#reposting this bc the personals found my metas and i'm ....... not happy tbh

[andtheylive]

BUCKLE UP KIDS! you are about to read my magnum opus: my explanation for how each of the muses on this blog fit into my thesis that scream is about misogyny. i’m going to try not to get too ramble-y, but this is something i’m very passionate about. let’s start from the very beginning, shall we?

casey - women’s promiscuity must be punished. i see a lot of parallels between casey and maureen; both were not faithful partners (see casey lying about having a bf to the voice on the phone), both are the victims of brutal, very targeted deaths as a result. i hands down think casey has the most violent death in the first film. it’s not enough to kill her — no, they torment her first. make her watch her bf die, force her to answer a series of questions in the vain hope she might save her own/steve’s lives. stu is bitter about casey dumping him, just like billy is bitter about maureen prescott having an affair with his father. as a result? they are slaughtered mercilessly.

sidney - it is always a woman’s fault, and women can be interchangeable. it takes two to tango; maureen did not slip and fall on hank’s dick, he chose to have an affair that pushed his wife away. as far as we know however, hank lives until the end of the movie. he faces no punishment from his son. but it’s not enough to kill maureen and leave her daughter without a mother; that rage seeps into how billy views sidney. she has done nothing wrong, but she receives the same ire and almost faces a similar fate for it. it’s very akin to how a misogynist will paint women as a whole with one broad stroke because of the actions of one. and THEN! mrs. loomis has the AUDACITY to blame sidney for billy’s deplorable actions which resulted in his own death. even when a man is to blame, the finger is pointed at a woman.

tatum - what happens when women put their foot down. tatum takes no bullshit the entire movie. she is not afraid to be mean, she is not afraid to insert herself between sidney and people that she believes do not have sid’s best intentions at heart (gale, other reporters in town, billy himself). tatum, imo, dies because of girl code: there was no way in hell she was going to let sidney be alone with billy. he makes sid feel bad about herself and her boundaries, he makes sid question her trauma and grieving process. tatum flat out says she thinks he’s fucking fishy bc he comes across as too perfect. so she had to go! she is disposable, and stu is later on seen flirting with other girls after sending her out to her death.

sam - mentally ill women are maligned and made to feel guilty for their own mistreatment. richie is basically billy 2.0 — he gaslights and manipulates his gf the entire film. he shames her for her mental health struggles, paints her as a villain because of her psychosis and her familial trauma. then, his family gangs up on sam and continues to torment her for defending herself against richie. not only that, they led an internet hate mob against her; the public is so eager and willing to hate a woman for her own misfortunes. society has a history of abusing and harassing women that have been victims of despicable behavior, and sam falls in line with pattern of mistreated ladies. it’s so similar to what happened to sidney in two, with the added aspect of a twitter audience joining in on her abuse.