Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stefan.
Speaker 2: Never told you your protection of iHeartRadio, and today we
Speaker 2: are so excited, so so so excited to be joined
Speaker 2: by the wonderful, the fantastic, the amazing Bridget Todd.
Speaker 1: Welcome Bridget.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: I am so excited to talk about this with you today.
Speaker 3: I'm just excited to be back with you.
Speaker 2: Also, Yes, yes, how have you been? First of all, Bridget,
Speaker 2: I have been good.
Speaker 4: I was just talking to Sam a bit ago about
Speaker 4: I just came back from Berlin.
Speaker 3: Kind of a weird time.
Speaker 4: To be doing a international travel, but the trip was
Speaker 4: really good. Happy to be back in the United States. Yeah, thanks,
Speaker 4: are good? How are you two good? Uh?
Speaker 2: We've also I've been traveling more than normal lately, so
Speaker 2: I'm pretty tired and I actually am taking this weekend
Speaker 2: off of told everyone, like, leave me.
Speaker 1: Bee, I need some time.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna carve my pumpkin and watch some Halloween movies
Speaker 2: and that sounds perfect for me. Yes, but Samantha and
Speaker 2: I recently did a trip together to some haunted houses,
Speaker 2: so that was fun.
Speaker 4: Wait did you the last time that we talked? I
Speaker 4: think you were telling me that you knew all of
Speaker 4: these tricks to get them to like the character actors
Speaker 4: to scare you more. Did you Did you all do
Speaker 4: those tricks.
Speaker 1: Well, Samantha, No, because she doesn't want that.
Speaker 3: I don't want that.
Speaker 5: I did not.
Speaker 6: I tried to avoid it at all costs. I will
Speaker 6: say there was a lot of just essentially man handling
Speaker 6: of Annie, which I like tugged onto her and pushed
Speaker 6: and poled her to try to avoid any ghosts of
Speaker 6: people scaring me.
Speaker 5: I did fail at one point.
Speaker 6: We uh, I did discover that if you separate from
Speaker 6: the crew, like if you're in a crowd, you're more
Speaker 6: likely to avoid things. If you separate from that crew,
Speaker 6: you're not gonna avoid it. And it got bad enough
Speaker 6: that I started pushing Annie while anyway I see everything.
Speaker 5: I was like keep and screaming at her to move.
Speaker 1: I was like, look at this, and.
Speaker 5: So she really was. She was like look at that.
Speaker 6: That is so called like shut up and moved. So
Speaker 6: that happened a lot. I survived it. Yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker 3: I'll sell you that.
Speaker 6: I time Annie has the best time, which I'm really
Speaker 6: happy for her because I wanted her to. I did
Speaker 6: it was fun. It was fun not my cup of tea.
Speaker 4: It's so funny how you don't want to be scared.
Speaker 4: Annie loves being scared. That's an interesting dynamic of going
Speaker 4: through a haunted house together.
Speaker 6: Right right, I will say, like, I love scary movies.
Speaker 6: I don't like being jumped at.
Speaker 4: Is that is that your transition into the topic of
Speaker 4: the day.
Speaker 6: Of course, obviously, let's let's talk about these scary movies
Speaker 6: that I like.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I have to start with the iconic question,
Speaker 4: what's your favorite scary movie? I'm doing a bit here,
Speaker 4: So if you're like, why did you say it weird?
Speaker 3: I'm doing a bit well.
Speaker 2: Before answering that question, which is a very difficult question.
Speaker 2: I do have a story. So I love these movies
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, to the point that when
Speaker 2: you sent the topic, I was like freaking out. I
Speaker 2: was so excited to talk about it. And so we're
Speaker 2: gonna be talking about Scream. I last year, when the
Speaker 2: new movie came out, I got this mysterious text from
Speaker 2: Samantha and she said, you got to answer your phone,
Speaker 2: and I hate answering my phone.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, okay, okay, and.
Speaker 2: So I'm like nervously waiting for this phone call and
Speaker 2: it was a New York number and it was ghost
Speaker 2: Face and he's like, Oh, what's your favorite scary movie?
Speaker 2: I'm in your apartment right now.
Speaker 1: It scared the hell out of fasion. I was looking
Speaker 1: around because the newest one is based in New York.
Speaker 2: But it was this marketing campaign where you could enter
Speaker 2: someone's phone number and he would call you and, uh,
Speaker 2: scare you.
Speaker 4: Well, obviously he wasn't actually in your apartment or otherwise
Speaker 4: you were the final girl and like leave the tail.
Speaker 2: But it was scary, and then everyone like got wind
Speaker 2: of it, and so I got a bunch of.
Speaker 4: At what point where You're like, okay, it's enough now
Speaker 4: getting it's like getting calls from bill collectors.
Speaker 3: We were the class silence.
Speaker 1: Yes, I wonder if I could play it. I still
Speaker 1: have to play it.
Speaker 3: Play it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I I saved it because it even says
Speaker 1: ghost Face.
Speaker 3: All right, that is they really like? That is commitment?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, fun.
Speaker 3: So do I I find them fairly educational? Do you
Speaker 3: see any that's creaking that is terrified?
Speaker 4: Also, I have to say it kind of the bit
Speaker 4: about finding them very educational it's almost like it's almost
Speaker 4: like it sets up.
Speaker 2: Almost like it what we're gonna talk about. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was fun. I'm a huge fan of these movies.
Speaker 2: We've done episodes on we I think we did one
Speaker 2: on the fifth one about fandom toxic fandom, and then
Speaker 2: we did one about Sydney Prescott, and we did one
Speaker 2: about the Harvey Weinstein thing, and the third one. It's
Speaker 2: also a big chapter in the book that came out.
Speaker 2: But that being said, I often joke that when I
Speaker 2: was nine years old, I went to this place called
Speaker 2: media Play, which I think doesn't exist anymore, but for
Speaker 2: my family that was a big trip. You would go
Speaker 2: to media Play and you could get some stuff. And
Speaker 2: I still I don't know why, but I bought all
Speaker 2: these RATEDAR horror movies. And to this day, I'm kind
Speaker 2: of like perplexed as to what was going on in
Speaker 2: my head that I was like, I want these, and
Speaker 2: the person checked me out as a nine year old,
Speaker 2: it probably shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: But then when we got the car, my mom was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what did you get?
Speaker 2: And I had to reveal that I'd bought all these
Speaker 2: rated AR horror movies and she said, you can keep two,
Speaker 2: and so I had to return like Urban Legends and
Speaker 2: all these other horror movies that I kept Scream, and
Speaker 2: to this day I think it like altered the trajectory
Speaker 2: of my horror movie.
Speaker 3: What was it about Scream that like spoke to you, like,
Speaker 3: what do you think it was?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Like I had this conversation with a friend the other
Speaker 2: day and she said, why do you think as kids
Speaker 2: we sought out these horror movies?
Speaker 1: What was the reason? I think I just.
Speaker 2: There was some thing about like the I shouldn't be
Speaker 2: watching it part, but also like, oh this is gonna
Speaker 2: be It's gonna give me that feeling of like release
Speaker 2: and worry. But then the I love that about horror movies,
Speaker 2: of the like going up attention and then the release.
Speaker 1: I think the probably the cover. I was just like,
Speaker 1: what looks good.
Speaker 4: That tension release kind of push Paul aspect of horror
Speaker 4: is exactly what I enjoy about it. I love just
Speaker 4: sort of going on that ride. And even though you know,
Speaker 4: like it's just a movie this and that, if you
Speaker 4: let yourself get swept up at it and take it away.
