Camping the “post-” on Scream Queens

ABSTRACT

In September 2015, Scream Queens premiered on FOX. In the show, mass murderers at the fictional Wallace University brutalize and torture college students. At first glance, Scream Queens shows promise to disrupt heteronormativity, as the show’s lead characters include an overtly feminist university Dean, an acerbic and bright sorority president, and a gay scholar athlete. I argue that when the camp aesthetic enters the show’s post-(feminism and sexuality) context what emerges is “pop-camp”—an affected form of camp bereft of resistive promise. This analysis extends previous explorations of pop-camp to ask how camp may restore sexism and homophobia through discourses of the post- infused with an impulse toward nostalgia. The post- presents a distorted view of past inequality. When combined with humor, satire, and irony, this camping of the post- can be outright dangerous in restoring sexism and homophobia. This analysis of Scream Queens explores how camp responds to the post- rhetoric that has come to define contemporary times.

KEYWORDS:

• Nostalgia
• postfeminism
• postsexuality
• camp
• wistful whimsy

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Danny Fay for his astute observations about Scream Queens, and to Rachel Silverman for her insights on an earlier draft of this work. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and editor for their gracious and keen feedback.

Notes on contributor

Emily D. Ryalls is an assistant professor of communication studies at California Polytechnic State University. Correspondence to: Emily D. Ryalls, Communication Studies Department, California Polytechnic University, College of Liberal Arts, 1 Grand Ave, Building 47, San Luis Obispo, CA 934-7, USA. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 Jamie Lee Curtis rose to fame playing the “last girl” in Halloween (1978). She went on to star in The Fog (1980), Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), Halloween II (1981), and Roadgames (1981).

2 A student whose family member is a member of the sorority she desires to join.

3 Chanel #2 later confesses that an obsessive ex-boyfriend threatened to cut off her ears, so she wears the earmuffs as protection (“Seven Minutes in Hell”).

4 In 1964, Sontag famously published “Notes on ‘Camp’” in which she suggested camp had devolved to a purely aesthetic phenomenon. The allusion to her here strengthens the show’s campy context.

5 Glee (2009–2015), Scream Queens, as well as Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), The New Normal (2012–2013), and American Horror Story (2011-) were all created by showrunner Ryan Murphy.