Talk:Scream queen

Definition of scream queen
I think a scream queen is an actress that expressed horror, in a panic way. Not just strong fear, like Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs or Sigourney Weaver in Alien. Both should be maybe in the list nevertheless for Panic room and Copycat (though even in these movies the actresses act very controlled).

But I think that Linda Blair and Sissy Spacek caused horror, they did not express horror. That's why I would exclude them from the list.

--Abe Lincoln 09:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

That is not what a Scream Queen is at all, if it was, then that means any woman that has ever screamed on film because of something that scared them is a Scream Queen. The term refers to the actresses that have become synonymous with movies with horror aspects as the protagonists of the films, such as Jamie Lee Curtis or Janet Leigh. These two will forever be thought of in their two career defining roles, those being Laurie Strode from Halloween and Marion Crane from Psycho.

Although Sigourney Weavers most famous role is that of Ripley from the Alien series, the movies are not straight out Horror. The first in the series is, but then the sequel gave her the heroine tag which she has since been affiliated with by making her a total badass, but one driven by her fear.

When I think of Scream Queens, the names Britanny Murphy or Jessica Biel do not come to mind. I think of people like Curtis, Leigh, Fay Wray or Heather Langenkamp. Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt could also be classed as Scream Queens because of their roles in their respective series. Sarah Michelle Gellar, whilst she has appeared in a few movies, such as Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and most recently, the remake of The Grudge, she cannot be classed a Scream Queen because her career defining role is that of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This page should be totally redone, cutting all the fat and pointless-ness that has been added onto it. I mean come on, someone has added Kari Wuhrer and Scarlett Johanssen because they were in the movie 8 Legged Freaks, which was more of a comedy with a few scares that referenced giant invading insect movies from the 50's. Bridget Fonda from Lake Placid? That is the funniest horror movie I have ever freaking seen, my case in point: A man gets taken out of his boat, in the middle of a tremendously deep lake, and later on the police question it as whether it could have been a bear... A BEAR. Anna Faris from Scary Movie? Do I even need to comment on that?

Lordhart 08:43, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see information added about the origin of the term. I would suppose it originates with a journalist, perhaps in reference to Fay Wray, but exactly when, where, and with whom the phrase originated would be informative. I'm going to try to find out, but if someone else already knows, so much the better.

Schizombie 23:49, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

List is questionable
some of these actresses should not be on the list. Jo Beth Williams? Joan Collins? Dee Wallace Stone? Just because they appeared in one or 2 horror films shouldn't make them Scream Queens... N. Campbell in Scream, Jamie Lee Curtis and Linda Blair I totally understand. Mimi Van Doren?

Emma Watson?
I do not want to get into a Lame Edit War over it, but I will once again remove Emma Watson from this list. She, along with several others on the list, is not a scream queen. She is a heroine. She does not faint with terror, she does not wilt in the face of tragedy. The Harry Potter series is not a horror series. Her name does not belong. This will be the second time I have removed the name. Her name is being added in by someone who is doing it anonymously. Am I wrong here? let me know! (comment by Fatmacman)


 * I added a bit to the article lead based on other suggestions above, which may help clarify this kind of question. Jonathunder 01:51, 2005 September 7 (UTC)

This list is still very unclear
Why would Jennifer Lopez be a scream queen because she appeared in one movie with a monster? Was it even a horror movie or more of an action movie? Also, Sissy Spacek was the monster in Carrie, not the victim. This list is lame, IMO Steve-O 06:22, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Alphabetical Order
I have put the following into the page so that it is only seen when someone attempts to edit the page:

I put it here becuase it took me ages to clean-up this page (when it was tagged) when I was not a registered user. And in my point of view it is hellish to clean up such a large list.

Thanks --Kilo-Lima 20:44, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to be going through and taking out alot of erroneous names from the list so that it is much smaller and more accurate, so it should be easier in future to keep it in order. Annoying that people have just thrown anyone in, without thought.

