Wes Craven’s Scream franchise has long been thought of as a series of films that parody their traditional predecessors. The first (1996) examines the various horror-movie rules and regulations that allow virgins to live, sexually experienced teenagers to die, and the sin of declaring “I’ll be right back.” Scream 2 (1997) parodies the formula for sequels while debating whether a sequel can surpass it’s original. (Godfather II and Aliens contend for this honor both in real life and in the film.)
It also continues on the plot points of its predecessor and outlines a revised set of rules for sequels: they’re always bloodier, anyone can die, etc. On the surface, these are fine categorizations for both films, though Wes Craven has a history of offering social satire in his films as well, particularly in The Last House on the Left that offers a Venn diagram of two generations, one that came of age in the fifties, the other in the sixties, and their respective existence in the 1970s.
This may not be as evident in My Soul to Take, or the many reincarnations of A Nightmare on Elm Street (after the 1984 original), but it’s important to note that he didn’t pen those sequels; rather, he is credited with creating the characters in the originals. So, in a way, Craven’s venture into sequels through the Scream franchise gives him a chance to satirize filmmakers as well as limn a social commentary.
And while the commentary about sequels in Scream 2 is necessary and doubly apparent in this century, given the never-ending string of second and third installments of films, a deeper theme tackled is the way in which the movie screen exists as a physical separation that lessens the reality of violence and tragedy. In a way, this follows the same suit as any discourse about television and the desensitization of the viewer; however, Craven takes this theme a bit further by focusing on events that the viewers of Scream 2 and the viewers of Stab (the movie based on the Woodsboro murders in the original Scream) know to have really occurred.
Despite their knowledge of the “real” tragedy from the original Scream, audience members within the opening scene of Scream 2 flock to the premier of Stab, where ticket takers hand out black shrouds and ghostface masks that the original killers wore to terrorize a town. And as Stab begins, most of the audience have donned these garbs and wave serrated, plastic, glow-in-the dark bowie knives that cartoonishly stand in for the weapon of choice during the Woodsboro murders. It is in this cartoonishness that Craven suggests that an adaptation of a reality actually fashions it into a fiction because the screen acts as a barrier to protect us from the danger and fear depicted. Sure, the audience jumps during scary scenes, but these nerves and tense moments are often dismissed by shouts of “Don’t go in there!” and ripples of laughter that follow “Ohhhhh!s”
There’s also liberty taken with the adaptation of reality to its celluloid counterpart when Stab opens with Heather Graham (playing the Drew Barrymore character) in a blonde wig running water to take a shower. Generally, there’s nothing wrong with putting an attractive blonde in a white robe that tempts the audience with skin, but there is a bastardization of facts here: Casey (Barrymore, Graham) was not scantily clad; rather, she was wearing a white sweater and jeans, waiting for her boyfriend, and preparing to watch a movie. The loss in translation speaks less to ignorance and more to gearing a film toward a demographic of young men, which in turn, generates more revenue.
Therefore, the “real” murders and sequences have been made more visually tempting to audience members, but do nothing to illustrate the tragedy of the situation. Clearly, Craven isn’t suggesting that violence should be stricken from movies and television – he’d be committing career suicide in this were true – but Scream 2 decries the way depictions of tragic reality are not shown for the allegorical value; rather, the violence becomes mere plot points that move a story through various spectacles and nude scenes that coax the audience to yell “take it off” despite the foreknowledge that Casey will soon be gutted and hung from a tree.
