March 28, 2024

By SARAH VEENSTRA

Watch out Shonda Rhimes, there’s a new show in town that has people all over North America thinking; “New hit show or hit and run?”

With three episodes under its belt and another airing this evening, Scream Queens proves itself to already be a screaming success. Does it truly surprise anyone, when the pilot was dripping with current “it” celebrities, missing limbs and tweeting? It’s no wonder the show has its millennial viewers pleading for more.

A happy marriage of Mean Girls and Scary Movie one through five (who let it go past a trilogy?), Scream Queens is made up of white, blond girls who wear pink every day (not just Wednesdays) usually decorated with ostrich feathers and pearls while they get away with murder. Literally.

Created mainly by Ryan Murphy, the genius behind Nip/Tuck, American Horror Story and a cultural revolution ignited by a little show called Glee, one can only hope that he created Scream Queens as a satire designed to point out the somewhat sad reality of what social media has done to our society. (Again, one can hope.)

If the show dares to be taken seriously as relatable content for the generation nearing their graduation, then we have bigger problems than Stephen Harper. I digress.

The truth is, when main sorority sister and president Chanel Oberlin, played by none other than Emma Roberts, (yes, the niece of Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman) admits to having her clothing hand picked by Karl Lagerfeld, affectionately referred to as “Uncle Karl” every month, I too felt the pang of jealousy. How could one not be, when Instagram, Twitter and every newsfeed in the Western hemisphere is inundated with Lagerfeld’s baby model prodigies Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Karlie Kloss.

One couldn’t also help but be entertained as Chanel #2 (sorority sisters are all named Chanel with a number) played by Ariana Grande, came face to face with the red devil murderer, only to have him text her, “I’m going to kill you.” Too naturally, she used her phone to send a reply rather than to dial three numbers: 911. Perhaps an old-fashioned notion, but the last thing on someone’s mind during an attempted murder would be to tweet about it. Or would it? This is the question that frightened me more than the corpse on my television screen; the corpse that briefly awoke for just long enough to press Enter on her last tweet. Really?

While the premise of the show should come as no shock as it was only a matter of time before producers started capitalizing on what we’re all thinking, it doesn’t seem to ease the trauma of watching it on screen. This is what it’s come to.

To watch the show, one can’t help but wonder: do people know that their tastes in entertainment are being mocked? Do they care? Probably not.
In an age where any information to be desired is available at the touch of a button, society has seemingly moved backwards. Instead of feeding from the information so readily available and using it to further advance society, we seem to waste it updating others on how many Red Bulls we’ve consumed in the last hour.

Scream Queens is littered with proverbial stereotypes that our society has not only come to accept but promote such as the white girl dressing “on point” and fiending Starbucks’ pumpkin spice lattes.

Perhaps viewers truly find its honesty and blatant representation refreshing and the show’s existence allows them to laugh at themselves.

There’s only one thing that can be certain: I’ll be tuning in every Tuesday night. (For research.)

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