Speaker 3: In it, it can really be cathartic.
Speaker 2: Yes, and terrifying. So the question of like what's your
Speaker 2: favorite scary movie is very difficult. I feel like I
Speaker 2: have like a favorite slasher and a favorite But one
Speaker 2: of my my examples is when I was in middle school,
Speaker 2: I saw The Ring, the American version.
Speaker 1: It scared me so bad.
Speaker 2: And one of my favorite things is talking about the
Speaker 2: tech in horror movies because now you watch and you're like,
Speaker 2: how many.
Speaker 1: People know it?
Speaker 2: Like VHS and now you know the phone she leaves
Speaker 2: a message on the answering machine, which is so good.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious, But it scared me when I was young,
Speaker 2: and to the point I unplugged my TV, I put
Speaker 2: a blanket over it, I unplugged all the phones, and
Speaker 2: me and my friend Dylan were like literally leaving wills
Speaker 2: to each other like this is it.
Speaker 1: I don't make it out stick seven.
Speaker 5: Oh the power.
Speaker 2: Of it, Like you know, it's so it feels like
Speaker 2: a fun way to release this tension.
Speaker 1: But when you really they could really get you, they
Speaker 1: can really scare you and stick with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that bit about the technology and horror movies, Like
Speaker 4: I do think that there's something about anxiety around technology, communication, systems.
Speaker 4: How many scary movies had the trope of like the
Speaker 4: phone's gone dead, or like some bit of technology that
Speaker 4: we maybe don't fully understand or don't fully respect or
Speaker 4: appreciate coming back to get us. Like that is a common,
Speaker 4: I believe, like a common trope that is really related
Speaker 4: to our anxieties collectively around technology, particularly new technology, or
Speaker 4: like over reliance on technology that really sets us up
Speaker 4: for a kind of horror situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've noticed there's like a whole new ish
Speaker 2: genre of like movies like Unfriended or movies about like
Speaker 2: social media and these kind of technologies that are part
Speaker 2: of our everyday lives. It's also interesting to see other
Speaker 2: movies like Missing or Searching where they're trying to explain
Speaker 2: because a lot of horror movies, yeah, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: the phone's not working, really like trying to explain how
Speaker 2: technology can fit into that or how it doesn't and
Speaker 2: can't or yeah, that dependence on it.
Speaker 6: Ye.
Speaker 4: So I just watched on the plane to Berlin, I
Speaker 4: watched Missing, and I also haven't seen Missing. It takes
Speaker 4: place almost entirely through screens, and so you're watching someone's laptop.
Speaker 4: You're watching like they're having a video chat with somebody,
Speaker 4: They're they're messaging somebody, like you're watching security footage from
Speaker 4: a screen, like the whole thing takes place on a computer.
Speaker 4: And I also there is like a thing that I'm
Speaker 4: really interested in, mostly because I really like cheesy movies
Speaker 4: that are kind of like trying to make a social
Speaker 4: commentary but it's actually kind of funny, just like Scream.
Speaker 3: So I watched this movie The Influencer recently.
Speaker 4: Which I thought I didn't love, but like is about
Speaker 4: anxiety when it comes to people who share their whole
Speaker 4: lives on social media. Another one that I watched that's
Speaker 4: kind of similar to that is Sissy.
Speaker 3: Have you seen that?
Speaker 5: We just did this as I, okay, what is your thing?
Speaker 2: It made me think a lot about it stuck with me.
Speaker 2: I will say, yeah, yeah, it was definitely one of
Speaker 2: those where I left like.
Speaker 1: That did not resolve how I would have wanted it
Speaker 1: to resolve.
Speaker 2: But you know, the kind of making money off drama thing,
Speaker 2: which I know we're also going to talk about in here,
Speaker 2: left me unsettled.
Speaker 4: Yes, I agree, And I will say, like to set
Speaker 4: up this conversation, the reason why I wanted to talk
Speaker 4: about this today is that I watched Scream, the first one,
Speaker 4: the original from nineteen eighty six, yesterday and I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: you know, this is a movie that is really about
Speaker 4: the anxiety around technology and media.
Speaker 3: Right I had seen Scream.
Speaker 4: Maybe I saw it when it first came out when
Speaker 4: I was like a child, but when I don't, I've
Speaker 4: only seen it twice in my life. The first time
Speaker 4: I saw it when it first came out, a lot
Speaker 4: of the commentary about media and technology tropes, what's really
Speaker 4: over my head because I was a child. Watching it yesterday,
Speaker 4: I was really struck by how this movie is really
Speaker 4: a commentary about the anxieties people were facing in the
Speaker 4: nineties around media. So I should say, right off the bat,
Speaker 4: I saw Scream three in the theater with my friends.
Speaker 4: I think I must have seen Scream two, like partially
Speaker 4: on television every now and then, because I remember the
Speaker 4: Jada Peketts Smith part viscerally. So, but I don't think
Speaker 4: I've seen the whole thing because I'm looking at the
Speaker 4: plot on Wikipedia and I'm like, none of this seems
Speaker 4: familiar to me.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, I love Scream too. It was filmed in Georgia,
Speaker 2: Agnes Scott.
Speaker 3: Made in Georgia.
Speaker 4: Have you ever seen that at the end of shows? No, okay,
Speaker 4: it's what they say at the end of bad reality
Speaker 4: TV when they've been filmed in Georgia.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, well, yeah, I'm so excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 2: And the second one definitely plays into to this, so
Speaker 2: does the fourth one.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. Let's see. Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So, if you have not seen Scream, the first one,
Speaker 4: this conversation might have some spoilers, but like it came
Speaker 4: out in nineteen.
Speaker 3: Ninety six, so you know, what are you doing?
Speaker 4: But having watched it, I was just really struck by
Speaker 4: the ways in which it is like a commentary on
Speaker 4: the anxiety that folks have around youth and media. So
Speaker 4: the rough plot outline of Scream actually any as our
Speaker 4: scream kind of swor do you want to hit us
Speaker 4: with the plot the plot outline?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Yeah. So Scream is
Speaker 2: like many slasher movies. It follows a group of high
Speaker 2: school students and the movie opens with a very violent
Speaker 2: that's seen Drew barrymore by the way that traumatize me
Speaker 2: and introduces you to the killer, who asks, like, what
Speaker 2: is your favorite scary movie quizzes Drew Barrymore's character Casey
Speaker 2: about what it is, and then from there, of course,
Speaker 2: we get various other desks. The Rosemick Awen's garage death
Speaker 2: also stuck with me, but but yeah, It's one of
Speaker 2: the things I love about Scream is you're following this
Speaker 2: group of kids and they really make you suspect everybody.
Speaker 2: But as the story kind of unfolds, you learned that
Speaker 2: the main character, Sidney, her mom had been murdered and
Speaker 2: she had testified about it, and it was this guy
Speaker 2: caught and weary.
Speaker 1: The names are also great in this movie. They really are,
Speaker 1: They really really are.
Speaker 2: And there's also some media happening around that in Courtney
Speaker 2: Cox's character Gail Weathers, who is this like really ambitious reporter,
Speaker 2: is in town and trying to ask her ask Sidney
Speaker 2: get an interview with her about all of that. And
Speaker 2: then we have our character Dewey played by David Arquette,
Speaker 2: who had a crush on from this movie, who is
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 1: Deputy of the town.