Craven wasn’t ahead of his time in this commentary, but he was at the forefront inasmuch as Scream 2 was released a little under two years after the conclusion of the O.J. Simpson trial, a phenomena that birthed Court TV, gave Judge Ito his fifteen minutes of fame, and fashioned courtrooms into stage plays where there are often a hero and villain prior to the verdict. And the primary question remains whether or not the bad guy will get punished or get away with his crimes. Much like any movie or television show, there was exposition by court reporters to make sure the audience understands the “story” unfolding. Likewise, there were plot points created through evidence, testimony, and procedure up to a point of a climax or two – most notably the trying on of the black leather glove, leading to the catchy “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
In Scream 2, Craven also indicts the American public for their interest in the birth of “reality television” by paralleling us with the killer, Mickey, whose descent into madness culminates with his own exposition that “it’s all about the trial!” before hoping that Cochran and Dershowitz will represent him. He also indicts the press for their role in the media revolution that was the Simpson trial and, in a sense, poses the question of whether or not there could be a fair or impartial jury in higher profile cases.
In Scream, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) has been arrested and put in jail for the murder of Sidney’s (Neve Campbell) mom. Throughout the film, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) proclaims his innocence, and toward the end, the audience finds out that Cotton has been wrongly accused, so his freedom at the beginning of Scream 2 is understandable. However, the public still doesn’t see him as innocent because of the wealth media coverage from his first trial that put him in jail. Despite his release, he is still the man sentenced for murder.
Therefore, his driving force throughout Scream 2 is to clear his name through various media outlets, something that has been overshadowed by the current rash of murders at Sidney’s college campus. Therefore, while Mickey’s focus is “all about the trial,” Gale Weathers and Debbie Salt are focused on how they – as the media – can “create the story” leading up to and during the trial. Unfortunately, Weary is the object that has the story fashioned around him, a story that can’t easily be reneged on. After all, audiences are unforgiving about wonky continuity from movie to movie.
Even though the OJ Simpson trial was the impetus for the commentary found in Scream 2, this film from 1997 seems even more relevant today given the upcoming verdict in the trial of Casey Anthony, the mother who has been accused of killing her two 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008. In the court of public opinion, Casey Anthony is already guilty, and nothing less than her death will satiate the hungry masses who wait in line for “passes” each day on a first-come-first-serve basis as if it were Pacino’s last performance in Shakespeare in the Park’s Merchant of Venice.
While “passes” are euphemistically better than “tickets,” and there’s something admirable about the court not charging spectators, it’s just as admirable as sidestepping a homeless person on the sidewalk as opposed to stomping on his leg. The spectators who are not lucky enough to secure a “pass” can follow some of the “400 reporter-blogger followers” or the “various Facebook pages honoring Caylee [that] have amassed tens of thousands of friends, and Twitter accounts like Casey Junky and OSCaseyAnthony” (source).
Clearly, there is interest in finding the culprit in a murder case of a little girl, and if the girl’s mother is guilty, then she deserves what she gets. At the same time, there are a number of contradictions in this trial in that the evidence of guilt is coming from the conjecture and emotion of the armchair jurors. As John Cloud notes in a recent Time article, “few legal experts watching the proceedings expect her to get off”; at the same time, Cloud also notes that “From a legal perspective, the case against Anthony is astonishingly weak […] the state could present only a ragbag of circumstantial bits of evidence against her.” If this is accurate, Anthony parallels a Cotton Weary figure, someone shrouded in circumstantial evidence and caught in a situation where she will be guilty regardless of the outcome, or regardless of the truth.
In another sense, the Casey Anthony trial also falls under the criticism in Scream 2 inasmuch as the information we glean about the trial is filtered. In the film, Stab is an adaptation of Gale Weather’s book The Woodsboro Murders, a situation she found herself in by circumstance. Here, there are a number of live streams available via internet video, but those who are gathering information from the various Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and reporter-bloggers, are getting information married with opinion. And while some solace can be taken in the fact that “Only credentialed media are allowed to use cellphones or devices with virtual keyboards to disseminate information from inside the courtroom,” (source) this solace is rather illusory when considering that objective reporting is rather difficult to find in a world where news is comprised of pundits, “Breaking News,” and built on ratings — much like hyperbolized true stories made more interesting to a broader public.
Wes Craven was on to something in 1997, and while Scream 2 wasn’t critically successful, it deserves another look.
