You were either with or against the mean girls that terrorized your high school and middle school memories. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, they were everywhere. Playing skull croquette in Heathers, slamming wannabes against lockers in Jawbreaker, deadpanning “I don’t f— losers” in Cruel Intentions, and casting serious side-eye at Molly Ringwald in every John Hughes movie ever.
While Fox television is making moves to honor cultural differences, those who tuned in to Tuesday night’s launch of Ryan Murphy’s horror-comedy “Scream Queens” may question Fox’s progress on diversity.
The show follows blonde- haired, black-hearted sorority fascist, Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), commonly known as Chanel No. 1, who has been forced by the university’s Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) to open the Kappa house to all students. Oberlin prides herself on excluding “undesirables,” which includes pledges who are minorities.
In the opening minutes of the two-hour pilot, Chanel berates the maid of the soror- ity (Jan Hoag), who is shown scrubbing a floor. “That obese specimen of human filth scrub- bing bulimia vomit out of the carpet is Ms. Bean,” Roberts sneers. “I call her ‘white mam- my’ because she’s essentially a house slave.”
It is important to keep in mind that screenwriter, Ryan Murphy is a white male raised in a home by white parents.
Chanel later forces the maid to recite the “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no ba- bies” line from “Gone With the Wind” which was not said by Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) but by another slave, Prissy (Butterfly McQueen).
Although Murphy said the show was a comedy, and Roberts’ character was supposed to illustrate Chanel’s racist and distasteful nature. Many viewers agreed that the references were off-base. Indicating that slavery and the subservient Black images from that film were not a laughing matter.
Like two of Murphy’s other programs, the cast only includes two African Ameri- can characters; both of which embody sassy black female personas . Keke Palmer plays a pledge who wants to join the sorority, though no explanation is given why an African American girl would want to join a white sorority ran by an overt racist. Niecy Nash, another black actress, plays a bumbling security guard.
Future “Scream Queens” episodes may reveal a reason behind Murphy’s broad stroke caricatures. Meanwhile, it could be taken as a sign of progress that diversity on tele- vision is no longer just about minority casting. It’s about presenting a range of roles for the diverse casts — the good, the bad, and every shade in between.
Janay Boone – Copy Desk Manager
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