Speaker 2: So you've got all these characters and they're just sort
Speaker 2: of slowly dying off or friends of theirs on the
Speaker 2: Proof You Are Anyway, And our character Randy is sort
Speaker 2: of our meta commentary guy. He is the guy who
Speaker 2: has seen all the horror movies and he is the
Speaker 2: one who lays out the rules of surviving a horror movie,
Speaker 2: which at this point there's a killer around, so they're
Speaker 2: kind of joking that they're in one. Every screen movie
Speaker 2: has a party in it, So they go to this
Speaker 2: party even though there's a curfew, even though there's a killer,
Speaker 2: and it makes no.
Speaker 3: Sense, like she's being stopped.
Speaker 4: Dewey as the deputy, has been told like by his
Speaker 4: higher up, like make sure she stays safe. So then
Speaker 4: in the next scene, he's literally dropping her off at
Speaker 4: a party and like be like, okay, we'll have fun.
Speaker 2: Right, but he's trying to He's got a crush on Gail,
Speaker 2: who he knows will be there, and they kind of
Speaker 2: form a duo.
Speaker 3: Mary Dale at the time.
Speaker 2: At the time, yes, and Gale leaves this camera inside
Speaker 2: the party to spire on the kids, which is really
Speaker 2: funny because it's like a fifteen second delay or whatever
Speaker 2: becomes important later. But Randy lays out the rules of
Speaker 2: like you can never have sex you can never do drugs.
Speaker 2: You never say I'll be back. You won't be back,
Speaker 2: You'll be dead. And then we see kind of people
Speaker 2: drinking and dying, people having sex and then almost dying.
Speaker 2: But all these things is build up, and then it's
Speaker 2: kind of hinted that it's her dad who is the killer,
Speaker 2: but there's been this through line of her boyfriend Billy
Speaker 2: who's been pressuring her to have sex.
Speaker 1: And no, you don't do that if you want to
Speaker 1: survive a horror movie.
Speaker 2: And she also has a hang up around it because
Speaker 2: her mother, after she died, all this commentary was she
Speaker 2: was a slut and deserved it, so she has a
Speaker 2: real hang up about it, understandably, and she eventually is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to have sex. I really want to We
Speaker 2: have sex, and then he is the killer, along with
Speaker 2: his friend Stu Matthew Lillard, and that they also killed
Speaker 2: her mom because they Billy blamed Sydney's mom for why
Speaker 2: his parents got divorced, so it wasn't Cotton Weary, it
Speaker 2: was Billy Loomis.
Speaker 1: And then they say that we're gonna blame the movies.
Speaker 1: We're gonna blame the movies. But then Sydney like steals
Speaker 1: their little voice vocoder thing and comes out and basically
Speaker 1: kills them with the help of Gail's returned after her
Speaker 1: cameraman was murdered and reports on the whole scene as
Speaker 1: a I think it's Moby plays.
Speaker 2: Times.
Speaker 4: That was a really great rundown the character Gail Weathers.
Speaker 4: When I first saw Scream as a young person, I
Speaker 4: didn't really so I've always liked bad characters, like not
Speaker 4: necessarily like the ultimate villain, like I didn't like Billion
Speaker 4: stew but like characters that are meant to be braddy
Speaker 4: or annoying or Dee. I've always been like, that's the
Speaker 4: character that I liked, and so I was obsessed with
Speaker 4: her character, her little suits. I thought she was so cool.
Speaker 4: I guess I like took away all of the wrong
Speaker 4: messages from this movie because I then grew up wanting
Speaker 4: to be like a careerist, a career woman's journalist, ballbuster.
Speaker 4: She also had a lot of the good lines were hers, Like,
Speaker 4: she really had good one liners, so that you have
Speaker 4: set the scene beautifully. So when Scream first debuted in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety six, the country was really engaged in this
Speaker 4: like national dialogue about the impact of violence in media
Speaker 4: on you. In nineteen ninety six, President Clinton signs the
Speaker 4: Telecommunications Act of nineteen ninety six, legislation that has gone
Speaker 4: on to shape a lot of our internet and media
Speaker 4: landscape even today. It was a huge change in the
Speaker 4: telecommunications law because it was the very first time that
Speaker 4: the Internet had been included in like broadcasting. A lot
Speaker 4: in thet right was being was being legislated of, like
Speaker 4: how they were metering it out and how people could
Speaker 4: access it and all that. So as part of this legislation,
Speaker 4: the Clinton administration rolled out technology called the V chip.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the V chip?
Speaker 1: I don't remember the V chip.
Speaker 4: It was kind of a blit in our I guess
Speaker 4: tech and media landscape, Like I remember a lot of
Speaker 4: conversation about it, like on television and in you know,
Speaker 4: with lawmakers. But ultimately it had a pretty a relatively
Speaker 4: like small impact, which we'll talk about in distant moments.
Speaker 4: So if you don't know what the V chip is,
Speaker 4: the V schip was technology meant to allow parents to
Speaker 4: block like racy or mature content from televisions. Television's manufactured
Speaker 4: in the United States market since January two thousand were
Speaker 4: required to have V hip technology. So V chips worked
Speaker 4: by allowing your TV to receive a special code in
Speaker 4: the broadcast signal that was broadcasting shows and movies that
Speaker 4: indicated a rating of what kind of program that was
Speaker 4: and like whether or not it was suitable for different audiences.
Speaker 4: So you know when you watch TV now and you
Speaker 4: see up in the corner that little black and white
Speaker 4: logo like TVMA or TV why that is related to
Speaker 4: V chips, right, So, like TVMA would be content that
Speaker 4: is mature. So if you had your V schip programmed,
Speaker 4: there would be a code and you're in the programming
Speaker 4: that would allow you to block mature content from your
Speaker 4: household if you were worried about your kids seeing it.
Speaker 4: So the phrase V chip was purportedly coined by then
Speaker 4: Representative Ed Marquee of Massachusetts. According to him, the V
Speaker 4: stood for violence because they were really concerned about blocking
Speaker 4: out violence. But if you asked Tim Collings, who is
Speaker 4: one of the people who claims to have invented V chips,
Speaker 4: he says the V stood for viewer control.
Speaker 3: Who what is the truth? I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: So parents at that time were really really had a
Speaker 4: lot of anxiety that violent movies and violent programming that
Speaker 4: kids were consuming was linked to violent behavior. There are
Speaker 4: like I wanted to include here, like whether or not
Speaker 4: that is true. There is way too much research out
Speaker 4: there for me to summarize. Like some people are like, oh,
Speaker 4: there's a clear link. Most researchers are like, oh, the
Speaker 4: link is like needs more studying, not clear. Do you
Speaker 4: have any sense of this as somebody who enjoys horror.
Speaker 2: I am under the impression because I remember this too,
Speaker 2: especially a somebody who plays video games. This argument comes
Speaker 2: up all the time about violent video games that there
Speaker 2: has not been any like definitive link proven, And I
Speaker 2: think I found one that said, yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not like a lot of us who see horror movies
Speaker 2: are I'm not.
Speaker 1: A murderer, Like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Most of it has been kind of yeah, there's not
Speaker 2: There hasn't been any science to really back that up.
Speaker 2: But there is a lot of anxiety around it, like
Speaker 2: we were talking about before, especially around kind of parenting
Speaker 2: and like what should I let my kids watch? Is
Speaker 2: this going to make them more violent? I'm much more
Speaker 2: I have much more knowledge about like how certain entertainment
Speaker 2: and games actually help you work through stuff for form
Speaker 2: some skills. But yeah, it's a lot of conversation happening
Speaker 2: and a lot of back and forth for sure.
