Released in December 1996, Scream announced a redirection in horror filmmaking. A Hollywood staple ever since Dracula (1931) announced the stateside viability of a genre developed by German expressionists, horror had already gone through a succession of variations that nonetheless maintained an array of recognizable tropes and sub-genres. Much in the same way that Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) examined the medieval film genre, Scream introduced the concept of meta-horror to the mainstream, bolstered by director Wes Craven’s bona fides[1] in the genre. While the film’s meta-criticism focuses on horror, a related critique intrinsically linked with the genre emerges as the film progresses: white American masculinity.
Scream was not alone in this regard. The 1980s, particularly when it came to blockbuster action films at the front of popular culture, “remasculinized” male characters as “symbolic configuration[s] of hegemonic masculinity that restabilize[d] the centrality of men’s bodies” in response to the perceived de-masculinization of the nation’s loss in Vietnam. However, by the time we reached the 1990s, those extreme examples of hegemonic masculinity, the Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Sylvester Stallones of Hollywood were reevaluated, reaching a point where they were “frequently caricatured in popular culture” (Messner, 465). While Scream sidesteps direct caricature, Kevin Williamson’s script and Craven’s direction present a dyad of white American masculinities that simultaneously assail the dangers of violent and toxic masculinity while presenting a healthier alternative, all within the framework of deconstructing horror. To demonstrate this, I will focus on two male characters from Scream: Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Dwight “Dewey” Riley (David Arquette). Read more
