prescott. Of course I have a gun. I've
37:18
Speaker 1: been through this a lot. Um. There are certain rules
37:21
Speaker 1: for surviving don't with the original. So we'll see, we'll
37:25
Speaker 1: see what happens. Yeah, yeah, good Rundown. And you've been
37:31
Speaker 1: waiting and holding that in because I already had half
37:33
Speaker 1: the speech when we watched Screen three, I did. I
37:36
Speaker 1: was like, I have to tell you all these things.
37:41
Speaker 1: I am that annoying. First we had to purposely good
37:43
Speaker 1: at that weekend, like we have to watch this you've
37:45
Speaker 1: never seen and I'm like, no, oh my god. And
37:48
Speaker 1: then and then she told me everything. Yes, I try
37:53
Speaker 1: to hold it back, but sometimes I just can't. She um.
38:11
Speaker 1: And of course we couldn't talk about screen queens. And
38:14
Speaker 1: we've already mentioned her a few times, but we had
38:16
Speaker 1: to take a deeper look at the icon herself, the
38:19
Speaker 1: true legend Jamie Lee Curtis, and she even won the
38:22
Speaker 1: Greatest of All Time Award from the MTV for her
38:26
Speaker 1: patrol as again the true screen queen. And though the
38:30
Speaker 1: term screen queen, like we said before, may have originated
38:33
Speaker 1: from the term screen queen, we can see that Curtis
38:37
Speaker 1: shaped a whole new brand of Queens of Horror. As
38:40
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the movie she's most noted for, which
38:43
Speaker 1: is Halloween, brought on several firsts, including the new jamesl
38:47
Speaker 1: not so in distress Um and again also known as
38:51
Speaker 1: the final Girl that kind of started happening like, Oh,
38:53
Speaker 1: she survives. She is savvy, but she does hold that
38:57
Speaker 1: trip of being virginal and sweet, eat and naive, but
39:01
Speaker 1: not too naive because throughout she knows something's happening really
39:05
Speaker 1: creepy leg and yeah, and she's back with a vengeance
39:08
Speaker 1: between her taking on the roles within the series like
39:11
Speaker 1: Scream Queens, and a couple of new movies to continue
39:14
Speaker 1: with the Tale of the Unkillable Killer. Michael Meyers says
39:18
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, but she also was in other horror
39:21
Speaker 1: movies pretty much immediately after Halloween, which included prom Queen,
39:26
Speaker 1: The Fog, and Terror Train. I have never seen any
39:29
Speaker 1: of these, have you. I think I've seen prom Queen
39:33
Speaker 1: and the Fog. I don't think I've seen Terror Train.
39:36
Speaker 1: Now you have another one to watch, yes, as her
39:39
Speaker 1: iconic performance as the sweet babysitter Laurie Schroeder that brought
39:44
Speaker 1: on a whole new generation up screen queens. And this
39:47
Speaker 1: whole also trumple with a babysitter because I became a
39:50
Speaker 1: huge thing for a while. Concluding the phone Call Inside
39:55
Speaker 1: Your House, that very trope set in a fictional town
39:59
Speaker 1: in Illinois, where we see the now cliche but new
40:02
Speaker 1: at the time, of a woman being scared from an
40:06
Speaker 1: unknown character who not only comes to stalk her, but
40:09
Speaker 1: to kill off all her friends before he comes for her,
40:12
Speaker 1: only to come out alive, and she returns for another
40:16
Speaker 1: round in Halloween two, which I don't think I've ever
40:18
Speaker 1: seen that one either. Did you see this one? I
40:21
Speaker 1: have seen. I think I've seen all the Halloween's except
40:24
Speaker 1: the newest one, because all her friends died that one
40:27
Speaker 1: to most of them, Okay, I would not be friends
40:31
Speaker 1: with her, I'm sorry. And then again in Halloween h two. Oh,
40:35
Speaker 1: and now in the newest movie in the lineup, Halloween Kills.