Speaker 6: I know around this timeframe with all the movies as
Speaker 6: this was in conversation. Unfortunately, the Columbine shooting happened, and
Speaker 6: that was the biggest blame, not gun violence, not bullying,
Speaker 6: but that it was the violence on TV and the
Speaker 6: games that the kids played, the two perpetrators played, and
Speaker 6: they focused on that really hard because it seemed to
Speaker 6: fit the narrative that they've been trying to set up
Speaker 6: since the nineteen ninety five. So like four years later
Speaker 6: ninety nine was when the shooting happened, and like the
Speaker 6: conversations about bullying and the conversations about being outcasts, the
Speaker 6: conversations about gun control really was sidelined to violence on
Speaker 6: TV and violence for video games. I remember that being
Speaker 6: a huge thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, I have definitely seen that. Do you remember how
Speaker 4: the musician Brian Warner, who you might be more familiar
Speaker 4: with as a stage name Marylyn Manson, like he was
Speaker 4: really thrust into the national conversation about like what's wrong
Speaker 4: with our kids? And looking back at that time, even
Speaker 4: though my research, you know, I'm not a researcher, but
Speaker 4: when I've looked into the link between violent media and
Speaker 4: violent behavior, that link does seem fuzzy at best, Like
Speaker 4: it doesn't seem like there's a lot of information out
Speaker 4: there that really proves a, you know, a correlation. But
Speaker 4: I really understand how we still get so much like
Speaker 4: handwringing an anxiety about it because if you're a parent
Speaker 4: and you're worried about your kids, you're worried it's about
Speaker 4: sending your kids to school. You can't really control the
Speaker 4: legislation around guns in the United States right, Like we're
Speaker 4: just we've just like lost the ability to really have
Speaker 4: any kind of like direct impact on that. I think
Speaker 4: you really can't control what's happening at your kids school
Speaker 4: when you're not there. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 4: why you see this anxiety around media is because it
Speaker 4: feels like something you can control, Like, even if that
Speaker 4: link is not really there between violent media and violent behavior,
Speaker 4: I think that in absence of feeling like they have
Speaker 4: something they can cling to, something they can control, something
Speaker 4: they can like, it just becomes a backdrop to project
Speaker 4: your anxieties onto that. I but even if it's not
Speaker 4: really the appropriate thing to handring about. I understand how
Speaker 4: it becomes like in absence of anything that you feel
Speaker 4: like you can control, you feel like you can control
Speaker 4: the kind of media that comes into your home.
Speaker 2: And one of the things I find really interesting about
Speaker 2: Scream is that in the end, almost every killer realizes this.
Speaker 2: Almost every killer comes out and says, Oh, we're gonna
Speaker 2: blame the movies.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm gonna blame this. Oh I was on Reddit
Speaker 1: and now look at me.
Speaker 2: Like they know it and they use it, and that's
Speaker 2: what they're defense is going to be in several cases,
Speaker 2: like actually the defense they're.
Speaker 1: Going to use in court. So they recognize that this
Speaker 1: is a thing, and I.
Speaker 4: Think it becomes like almost like a red herring where
Speaker 4: it's like, if you're so busy focused on.
Speaker 3: Reddit or the movies or.
Speaker 4: The this or the that, you're not actually focused on
Speaker 4: the real issue. And the killers in these movies they
Speaker 4: know that, and they're using that as a way to
Speaker 4: evade their accountability for their crimes or like I can
Speaker 4: just blame this. And because of all that anxiety, because
Speaker 4: of all that handwringing, my actual motives, how I've actually
Speaker 4: done this just goes overlooked.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's part of the fun of these movies
Speaker 2: is they are so meta. So it's you're watching a
Speaker 2: slasher movie that's basically telling you, like, yeah, we know, uh,
Speaker 2: people are going to blame us for stuff, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Which is one of the things I love about them.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: And so the way that the scream movies really were
Speaker 4: a commentary on the conversation around violent media that we
Speaker 4: were having at that time in the nineties plays into
Speaker 4: that so much because with technology like the V chip,
Speaker 4: the burden was shifted off of like the government or
Speaker 4: TV people who make media onto parents to be the
Speaker 4: sole controls of what kind of media their kids are consuming, right,
Speaker 4: And so like, if I'm Stu and Billy and I'm
Speaker 4: just blaming the violent movies, really what that's actually saying
Speaker 4: is like, oh, it's the parents.
Speaker 3: The parents should have like used this V chip.
Speaker 4: To block their kids from seeing prom Night or Halloween
Speaker 4: and they didn't, and now he's a killer.
Speaker 3: Like it was just a.
Speaker 4: Real way to like expertly shift the blame around. And
Speaker 4: I think it mirrors the conversation that folks were having
Speaker 4: in the nineties, And so even though there was all
Speaker 4: this conversation and also public support around technology like the
Speaker 4: v chip that was rolled out in the end.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons.
Speaker 4: Why, like Annie, you were like V chip never heard
Speaker 4: of it is because it wasn't really being used that
Speaker 4: much by parents. A study that followed one hundred and
Speaker 4: ten families from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand found
Speaker 4: that just nine families regularly used their V chip to
Speaker 4: control mature and violent programming. I have my theories on
Speaker 4: why this is. I think setting it up was kind
Speaker 4: of cumbersome. I think a lot of parents were like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is a little bit complicated. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: do this. So I went back to check the different
Speaker 4: rating systems like we're most familiar with, like TVMA and
Speaker 4: things like that, But there's so many of them. There's TVY,
Speaker 4: TV Y seven, TVG, TVPG, TV fourteen, TVMA. Then inside
Speaker 4: of that there's different content descriptors. Right D stands for
Speaker 4: sexual or suggestive dialogue, L stands for course or crude language,
Speaker 4: s as sexual situations, V is violence, FV is family violence,
Speaker 4: exclusive to the TV Y seven rating. So it's complicated
Speaker 4: as hell, is what I'm saying. And so I can
Speaker 4: understand why parents were like, uh, this is way too
Speaker 4: many acronyms.
Speaker 3: I have work in the morning. I am not setting
Speaker 3: this up.
Speaker 4: I also suspect, like, if your household was anything like
Speaker 4: my household, if you were a teen at this time,
Speaker 4: the responsibility for setting up the technology and like telecommunications
Speaker 4: in your home probably fell on your shoulders. Your parents
Speaker 4: were like, I don't know how to set this up.
Speaker 3: You do it.
Speaker 4: So if you're the young person who was being asked to, like, like,
Speaker 4: you're not going to be setting up parental controls on
Speaker 4: your own TV, if you are the person who is
Speaker 4: responsible for setting up how TV happens in your home, right,
Speaker 4: So that's what I suspect might have been part of
Speaker 4: why this like technology just did not take off.
Speaker 6: You know what I find funny though with that, is Yes,
Speaker 6: I was in that generation. I was a teenager when
Speaker 6: the internet came out, Like, I did not have the
Speaker 6: access to internet until I left for college because my
Speaker 6: parents were not buying the new things and at this
Speaker 6: point it was a new thing, and I would have
Speaker 6: to go to my aunt's house to use AOL. Yes,
Speaker 6: and you immediately think of that sound when you connect
Speaker 6: and then immediately know the sound when it hangs up
Speaker 6: and you get real pissed off because someone picked up
Speaker 6: a phone. Yes, I was in that generation. I find
Speaker 6: it funny because yes, we were part of that. Me
Speaker 6: and my brother, who are around the same age, were
Speaker 6: the ones who had set it up. But even today
Speaker 6: for my boomer parents, we have to set up any
Speaker 6: day with the smart stuff and the likelihood that we
Speaker 6: know even more so than the younger generations because they're
Speaker 6: so used to just having it around on how to
Speaker 6: get it connected.
