Scream Queens - Postmodernism

By Ciara Kataria

General InformationScream Queens is an American TV show on FOX created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. It first aired on September 22, 2015. It is a comedy-horror that takes place in a university sorority that is plagued by a serial killer called the ‘Red Devil’. It stars Emma Roberts, Skyler Samuels, Lea Michele, Diego Boneta, Abigail Breslin, Billie Lourd, Oliver Hudson, Ariana Grande, Nick Jonas and Jamie Lee Curtis. I am going to be looking at Season 1 Episode 8, ‘Mommie Dearest’.

1x08 Mommie DearestThe main story in this episode is that the main character, Grace (Skylar Samuels) finds out who her mother really was, hence the title of the episode, but there are also many other references to mothers in the episode. It starts out with this scene:

• This is a shot for shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) a very famous horror movie. Jamie Lee Curtis (the actress in this scene) is the daughter of Janet Lee, the actress this scene in the original movie, so she is paying homage to her mother in this scene, which also links to the title of the episode. This is some obvious intertextuality immediately showing that this is a very postmodern show. • However there is a twist as she gets out of the shower, hits the Red Devil killer

and says ‘I watched that movie 50 times’. This is quite self-aware which is another characteristic of postmodern texts.

• Billie Lourd’s character, Chanel No.3, wears ear muffs which is said to be a reference to her mother, Carrie Fisher, as she played Princess Leia in Star Wars, with this iconic hair style, which could be another reference to the episode’s title and is more intertextuality.

• Scream Queens is a pastiche of horror and comedy genres. It has been described as a mix between Glee/Heathers/Mean Girls and American Horror Story. Like in Heathers, the main ‘mean girl’, Chanel Oberlin, refers to her ‘minions’ as extensions of her own name, Chanel No.2, Chanel No.3 etc. which is intertextuality.• The show parodies the prejudice and bad behavior of selective

university sororities and fraternities and it is one of the central jokes of Scream Queens.• This show could also be described as being ‘style over substance’ which

is also typical of postmodern texts, as they have grand sets and detailed and expensive looking costumes too. It looks very glossy and nice, which is unusual for a ‘horror’ show so that makes it quite postmodern too.