40:39
Speaker 1: I haven't watched that one yet. Did you say you
40:41
Speaker 1: watched it? I have not, so I have friends who've
40:45
Speaker 1: seen it, and I've gotten their reviews. Because, as I said,
40:49
Speaker 1: I do like slasher movies, but they're not what I
40:53
Speaker 1: normally seek out, and I have gotten I mean, I
40:59
Speaker 1: don't know with the right word for it is some
41:01
Speaker 1: people say you've just gotten older, but like since a bit,
41:02
Speaker 1: like I'll get sad, Like all this is sad. They're
41:04
Speaker 1: just killing all these people, and especially if it's like
41:07
Speaker 1: really grizzly and the new newer Halloween one, not this
41:11
Speaker 1: newest one. I got pretty uncomfortable, which I think is
41:15
Speaker 1: the point. But yeah, I was uncomfortable, and so I
41:17
Speaker 1: was like kind of waiting to see what people said
41:19
Speaker 1: and the reviews I got where it's extremely dark, extremely nihilistic,
41:23
Speaker 1: very very gory. Um and that Lori spoilers ten seconds
41:28
Speaker 1: skip ahead, spends most of it in coma, as she
41:31
Speaker 1: did in Halloween to oh, yeah she does. She isn't it,
41:34
Speaker 1: but she's coma for most of it. Yeah, I did
41:38
Speaker 1: see that she's not really present, and I didn't know
41:41
Speaker 1: what it was about because I don't know much about it.
41:43
Speaker 1: I know one of the premiers though she does dress
41:47
Speaker 1: up as her mother from Psycho if you want to
41:50
Speaker 1: go see those pictures as well, Janet Lee Um. But yeah,
41:53
Speaker 1: so she has been a part of this dynasty now loyalty.
41:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're calling them swam queens, and
42:01
Speaker 1: she would be the first person that would pop in
42:04
Speaker 1: my head as we speak of her and her iconic roles.
42:07
Speaker 1: But yeah, she's also she was one of the few
42:10
Speaker 1: that was able to break out of that as being
42:14
Speaker 1: really comedic in her performance. She was in true lies,
42:17
Speaker 1: a whole different conversation in itself. So she has been
42:21
Speaker 1: she's been able to really bust through that. And she again,
42:24
Speaker 1: as you said, she didn't love horror. She doesn't like
42:27
Speaker 1: being scared and having this as part of her trope.
42:30
Speaker 1: Like what But yeah, but it wasn't just Jamie Lee
42:34
Speaker 1: Curtis who shined as a scream queen, but yeah, her
42:37
Speaker 1: mother Genet Lee. Now Genet Lee's role was fairly minute,
42:42
Speaker 1: as in, like it wasn't very long. Um, she was
42:45
Speaker 1: in the movie Psycho for a short amount of time.
42:48
Speaker 1: Like you see her, she is being very suspicious, running
42:53
Speaker 1: away in her car. She goes to the hotel and
42:56
Speaker 1: at this point in time we find out like she's
42:58
Speaker 1: had an affair, she's taken some money. Not a very
43:01
Speaker 1: likable character and will come back to that in a minute.
43:04
Speaker 1: And at the same time, we see the peep hole
43:07
Speaker 1: right where the dude comes through and then we see
43:10
Speaker 1: the infamous shower scene, which has been replicated uh and
43:13
Speaker 1: been parodied. I don't know how many times that scene
43:17
Speaker 1: alone made her an icon all in itself, but she
43:22
Speaker 1: wasn't the only damsel in distress, though not quite a damsel.
43:26
Speaker 1: And we should probably explore this more later in a
43:29
Speaker 1: different episode, maybe as Hitchecock really like making beautiful women
43:33
Speaker 1: somehow always be a partial villain, if not completely villainous
43:38
Speaker 1: to the point that you weren't sad that they died. Um,
43:41
Speaker 1: and they typically were very beautiful, blonde Hollywood women. That
43:45
Speaker 1: this is the type of women Hitchcock had in his movies. Uh.