Speaker 5: Because we're like the og of all of these things.
Speaker 6: It kind of makes me laugh because somehow the genetic
Speaker 6: slash millennials are the ones who know how to set
Speaker 6: these things up more so even than most of the
Speaker 6: younger generations because they just always have had it.
Speaker 4: Yes, I've actually read some really interesting research and commentary
Speaker 4: that suggests that the younger generation, like Gen Z they
Speaker 4: might like because they've always had things like iPads and
Speaker 4: smartphones that are so sort of like drag and drop,
Speaker 4: so sort of like intuitive, and if you've always had them,
Speaker 4: the sort of inner machinations of like how they work
Speaker 4: and like what is being represented when you do things
Speaker 4: might be a little bit vague, a little bit vaguer
Speaker 4: to them than they are to somebody who is my age,
Speaker 4: who like grew up having to understand that kind of
Speaker 4: thing just to like make it work right, Like having
Speaker 4: to understand like when you save a file what that means,
Speaker 4: and like how to find it and all of that.
Speaker 3: None of this stuff.
Speaker 4: When I was first using computers was like easily laid
Speaker 4: out through the user like easy to navigate user interface.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of like squinting at the screen
Speaker 4: and guessing.
Speaker 6: Check and like, yeah, we only have to coding in
Speaker 6: order should get access to specific sides.
Speaker 5: You're like, what the hell is I have to control
Speaker 5: all B what F three?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 1: Yeh?
Speaker 6: But I do find it funny coming back to that
Speaker 6: when you'd have most of these classics, because when I
Speaker 6: was growing up, I watched a lot of the cheesiest
Speaker 6: seventies eighties horror movies because they were amazing and they
Speaker 6: were so bad. The effects were so bad, but it
Speaker 6: was so good because you still love that idea. I
Speaker 6: also loved the horror stories y'all know I'm talking about,
Speaker 6: like the classic horror stories, Appellation horror stories that you
Speaker 6: know came back like the scariest stories like those are
Speaker 6: the things that I grew up with and haunted me,
Speaker 6: still haunts me. I was telling I think Annie, I
Speaker 6: told you, no, MAYBEA I told my partner when I
Speaker 6: was in middle school, so this is.
Speaker 5: Way before y'all. Don't talk to me about age.
Speaker 6: We would go into like different theater companies coming perform
Speaker 6: I think I was in the fifth grade and they
Speaker 6: were supposed to do a Mark Twain show, and we're
Speaker 6: like cool, cool, cool, old school and then it flipped
Speaker 6: real quick to an Edgar Allan Poe Telltale Heart. So
Speaker 6: for those of us who didn't know what was coming
Speaker 6: hearing because they would have like the surround sound of
Speaker 6: the beating heart, and it haunts me.
Speaker 5: To this day.
Speaker 6: That's scary, Like that story was one of the scariest
Speaker 6: stories I'd ever heard in my life. And I'm thinking
Speaker 6: back into like back to like would the kids today
Speaker 6: would that have scared them or would they have been
Speaker 6: like laughing because they're like what is that?
Speaker 5: What is this?
Speaker 6: Because in my mind, like it was scary as hell.
Speaker 6: I've been realizing how technology has quickly changed and how
Speaker 6: like the grounds of change, and again, yeah, people don't
Speaker 6: even understand what the phone is, like, why would you
Speaker 6: why would you have to connect to what's the landline?
Speaker 6: Why do you have to do what is the pressing?
Speaker 6: Why can't they just like call a number or say,
Speaker 6: see he call this thing? Like it's quite funny to
Speaker 6: me that I'm like, yeah, y'all probably don't understand how
Speaker 6: scary it really was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh do you ever watch a horror movie like from
Speaker 4: like the nineties or beyond and you're like, why doesn't
Speaker 4: she just use her cell phone to call her help?
Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, wait, a huge phone.
Speaker 4: In Scream, there is that like the scene where it
Speaker 4: sets the audience up to think that Billy is the
Speaker 4: killer and a self because a cell phone drops out
Speaker 4: of his pocket and it's like a cell phone?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 4: And the cops are like why do you have a
Speaker 4: cell phone? And he's like people have to now, like
Speaker 4: it was so unusual for somebody to just have a
Speaker 4: cell phone.
Speaker 5: Yes, nothing, you're rich or you're up to no good.
Speaker 6: It's kind of like the pages of the General like
Speaker 6: the immediately you were you were no good exactly.
Speaker 1: Us bridget you need to watch all the rest of
Speaker 1: the screen movies.
Speaker 2: It just keep updating us because the newer ones have
Speaker 2: things with like Siri and you're ring camera and like
Speaker 2: using voice commands and all this stuff.
Speaker 4: So would you say that Scream is one of the
Speaker 4: more tech savvy horror franchises.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I would say that, But I also don't
Speaker 2: have that kind of stuff, So I never talked to
Speaker 2: Siri and I don't use ring. But I think so,
Speaker 2: I mean, I at least like it's definitely addressing the
Speaker 2: question of, oh, hey, this is the world we live
Speaker 2: in now. I think the fifth one as a whole
Speaker 2: thing about like Netflix and Reddit and Phantom in that way.
Speaker 2: So I mean they are definitely at least engaging in
Speaker 2: this is the technology that we have, and this is
Speaker 2: how we think it would impact or fuel this horror
Speaker 2: story that we're telling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's really interesting when horror movies use
Speaker 4: technology as a way to like buttress whatever story or
Speaker 4: message you know, they're trying to tell, which I feel
Speaker 4: like Scream definitely does.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: After this V chip technology is put in place, television
Speaker 4: programs are then rated for how much like ricey or
Speaker 4: mature content they contain, and so to give parents ostensibly
Speaker 4: the power to like block their kids from them, even
Speaker 4: though parents aren't really doing this. However, the news news
Speaker 4: programming was exempt from these ratings, and so there was
Speaker 4: no way to block the news from your home. Using
Speaker 4: this technology just sort of like giving it a pass
Speaker 4: to come into people's homes. This coincided with news media
Speaker 4: becoming more and more solidified as a form of like
Speaker 4: always on entertainment, starting famously with CNN as like the
Speaker 4: first twenty four hour news network, later with Fox News
Speaker 4: and MSNBC. According to NPR media reporter David Folkenflick, the
Speaker 4: subsequent arrival of Fox at MSNBC, it May nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: six a seminal year for cable news. Remember that in
Speaker 4: the nineties you had these like big, splashy gory crimes
Speaker 4: that played out in the news. Nineteen ninety four, you
Speaker 4: get oj Simpson, nineteen ninety three, you get Lorraina Bobbitt.
