Scream Queens is one of the newest additions to Fox’s roster. The show boasts an eclectic cast: everyone from Niecy Nash to Emma Roberts to Jamie Lee Curtis. Scream Queens is marketed to a teenage audience, but the the incessant pop culture mentions and the flashy guest stars, including Nick Jonas and Ariana Grande, all seem a bit too desperate.
The show follows your typical teenager-friendly storyline. Innocent Grace, played by Skyler Samuels, goes to Wallace College to join Kappa House. She chooses this college in order to get closer to her deceased mother, who was a pledge of Kappa House. Plus, no teenage T.V. show would be complete without mean girls, in this case Chanel Oberlin, played by Emma Roberts, and her clique, the Chanels. Chanel is head of Kappa House and works to keep Grace from entering the house. Then there is the Red Devil, Wallace College’s mascot turned murderer.
The show opens with a girl dying in childbirth while her friends party in the other room. We do not who this girl is, or what happens to her baby. When Grace starts peering into the past, the Red Devil appears and begins terrorizing the campus. The horror aspect of this show is purely comical, with blood spurting ten feet from the victim and the dead uploading pictures to Instagram from the grave.
The horror aspect may be a joke, but the costumes are beautiful. Chanel and her posse are dressed adorably; think pastel furs and heels with socks. The bright college campus setting is pleasing to look at, but a show cannot make it on aesthetics alone.
The show attempts to be funny and provocative, but the jokes fall flat. You have to hand it to the writers of the show; they manage to be racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist (you get it), all in forty minutes. There is even this one time when Chanel refers to someone as her “Asian,” that is, the person who takes all of her tests and classes. The show is meant to be satire, but satire only works if you target the oppressor. Perhaps the writers have a grand scheme of targeting anybody who’s not especially privileged in order to make a real statement about the privileged. It is a great idea, but it does not work.
The real reason why I watch the show is because I want to know the identity of the woman in the bathtub and her relation to Grace. But that may not be enough to keep me hooked. I suggest watching the show if you just want an hour of not thinking, which is what I need after a long week of school. Apparently enough people are watching that the network just renewed it for a second season.
Scream Queens is available on FOX, Tuesday 9/8 Central, and on Hulu.
