PIHM: The Queerness of Scream
WARNING: SCREAM SPOILERS BELOW!!!!
Content Warnings: light discussions of death and murder
“What’s your favorite scary movie?”
One question forever changed the course of horror movies, a question filmmakers introduced in the Scream franchise. The franchise has six films and a three-season television series. Screenwriter and executive producer, Kevin Williamson, influenced the franchise by being an openly gay man.
Scream, the first film, premiered on December 18, 1996. A year after 17-year-old Sidney Prescott’s mother is brutally murdered, a serial killer in a Ghostface mask stalks her and her friends. It’s revealed that Ghostface is Sidney’s boyfriend, Billy Loomis, and his best friend, Stu Macher. While Billy and Stu are not openly queer, they are queer-coded. Queer-coded refers to traits and behaviors, implying the characters are not heterosexual. One example is during the reveal, Stu is leaning closely on Billy and staring at him with great admiration.
Matthew Lillard, the actor who plays Stu, said at a con that Stu is super gay. Additionally, Kevin Williamson, a gay man himself, stated that Billy and Stu’s relationship is queer-coded.
Within the franchise, another aspect of queerness is in Scream 4. The fourth installment premiered on April 15, 2011. The film centers around Sidney’s niece, Jill Roberts, and her group of friends facing a new Ghostface killer. Within these films, they discuss the “rules” of horror movies. One rule is no one can die if they’re gay. However, this is disproved when Robbie Mercer revealed he was gay, but died anyway.
The television series, which aired between 2015 through 2019 on MTV, featured a bisexual character. Audrey Jensen is canonically bi-curious/bisexual. However, the film franchise does not introduce its first sapphic character until Scream 5. Mindy Meeks-Martin is the first open lesbian appearing in Scream 5 and Scream 6. Jasmin Savoy Brown, an openly queer Black woman, portrays Mindy.
Sometimes when queer characters are in a movie or television series, they often fall victim to the bury your gays trope. The trope refers to the death of queer characters who are often seen as unimportant to the plot. In both Scream 5 and Scream 6, Mindy avoids the trope. However, her girlfriend Anika dies in Scream 6.
The horror genre has been and always will be queer. The Scream franchise is no exception to this rule. As the franchise expands, filmmakers need to continue to include more queer characters and actors.
By Bailee Smith-Garcia (she/her)
Twitter: @baileesg