Speaker 4: The murder of Scott Amadora in nineteen ninety five, who
Speaker 4: folks don't know who that is. He was shot and
Speaker 4: murdered after an appearance on the tabloid show The Jenny
Speaker 4: Jones Show, where he revealed his secret crush on a
Speaker 4: man who later shot him killed him and used gay
Speaker 4: panic as his defense during his trial. In nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 4: in a piece called how Scream Explored the exploitative nature
Speaker 4: of nightly news, the Smithsonian Magazine spoke to Jamie L. Flexen,
Speaker 4: a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida International University,
Speaker 4: who said the onslaught of round the clock coverage of bizarre,
Speaker 4: outlier incidents powerfully shaped American's perceptions of crime, saying, I
Speaker 4: believe because of this, society is much more afraid. The
Speaker 4: boogeyman does exist in this way an interaction between the
Speaker 4: human condition and the business of media amid a context
Speaker 4: of exploring rare situations to symbolize problems. And honestly, despite
Speaker 4: all of the anxieties and handering about violent media and
Speaker 4: violent crime and the anxieties around it, violent crime was
Speaker 4: famously down in the nineties during this time where people
Speaker 4: were so concerned about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think one of the things Scream does
Speaker 2: also is that it this was before true crime had
Speaker 2: really taken off. People were still fans of it, but
Speaker 2: there was no Netflix yet, there was no places where
Speaker 2: it could bringe it yet. But there's a point where
Speaker 2: as the daughter of this woman who had been murdered
Speaker 2: that people are constantly talking about, like constantly kind of
Speaker 2: sharing their theories like, oh no, you're wrong, you lied
Speaker 2: about her. There's a point where she like vocalizes this
Speaker 2: this fear that she has that if she says something
Speaker 2: like out of place, they will blame her dad, because
Speaker 2: it's usually the like husband or the like. She has
Speaker 2: this in her head that there are people watching her
Speaker 2: her story what has happened, and trying to dissect it
Speaker 2: and having to like live with Okay, I really don't
Speaker 2: want them to think it was my dad, which feels
Speaker 2: like now watching it, almost like premonition or something like
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: It was very on point with that.
Speaker 2: And then going back to something you said earlier, Bridget,
Speaker 2: the second one spoilers the one of the killers is
Speaker 2: Billy Loomis's mother. Oh yes, and she has a whole
Speaker 2: speech that's like they always blame the mother and she
Speaker 2: did do it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's why they're her because she did it.
Speaker 1: But it was interesting because it's like they were it
Speaker 1: was her.
Speaker 2: And then Timothy Olidfant's character Mickey, who was like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to blame the movies and she was like, I
Speaker 2: never believe that defense never wants she kills Mickey.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I just am so upset about what
Speaker 1: happened to my son and that you did it.
Speaker 2: But like that idea of you know, that story that
Speaker 2: we want to believe or that it's being told that
Speaker 2: we're seeing in our media, that they really because I mean,
Speaker 2: I could go on and odd, so Matha knows, like
Speaker 2: the fourth one is all about true crime as well.
Speaker 2: The fifth one's all about fandom, and in fact, one
Speaker 2: of the actors went on to Reddit to learn about
Speaker 2: toxic fandom to play a role in there. But also
Speaker 2: like going back to the internet was just becoming really
Speaker 2: big for a lot of us around the time this
Speaker 2: movie came out. And just for a fun fact, this
Speaker 2: is one of the first movies that had they were
Speaker 2: worried about spoilers, so they wrote different scripts after the
Speaker 2: first one because they got leaked online. And so it's
Speaker 2: really interesting in that way too, of like, and they
Speaker 2: even talk about it in the third one about how
Speaker 2: they have multiple scripts and they don't know which one
Speaker 2: the murderer is following.
Speaker 6: As I said, on all things, but you know how
Speaker 6: they went back to she is she don't don't think
Speaker 6: she doesn't already know.
Speaker 5: She's already She's already read the artist. I said, I know,
Speaker 5: I read this a while ago.
Speaker 3: I was exactly, Uh.
Speaker 6: But you know, one of the things coming back to
Speaker 6: how like news had become a whole thing. I would
Speaker 6: just remember like the eighties, late eighties and nineties were
Speaker 6: filled with like unsolved mysteries. Rescue nine one one was
Speaker 6: regularly played at our house and that started in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty nine. And then you also had things like the
Speaker 6: Top ten Most Wanted, which was like talking about that
Speaker 6: boogeyman that comes around. But there also had been that
Speaker 6: moment where news anchors were getting Pulitzers for being big
Speaker 6: storytellers so they could solve a crime and do it
Speaker 6: while on air. They would get these accolades, and I
Speaker 6: remember that being a huge thing. Barbara Walters was huge
Speaker 6: at that point in time. Sixty Minutes, which is still going,
Speaker 6: but like that was coming out huge because they would
Speaker 6: follow people like oh Jay Simpson and then have that
Speaker 6: exclusive interview in doing the behind the scenes. Lorena Bobbitt,
Speaker 6: I remember this case specifically because the husband came on
Speaker 6: talking about his thing and had his huge thing of
Speaker 6: fame like so many things now, Like Lorena Bobbitt wasn't
Speaker 6: so bad in my mind back then, yeah, but today
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh, okay, I get it.
Speaker 5: I don't condone what she did, but I'm just saying
Speaker 5: I get it. But like the early nineties.
Speaker 6: Which this is that it is if you look back,
Speaker 6: I didn't think about it then obviously, but it was
Speaker 6: going after those reporters who were just willing to crawl
Speaker 6: over all of the victims, which has become a circus
Speaker 6: today and there's a huge different, whole different conversation and
Speaker 6: now as a podcast. But that was really kind of
Speaker 6: that beginning of like, oh, they want to see the
Speaker 6: gory details, they want to know the depth of depravity
Speaker 6: of men, and then if we can say it in
Speaker 6: a perfect story to haunt everyone, we're going to be famous.
Speaker 3: And you even see that in Scream with Gail.
Speaker 4: You know, she's writing a book about the death of
Speaker 4: Sydney's mom and has kind of gotten personally involved in
Speaker 4: the case, advocating for the innocence of Cotton, the person
Speaker 4: who's been charged with her mom's death. And it's clear
Speaker 4: that she's not doing this because she like like maybe
Speaker 4: she genuinely believes that he's innocent, But when she's talking
Speaker 4: about it, she says, if I'm right, I could say
Speaker 4: this man's life. Do you know that what that would
Speaker 4: do for my book sales? Again, iconic wine from Gail
Speaker 4: Weathers on this one. But I do think that that
Speaker 4: dichotomy that you're explaining, Sam, about how the news media
Speaker 4: felt then is what Scream is is meant to be
Speaker 4: a commentary on so Scream's writers Adam White and Michelle
Speaker 4: Delgado said that Scream is meant to be an exploration
Speaker 4: of this exploitative nature of tabloid news that minds people's
Speaker 4: worst and most traumatic moments for entertainment, but doing so
Speaker 4: under the guise of like informing the public through news,
Speaker 4: and it highlights this kind of interesting inconsistency we saw
Speaker 4: in media at the time, that the news could cover
Speaker 4: the minutia of these gory, splashy cases and do so
Speaker 4: in a way that was exempt from this government beat
Speaker 4: chip rating, but had those plotlines been happening on an
Speaker 4: episode of like melrose Place, they would be rated as mature.
Speaker 4: I think this moral inconsistency that we saw in media
Speaker 4: was exactly what Scream was speaking to, you know, like
Speaker 4: the scream teens are scolded for.
Speaker 3: Watching too many gore or slashier movies.
