"The reign of the 'scream queen' -- actually the commercialization of misogyny -- originated with the advent of video, when a surfeit of cheap, anti-female commerce gutted the market".
- Bill George, Editor of FEMME FATALES
Do you ever wonder where the term "Scream Queen" came from? Well, look no further than this issue of FEMME FATALES. Actually mentioned in the very first issue of FF, this catchy term sounds like something Forry Ackerman would have dreamed up -- he certainly had a fondness for the ladies (especially the younger ones, it seems). But it was Calvin T. Beck, the eccentric editor and publisher of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN who came up with it (or at the very least popularized it) in his book, SCREAM QUEENS: HEROINES OF THE HORRORS (1978). Beck has the bizarre distinction of being one of the two people that Robert Bloch used as the inspiration for his novel PSYCHO (murderer and necrophiliac Ed Gein being the other). To add the proverbial insult to injury, the poor, hapless soul suffered under what had to have been the worst Helicopter Mom in history. She followed him around constantly, sometimes preventing him from being invited to fan and other social functions (read the full story HERE)!
This issue of FF serves as an overview of movie Scream Queens that had at that time, appeared in a slew of horror movies, most of them rating in the lower case versions of B-movies. Frankly, from what I have seen, a good many of them are forgettable without the eye candy.
On the other hand, actresses like Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN, Linda Hamilton in THE TERMINATOR and even Angelina Jolie in TOMB RAIDER showed audiences that women characters had -- generally speaking -- been able to evolve from their roles as pretty (and usually naked) victims just a few years before and could successfully fill the parts traditionally only played by men.
Even the three actresses who are interviewed in this issue (Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer) who were very popular during the Scream Queen era have all -- along with others -- essentially turned their back on the genre and playing these types of characters.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that Frederick S. Clarke's journal of women in genre films continued to perpetuate the coverage of movies and images that these actresses have tried to avoid. Hypocritical as it may seem, it just goes to show that so-called "eye candy" will always be around. I'm just sayin'.
FEMME FATALES
Vol. 8 No. 4
September 10, 1999
Publisher: Frederick S. Clarke
Editor: Bill George
Cover: Photo (Brinke Stevens)
Pages: 68
Cover price: $5.95
I think I have this tumbling around in a box somewhere. I wonder why I bought it ?
ReplyDeleteGee, I can't imagine!
ReplyDelete