43:49
Speaker 1: And he was actually known again for hiring and oftentimes
43:52
Speaker 1: tormenting these beautiful, blonde leading ladies, to the point that
43:55
Speaker 1: he was quoted as saying, I always believe in following
43:58
Speaker 1: the advice of play victorians, sard torture the women. So
44:03
Speaker 1: he actually said that out loud as if it was funny,
44:06
Speaker 1: and he didn't just torment in the actual movie. There
44:09
Speaker 1: are a lot of times that these women are punished
44:11
Speaker 1: by going through some type of tragic death in the movies.
44:15
Speaker 1: And he would also go after the ladies off camera.
44:18
Speaker 1: There are allegations of sexual misconduct, verbal abuse, stalking, and
44:23
Speaker 1: outright harassment. He even went as far as to demand
44:27
Speaker 1: control over these ladies clothing and fashion um, even when
44:31
Speaker 1: they were not filming, so he actually had their stories
44:34
Speaker 1: of the fact that he sent people to follow Grace
44:37
Speaker 1: Kelly when she was a part of the Rear Window project.
44:40
Speaker 1: And then of course there are those who would say
44:43
Speaker 1: this was for the sake of the movies that he
44:45
Speaker 1: was directing, but there's always the underlying misogyny and overall
44:50
Speaker 1: self hate apparently perhaps similar to those who identify as
44:54
Speaker 1: in cells that he was able to tap into uh
44:57
Speaker 1: to push himself to be to use these type of tactics.
45:01
Speaker 1: I will say there's been reported a lot that he
45:04
Speaker 1: really felt like he was really ugly and told people
45:06
Speaker 1: how unattractive he was, but he also tortured blonde women
45:10
Speaker 1: as the women he could not have. There are also
45:13
Speaker 1: conversations that he was fairly um. He wasn't sexual like
45:17
Speaker 1: he rarely like engaged in sexual activities from what people
45:21
Speaker 1: are saying, to the point that there are some allegations
45:23
Speaker 1: that maybe he was homosexual, maybe he was gay um
45:26
Speaker 1: but just never came out. But there were stories that
45:30
Speaker 1: he actually tried to sexually who worse his actresses, And
45:35
Speaker 1: in any case, again he pushed the lady ladies into
45:37
Speaker 1: the genre of screen queens that we do see today,
45:41
Speaker 1: from Janet Lee in Psycho to Tippy Hedron in The Birds,
45:45
Speaker 1: which scared the out of me as a kid, because
45:49
Speaker 1: I know people already know they used real life birds,
45:52
Speaker 1: did not care that it was attacking this woman, and
45:55
Speaker 1: according to a few reports, she was the one that
45:57
Speaker 1: was probably most harassed also in two of his movies.
46:01
Speaker 1: So she had written in her memoir about the awful
46:05
Speaker 1: things that Hitchcock did to her, and perhaps uh it
46:10
Speaker 1: did help bring a whole new level of scream queens
46:13
Speaker 1: where it wasn't that these ladies were awful ladies dying
46:17
Speaker 1: in horrible ways. But there's a little bit of justice
46:19
Speaker 1: now at the end. But it never really ends, does it,
46:23
Speaker 1: does it? Though? Never as long as we keep seeing
46:27
Speaker 1: these movies. But also, yeah, there has been a Psycho reboot, remake,
46:33
Speaker 1: a reboot on a lot of the Psycho, rear Window
46:37
Speaker 1: and The Birds yet so I find a couple of
46:41
Speaker 1: things interesting about this one because I saw Psycho probably
46:45
Speaker 1: when I was in high school much later in my
46:48
Speaker 1: horror movie. It might have even in college. And when
46:52
Speaker 1: I saw it, because I'd seen all these other horror
46:55
Speaker 1: movies first, and I just grew up in a different time.