Speaker 4: All of this happening while Gail Weathers and these other
Speaker 4: news anchors are really like essentially stalking and surveilling these
Speaker 4: teenagers to breathlessly and relentlessly cover the minutia of this
Speaker 4: trauma they're experiencing under the guise of being like, well,
Speaker 4: the public has a right to know.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's no we talk about this all the
Speaker 2: time when it comes to horror movies. Kind of that
Speaker 2: how it reflex what we're anxious about as a society,
Speaker 2: but also kind of that judgment of like who is
Speaker 2: the who's going to be the victim here? Those rules
Speaker 2: that Randy lays out of like don't have sex, don't
Speaker 2: do drugs, all that stuff. So it also feels very
Speaker 2: like these older people are watching these younger people and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you should have listened to me. You deserved that, and
Speaker 2: now I'm going to put it on the news and
Speaker 2: make money about it. Like it's it's very Oh, you
Speaker 2: are a young person who's basically living their life, but
Speaker 2: she shouldn't have done that, and now you're dead, and
Speaker 2: that's that's your fault.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very voyeuristic, and I think I think Scream
Speaker 4: really does a good job also of like I don't
Speaker 4: know asking the question of like, sure, Gail Weathers is
Speaker 4: not out here murdering teens, but she is making money
Speaker 4: off of that, she's profiting off of that personally, so like, sure,
Speaker 4: she may not be a murderer herself, but is she
Speaker 4: really that much better than whoever is murdering these teens?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I love like, I love how every time Gail
Speaker 2: Weathers has this thing, there's something you have to appreciate
Speaker 2: as women, because we're always told like ambitious women are terrible.
Speaker 1: That we were watching Gil Weathers. You're like, yes, go
Speaker 1: get it, Gail, But.
Speaker 2: Like every movie ends with her realizing like, oh, I've
Speaker 2: lost all of my friends.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should And then the next movie starts she's.
Speaker 3: Back or she's I'm so body brought this up. This
Speaker 3: is why I love. This is why I like I
Speaker 3: ride for Gailee.
Speaker 4: Weathers in this movie and then the other screen movies
Speaker 4: that I've seen, is that I feel like the movie
Speaker 4: is setting us up to be like, Wow, what an
Speaker 4: annoying conniving She's gonna have a gory death and really
Speaker 4: get hers and won't that be great? But Gail Weathers
Speaker 4: always comes out on top, and not only does she
Speaker 4: come out on top, she doesn't learn a damn thing.
Speaker 4: By the next movie, whatever lesson you think has been
Speaker 4: internalized by Gail, she's back and worse.
Speaker 3: And I love that.
Speaker 4: I love when this is just like I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: I wanted to try to like connect this to some
Speaker 4: larger like moralistic thing of like it's feminist to like
Speaker 4: it when like women are is actually.
Speaker 3: I just like think that's cool.
Speaker 4: I just personally like to see when a female character
Speaker 4: doesn't really learn anything, and like, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: like is it so wrong that Gaie Weathers wants her Pulitzer?
Speaker 4: Like is it so wrong that she cares about her career?
Speaker 4: And like it's kind of going to exploit some teens
Speaker 4: to get there.
Speaker 6: I mean the few movies that I actually, thanks to Annie,
Speaker 6: I've seen more than.
Speaker 1: I think you've seen. Everyone but the Newest.
Speaker 6: One, the Newest One, Yeah, has made that this is
Speaker 6: her gift. But I will say when she's in crunch,
Speaker 6: she's gonna help out, Like she's gonna be there. She's
Speaker 6: got her back she's gonna take the perpetrator out. She's going,
Speaker 6: she's gonna, she's gonna fight, so when it counts, she's there.
Speaker 5: And then she don't get her She saves.
Speaker 4: She saves, the saves the day like and also it
Speaker 4: really you don't count out Gaie Weathers. You might think
Speaker 4: she's dead in that van. She might look bad, but
Speaker 4: don't cut out Gaie Weathers.
Speaker 5: She'll be right back.
Speaker 1: She'll she's got nine lives. That's the joke.
Speaker 3: Does she is? She? Is she in the most recent Scream? Yes,
Speaker 3: Oh thank god? Yes.
Speaker 2: I also like in the fifth one, it opens with
Speaker 2: Dewey like drinking at nine am and he's watching Good
Speaker 2: Morning America and she's on there and she's like talking
Speaker 2: about how bad her hair.
Speaker 1: Used to be, and I'm like, yeah, good for you, Gail.
Speaker 4: You know, honestly, I as much as I love the
Speaker 4: like horror women in horror movie tropes like Final Girl,
Speaker 4: I would read a deep dive analysis of like g
Speaker 4: you know, character that we're supposed to hate, but like
Speaker 4: actually we kind of love. I you know, if you
Speaker 4: ever like there's a I think there are a lot
Speaker 4: of them horror movies, Like if you've ever seen.
Speaker 3: It's not a horror movie. I guess it's a thriller.
Speaker 4: But the hand that rocks the cradle, I think it's
Speaker 4: Julianne Moore's character, who's like the smart mouthed, like bad
Speaker 4: real estate lady in House of Wax, I remember famous,
Speaker 4: so that Paris Halted is kind of the annoying friend
Speaker 4: and House of Wax, and they really.
Speaker 3: Make a meal out of her murder in that movie.
Speaker 3: They really are.
Speaker 4: Really excited to kill Paris Halted in a gruesome way
Speaker 4: in that movie because she's like the annoying girl in
Speaker 4: the movie.
Speaker 2: One thing I do like about Gail Weathers, though, is
Speaker 2: like I like gil Weather's.
Speaker 1: That makes it sound like I don't.
Speaker 2: But one thing I like about it is that her
Speaker 2: and Sydney have this really adversarial relationship. They become friends
Speaker 2: and they still fight, and I like that they show
Speaker 2: that they still show like there's a because Gail still
Speaker 2: wants this story of Sydney's and Sydney's still like no,
Speaker 2: that's but they are still friends. So I like that
Speaker 2: it kind of plays out that way that eventually you're like,
Speaker 2: oh no, they're buddies and they show up for each
Speaker 2: other and they have a complex relationship.
Speaker 4: M yeah, I think like showing they've been They've been
Speaker 4: through a lot together, so they're not like braiding each
Speaker 4: other's hair, but when it matters, they stick up for
Speaker 4: each other. When it matters, Gale's out of that van
Speaker 4: with a gun, ready to save the day, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm like so like in deep in this converse.
Speaker 1: I know I'm too.
Speaker 5: From the beginning, I told you.
Speaker 3: It's just a.
Speaker 4: Really, I don't know, I don't know where to go this.
Speaker 4: I think Scream really they were onto something about making
Speaker 4: a commentary about media anxieties and anxieties around violence. And
Speaker 4: it's interesting to me that it's had such an enduring
Speaker 4: legacy of making commentary for like a decade now, Like
Speaker 4: I guess Scream came out in nineteen ninety six. The
Speaker 4: most recent one was what two thousand.
Speaker 1: And twenty two, Yeah, so like last year.
Speaker 4: A decade's long legacy of commenting on our collective anxieties
Speaker 4: around technology and media and violence and our behavior. And
Speaker 4: I think, you know that iconic line that Billy says
Speaker 4: in the first movie, where I think it's Sydney like
Speaker 4: you've sad one too many movies, and Billy is like,
Speaker 4: movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative. And
Speaker 4: to me, that's like the ultimate encapsulation of the entire
Speaker 4: anxiety and conversation of like, well, is it the movies,
Speaker 4: is it the media, is it the content, or is
Speaker 4: it something else that these these movies are just allowing
Speaker 4: for more creativity or more you know, a smoke screen
Speaker 4: to like have people do more crimes and have more
Speaker 4: violent behavior. Like that line I think really reveals the
Speaker 4: ultimate anxiety that I think Scream is really commenting on.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think like every movie has some version
Speaker 2: of that where it ends with oh, I'm going to
Speaker 2: blame the movies and it allows them to.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean essentially, they're they've found that they can do this,
Speaker 2: they believe they can get away with it through this,
Speaker 2: but it's so many other things like it is. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of this also oils down to we
Speaker 2: can't just give one reason. There's not just one thing,
Speaker 2: Like maybe you did get on Reddit and it didn't
Speaker 2: go well for you, but that can't be like the
Speaker 2: only thing, like for that, Reddit has to have existed
Speaker 2: in the first place. And you also have a character
Speaker 2: like Randy, who is so into horror movies. He's the
Speaker 2: one that lays out the rules, and he is not
Speaker 2: a killer at all, Like he has consumed all of
Speaker 2: this stuff, maybe even more, and he isn't a killer.
