Joyvey Ariel E. Sung

          When you think of scary movies, what stereotypes do you think of? Many think of teenagers trapped in a building with a killer on the loose. Usually there’s a white protagonist, who is looking for revenge after their friends are brutally murdered by the mysterious killer.  Sometimes they have members of the LGBT community, but ultimately they’re never the protagonist and always killed off in the series.
          The Scream franchise is known to follow many of the scary movie stereotypes.  MTV, however, decided to take the plot and run it as a teenaged, thriller television series that breaks the thriller stereotypes. Scream: The TV Series, created by Jay Beattie, Jill E. Blotevogel, and Dan Dworkin, tells a story about a group of teenagers trying to find the mysterious killer that’s running around their town, Lakewood. I decided to analyze Scream: The TV Series because I thought that Audrey Jensen, one of the main protagonists, portrayed the stereotypical lesbian in the series.
Butch Bitch
          Audrey Jensen (portrayed by Bex Taylor-Klaus) is a bi-curious, white teenage girl. Unlike many of her LGBT counterparts in other media sources, she is not killed off, giving the audience a chance to actually follow her growth as a character. Jensen’s physical characteristics are the same as the stereotypical butch lesbian. She mostly dresses her boyishly skinny frame with plain t-shirts and un-feminine attire (Rodriguez). There was one time, however, that she decided to break the butch normative and wore a dress. The one time she did decide to wear a dress, nonetheless, was to a school-sanctioned Halloween dance. Even then, her dress wasn’t typically girly and looked more boyish.
Curious and Furious
          Since the beginning of the series, she’s referred to herself as bi-curious. Although she says that she is bi-curious, she’s only ever mentioned dating other woman, but she is seen kissing one man (her best friend and the other half of “Bi-curious and the Virgin”). In the series, Jensen dates two women: Rachael Murray and Gina McLane; of the two, the former is deceased. After Murray is killed, Jensen realizes that her chance at happiness is ruined and seeks revenge. Jensen and Murray together portray Dead Lesbian Syndrome, which shows that a lesbian couple cannot have a happy ending because one of them will be killed (Rodriguez).
Bex Your Top Dollar, She’s Very Gay
          Bex Taylor-Klaus plays Jensen’s character, but it wasn’t until late 2016 that Taylor-Klaus confirmed to her fans that “yes the rumors are true I am v[ery] gay” (Taylor-Klaus). Before she made her announcement, in an interview in 2015 with AfterEllen.com, when asked about her character’s sexual identity, she says, “Audrey is still confidently questioning” (Bendix). This could show that Taylor-Klaus was directly relating to her character. She could have been questioning her sexuality herself, which made it easier for her to show Jensen’s struggles.
Conclusion
          Although Scream: The TV Series does show some lesbian stereotypes, media in general still needs work on accurate representation of LGBT characters. At least MTV is making an effort by having one of their protagonist be lesbian. Her physical and romantic stereotypes, may need some work, but I feel that MTV is doing a better job being inclusive by having many LGBT characters in their television series. It also helps that the actress portraying an LGBT character, is part of the LGBT community herself. With this kind of representation in Scream: The TV Series, they could lead the way for other TV series and show them that LGBT actors should play LGBT characters, so that their audience could have characters they could relate to.

References
Bendix, T. (2015, June 29). Bex Taylor-Klaus Could Be a Queer Final Girl in MTV’s “Scream”. After Ellen. Retrieved from http://www.afterellen.com/tv/439509-bex-taylor-klaus-queer-final-girl-mtvs-scream

Rodriguez, N. (2017). Lesbian Depictions in the Media [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.sdsu.edu/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_275773_1&content_id=_3333803_1

Taylor-Klaus, B. [IBexWeBex]. (2016, November 16). hello my name is bex and yes the rumors are true I am v gay Live on YouNow in 10 minutes. [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/ibexwebex/status/799080162302144512?lang=en
 
 

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