46:57
Speaker 1: There was no part of me that was like, Oh,
46:59
Speaker 1: she's a bad person deserves to die. I was shocked
47:03
Speaker 1: she died. I knew I've seen the shower scene, but
47:06
Speaker 1: I was shocked. It was so freaking early beginning, Yeah,
47:10
Speaker 1: because they're kind of her painting it as like, Oh,
47:12
Speaker 1: she's gonna be like the main character, maybe be tormented throughout,
47:15
Speaker 1: and then like her sister shows up, and I was like, oh,
47:18
Speaker 1: because there has to be Like even then, I was like,
47:20
Speaker 1: the almost always has to be this woman, this pretty
47:23
Speaker 1: woman for the villain to torment. But I just think
47:27
Speaker 1: that was an interesting experience because I was just seeing it,
47:31
Speaker 1: not from those eyes right right. And I am uh
47:39
Speaker 1: a huge fan of old movies, like I love musicals,
47:42
Speaker 1: I love the old things. But when you start realizing, um,
47:47
Speaker 1: some of the awful taxics behind it and some of
47:49
Speaker 1: the actualities of these movies, including most of Hitchcock films,
47:54
Speaker 1: you're like, what the hell? And it does change what
47:58
Speaker 1: you saw versus what you thought you saw because yeah,
48:01
Speaker 1: you never if you don't pay attention, you really don't
48:04
Speaker 1: know why she ran away. For the longest time, I
48:07
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out why she ran away, like
48:08
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get it. I don't get it.
48:10
Speaker 1: She's meeting somebody, I don't get it. And then you realize, oh,
48:13
Speaker 1: she embezzled money. Yeah, she's a she's a heartlot, as
48:17
Speaker 1: they would say, because she had an affair with a
48:19
Speaker 1: very flirty boss um. But yeah, there's also because he
48:23
Speaker 1: does this to all of them, there's something that's like
48:26
Speaker 1: a little off about the women that they're not purely innocent.
48:29
Speaker 1: Does the same thing with strangers on a train, like
48:32
Speaker 1: to the point that there was almost like a sigh
48:36
Speaker 1: of relief with some of the audience watched her being
48:39
Speaker 1: strangled to death, and you're like why, But because he
48:43
Speaker 1: made it that way, he wanted that trope to be
48:46
Speaker 1: that way. And I found that very fascinating to like, oh, man,
48:51
Speaker 1: you are really twisted and you had a lot of issues, bro. Yeah,
48:56
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot to be said that. I
48:59
Speaker 1: feel like one of the more recent examples when I
49:01
Speaker 1: was watching The New Drastic World, and there's that like
49:04
Speaker 1: babysitting character. I might have told this story before, but
49:06
Speaker 1: I mean, she was supposed to be so annoying, and
49:09
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, she was not that annoying,
49:12
Speaker 1: Like I would be annoyed too if my boss was
49:13
Speaker 1: like heard her these two random kids and watched them.
49:16
Speaker 1: But when she died and she dies like a long
49:18
Speaker 1: drawn out death, people were laughing and I was like, wow, Okay,
49:24
Speaker 1: But I kind of get the vibe, like I get
49:26
Speaker 1: having like a villainous character and being relieved when they're gone.
49:31
Speaker 1: But I feel like with these women like often that
49:33
Speaker 1: they're not like maybe they're not great, but it's not
49:35
Speaker 1: like that. How do you think she deserved to be
49:41
Speaker 1: staffid peeping Tom because he had mommy issues exactly. And
49:46
Speaker 1: that's kind of the thing. Like it's almost like this
49:48
Speaker 1: early version of the Scream Queen before there was the
49:51
Speaker 1: final girl was like the horror trope, like she was
49:56
Speaker 1: the one that was she was pretty and she was
49:58
Speaker 1: having sex, so she has to go, but there wasn't
50:00
Speaker 1: Like I guess her sister was more innocent when she
50:03
Speaker 1: showed up. Another thing I find interesting about this example
50:06
Speaker 1: when you type in like scream queens, I for me
50:10
Speaker 1: a lot of the examples that come up on like
50:11
Speaker 1: Top twenty Screen Queen List, it was like one actor,
50:14
Speaker 1: one role, which this one is I kind of people
50:16
Speaker 1: know that scene. It had a huge impact. Like Nancy,
50:19
Speaker 1: like we talked about from Nightmare on Elm Street, she
50:22
Speaker 1: was in you know, a couple but not that many.