Speaker 2: So I think it's interesting that they also have sort
Speaker 2: of a foil for all of these like killers, who are.
Speaker 1: The movies made me?
Speaker 2: Did it?
Speaker 1: And then you see Randy and not at all.
Speaker 2: But also it is funny that they always have this
Speaker 2: laying out of the rules scene, and in the most
Speaker 2: recent one they were like, oh, no, we're in a franchise.
Speaker 1: Like that's how big it's gone.
Speaker 3: That's a sequel.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a trilogy, and now it's.
Speaker 3: Oh franchized, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it has endured to the point that, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a franchise.
Speaker 4: And I think, ultimately, like that's my point is that
Speaker 4: violence is such a complex issue, Like we've been handwringing
Speaker 4: about how we curb and combat violence for so long
Speaker 4: that these tidy explanations reddit violent movies, violent media.
Speaker 3: Watching the O. J. Simpson treil on the news, whatever,
Speaker 3: this don't work.
Speaker 4: And I think that ultimately, like that is what the
Speaker 4: film is trying to show that interpersonal violence is always
Speaker 4: more complicated than that, always more complex than that.
Speaker 3: So if somebody is trying to.
Speaker 4: Sell you like this, this is the reason that person
Speaker 4: is perhaps not bringing the nuance to the conversation that
Speaker 4: it deserves. I think that maybe, like that is what
Speaker 4: Scream is ultimately trying to tell us.
Speaker 2: I agree, I absolutely agree, because I feel again, every
Speaker 2: movie has this like moment, like almost montage where you
Speaker 2: believe it's every person at work right, like, oh it's you,
Speaker 2: Oh it's you, because there are all these complex reasons
Speaker 2: or why people might do it, and yeah, just the
Speaker 2: like simple Oh they watched a lot of horror movies.
Speaker 1: It just it doesn't work, and that's never how it ends.
Speaker 1: I've seen these.
Speaker 3: Movies a lot.
Speaker 1: That's how a.
Speaker 4: Good scholar in residence Annie Reese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh what a day. You've brightened my day.
Speaker 3: It's just so fun to talk about horror movies.
Speaker 4: Like everybody in my life knows that, Like if you
Speaker 4: let me go off on, Like my favorite piece of
Speaker 4: horror growing up and still today is Tales from the Crypt.
Speaker 3: I've seen every episode.
Speaker 4: When I was a kid, I used to do I
Speaker 4: do an impression of the crypt Keeper that like my
Speaker 4: brother who would like die of laughter in person the Cryptkeeper.
Speaker 4: It's just so fun to talk about horror, and like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, we should get more than one month
Speaker 4: a year to do it.
Speaker 1: You are welcome back anytime to talk about horror. I
Speaker 1: feel bad.
Speaker 2: I feel like I just went on and on, but
Speaker 2: I have you know, I could keep going, but then
Speaker 2: none of us would get of here.
Speaker 3: Should we do? We should do a part two on
Speaker 3: Scream too.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think this is like third episode for us
Speaker 6: on a stream.
Speaker 5: Fourth But there's something to say about every one of them.
Speaker 2: Though, second one's Blame the Mother, third one's Harvey Wines Dude,
Speaker 2: the fourth one is true crime and women, and then
Speaker 2: the fifth one is fandom.
Speaker 1: The sixth one is Trauma.
Speaker 3: That's gonna be the seventh one Trump, I think.
Speaker 1: I think the seventh one is gonna be Oh, because
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Sidney Prescott wasn't in the most recent one because of
Speaker 2: contract they didn't want to pay. Oh, I think she's
Speaker 2: gonna be in the next one, So I think it's
Speaker 2: gonna be some kind of.
Speaker 5: Like, Oh, she is gonna be the next one.
Speaker 1: There, it sounds like it they have it finalized.
Speaker 6: They got a lot of backlash for not having her on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe the next scream will be that the real
Speaker 4: killer will be predatory contracts, lock you in for years.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I would love it. I would find
Speaker 1: some way to talk about it all this show, like, uh.
Speaker 6: Honestly, we haven't done a second of the new new franchise.
Speaker 1: Oh. I do have a lot of thoughts about that one.
Speaker 2: That one has a lot of bait and switches that
Speaker 2: I have a lot of thoughts about, Like, oh, I
Speaker 2: know the killer.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I don't.
Speaker 6: I mean, we can do an emergency episode the three
Speaker 6: of us, the three of us watch one of the other.
Speaker 5: Screams and go to tell.
Speaker 3: I'm here for that.
Speaker 5: We'll see you next week, next week, Yes.
Speaker 4: If you make it. Who's gonna be the final girl?
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't say, don't say the line. You know what
Speaker 1: it is, don't do it anyway.
Speaker 3: I'll be right back.
Speaker 6: Y'all are racist, So I feel like the prediction would
Speaker 6: be Annie, but you know whatever, Oh wow, I feel
Speaker 6: like i'd be the first one to go for some reason,
Speaker 6: like Asian women are seen as like really trashy. Asian
Speaker 6: fetishists love right so unless it's an Asian horror movie,
Speaker 6: then I'm the one that's killing.
Speaker 4: And maybe you've got like one streak in your hair, like, oh,
Speaker 4: there's a she's got a red streak in her hair.
Speaker 3: That's how you know she's a bad.
Speaker 6: If it's not all yeah, if it's not all pink,
Speaker 6: then it's or purple, then I'm definitely got the one
Speaker 6: streak and I've definitely become possessive everyone. If it's we're
Speaker 6: doing an Asian level of horror.
Speaker 2: Movie, oh man, I'm so into this. I'm into it
Speaker 2: however it works out. I definitely want to hear your
Speaker 2: thoughts one way or another, Bridget when you watch the
Speaker 2: rest of them, because the rest of it, perhaps obviously
Speaker 2: I have a.
Speaker 3: Lot of thought.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna watch you have an assignat from next Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm like legitimately excited. Oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this was so delightful. So thank you as always
Speaker 2: Bridget for coming on. We love having you.
Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3: You can find me on my pod there are no
Speaker 3: girls on the internet. On iHeartRadio, you can find me
Speaker 3: on Instagram at Bridget Marie DC. You can find me
Speaker 3: on TikTok At Bridget makes.
Speaker 2: Pods, Yes and definitely looking forward to the next time
Speaker 2: you come, whether it's screen based or not.
Speaker 1: And you can find us listeners.
Speaker 2: You can email us at Stephania mom stuff at iHeartMedia
Speaker 2: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mastaf
Speaker 2: Podcasts or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff.
Speaker 1: I've never told you.
Speaker 2: We have a tea public store, and we do have
Speaker 2: a book where there's a lot of stuff about screaming
Speaker 2: there you can get now wherever you get your books.
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super produced Christina or executive
Speaker 2: producer Maya and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
Speaker 2: to you for listening. Steph I never told you his
Speaker 2: prediction iHeartRadio for more podcast on my Heart Radio. You
Speaker 2: can got the i art Redeo app, Apple Podcasts wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.