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SMNTY Classics: Scream Queens · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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