50:24
Speaker 1: But for me, like a screen queen is like Jamie
50:28
Speaker 1: Lee Curtis or something. But it is interesting how many
50:31
Speaker 1: actually that they represent the movie, right if you think
50:34
Speaker 1: of that movie, that's the person you see in your head. Yes,
50:38
Speaker 1: and this isn't to like say that if you're if
50:40
Speaker 1: you're not j b Lee Curtis, then get out screen
50:43
Speaker 1: queen of mine. It was just interesting how many of
50:46
Speaker 1: them were not kind of what I thought, which was
50:48
Speaker 1: somebody who does a bunch of horror just like remember
50:51
Speaker 1: this one role and they did it so well and
50:53
Speaker 1: which also makes sense, but it shows the kind of
50:56
Speaker 1: the varied landscape of people's understandings of a screen queen
51:00
Speaker 1: is right in trilogies didn't happen until that's true away
51:04
Speaker 1: a little bit later. So that's kind of that you
51:06
Speaker 1: don't have that reoccurring things that's more recent. That is
51:10
Speaker 1: that is true, and plenty of of the women I'm
51:13
Speaker 1: thinking of on these lists, like even Sarah Michelle Keeller.
51:16
Speaker 1: It's not like she's done a bunch. I don't know
51:18
Speaker 1: that I would count Buffy the day personally. I get
51:20
Speaker 1: that it is she doesn't have that one role where
51:23
Speaker 1: she plays the European mid century princess. So they do
51:30
Speaker 1: the Halloween costumes and they transform into whatever costume they're
51:33
Speaker 1: wearing from that shop. Oh does Xander's army military dude?
51:39
Speaker 1: And I don't know this one? What's her name? She
51:42
Speaker 1: turns into a ghost. This is what we get introduced
51:46
Speaker 1: to seth Green. Uh do you not remember any of that? Really?
51:52
Speaker 1: It was a big one where like because she turns
51:54
Speaker 1: into this like Danzel in distress and hides behind Xanders,
51:57
Speaker 1: Zanders will be like the big bad guy and Angel
52:00
Speaker 1: shows up. Was like, what is happen? Oh? I thought
52:04
Speaker 1: you were talking about a different movie. Ok, Okay, I
52:10
Speaker 1: got it. I just remember that horror face she had.
52:14
Speaker 1: She did it so well, there's definitely irritating. Well, she
52:18
Speaker 1: was being a damsel one distressed. Yeah, she's there are
52:23
Speaker 1: some episodes of Buffy where she's definitely terrified, for sure,
52:26
Speaker 1: it's just I guess in my mind it doesn't really
52:28
Speaker 1: fit if you look at the whole the depth of it, right,
52:32
Speaker 1: that was not that often. But anyway, anyway, all that
52:34
Speaker 1: to say, there's there are a lot of places we
52:38
Speaker 1: could have got people we get have picked up. I
52:39
Speaker 1: like who we did. I feel like we touched on
52:41
Speaker 1: some big ones. I didn't want to have an honorable
52:43
Speaker 1: mention Sigourney Weaver from Alien, Ghostbusters, The Village Cabin in
52:47
Speaker 1: the Woods um which he has directly comments on the
52:50
Speaker 1: Final Girl Shop and she's sort of the god do
52:53
Speaker 1: a macana in that movie. And you can see our
52:55
Speaker 1: feminist movie Friday on Alien and the movie Crush episode
52:58
Speaker 1: that I did on Alien. But yeah, we've been going
53:02
Speaker 1: on for a minute now. I guess we should wrapped
53:04
Speaker 1: this one up. Thanks again to Jessica for this suggestion.
53:07
Speaker 1: It was a fun one. Um. If you would like
53:10
Speaker 1: to suggest anything for us to talk about listeners that
53:12
Speaker 1: you can, we would love to hear from you. You
53:14
Speaker 1: can email at the Stuff Media mom Stuff at I
53:16
Speaker 1: heart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
53:18
Speaker 1: at mom stow podcast or on Instagram and stuff I've
53:20
Speaker 1: Never told to you thinks it's always to our super
53:21
Speaker 1: producer Christina, thank you and thanks to you for listening
53:25
Speaker 1: stuff I never told the production of I Heart Radio.
53:26
Speaker 1: For more podcast on my heart radiovi is the Heart
53:28
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast orhere you listen to your favorite shows.