Lordhart 13:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

This article is a scream.......
As far as I was aware the 'scream queens' were the not-terribly-talented-but-good-looking actresses (such as Brinke Stevens etc) who appeared in low budget slasher movies of the 80's and 90's. That's the context in which the phrase was first coined. It was a genre thing: like 'porn stars'. Including Fay Wray and mainstream actresses in the list is stretching it a bit....One gets the impression that whoever wrote this article has absolutely no idea what he/she is talking about....Colin4C 19:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Rethink this whole thing
Here here. By the peculiar and conflicting defnitions you guys cite (up there), Barbara Steele wouldn't be a "Scream Queen," because she played a heavy. WTF? It is a new term-- new, post HALLOWEEN-- and, no, Fay Wray wasn't called a "Scream Queen" back then, nor was Evelyn Ankers, Phyllis Coates, Gloria Talbott or anybody else, as far as I know. I've been a journalist for 25 years and I know film history: it's a post-1978 phrase. It really encompasses any actress who's made a name for herself in genre films or, as someone wrote in the opening paragraph, made maybe ONE defining movie and remains associated with it. And nowadays, it's a pretty meaningless phrase, to boot. Ted Newsom 08:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * barbara steele and ingridd pitt were certainly called scream queens and they were making films well before 1978. so your rewrite suggests she was never a scream queen. WTF?


 * The term didn't exist then, nor were they publicized during their active careers as "scream queens." Steele essentially retired from acting after about 1977; Pitt's brief period of visibility in the genre was between 1970 and 1975. The may well be called "Scream Queens" now, but nobody used the term then.  And by the previous (wacky) definition on previous versions of this thread, Barbara Steele wouldn't have classified, since she wasn't a screaming victim (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense).  Ted Newsom 71.109.239.226 16:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Just looked at this entry again, and the link the to interview with Fay Wray. The out of context implication in the wiki piece makes this appear that Wray left the US because she didn't like being called a Scream Queen.  However, when you actually read the piece, she's clearly objecting to the idiot interviewer using the term, not its use in the 1930s.  This thing needs focus.  I don't see how Janet Leigh gets annointed a "Scream Queen" on the basis of one memorable film in a career that encompassed 5 decades; nor why Joan Crawford would be listed as a "scream queen" of the 1940s-- she didn't go near a horror movie until 1962.71.109.161.191 (talk) 19:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Jennifer Love Hewitt
Shouldn't she be on the list?--Gonzalo84 (talk) 03:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think so. This list has been expanded to include any female who ever appeared in a horror or semi-horror movie (lots of People magazine type celebs, 90s and 00s lightweights probably added by youngsters). We need a cut or the term becomes generic and meaningless. 98.246.183.207 (talk) 01:15, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

WOAH WOAH WOAH...
This list is a JOKE. You cannot have a list about Scream Queens without mentioning Linnea Quigley. It just can't be done. I don't want to mess this list up because I'm pretty bad with wiki formatting, but you guys better correct that. --71.190.133.77 (talk) 05:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

New Link Needed
This link: http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-04-26-scream-queens_N.htm#?POE=click-refer is used as proof that certain actresses are scream queens. Problem is not all of these actresses are mentioned in the article. New sources are needed. Bigpindahouse (talk) 05:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

descent
American scream queens are mostly WASPs. Of the 33 listed in this page, all came from British offspring but:
 * (Barbeau) has a Québecois father and an Armenian-American mother
 * 1 of German descent (Kebbel)
 * ½ of Albanian descent (Dushku, through her father)
 * 1 and ½ of Irish descent (McGowan and, through her mother, Barton; she’s also born in UK)
 * 1 and ½ of Hispanic descent (Alonso and, through her mother, Taylor-Compton)
 * 2 of Jewish descent (Harris and Gellar)
 * 1 and ½ of Scandinavian descent (Leerhsen and Dushku, through her mother)
 * 1 of Italian descent (Vincent)
 * ½ of Chinese descent (Crystal Love) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.59.154.43 (talk) 11:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Ingrid Pitt?
Rather a big gap between 1960 and 1978. What about Ingrid Pitt? 217.39.82.117 (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Table
I can see about 10 or so that aren't unreferenced, and what's with the 6 references (more or less) on some of them, one or two is all that is needed. The section's name of which the table is under is bias. See WP:NEUTRAL. The grammar is terrible, why list the films they appeared in? The reference doesn't verify that's why these people consider them to be that. A couple of people in this list aren't even notable enough to quote them. If they have no article then they are probably not notable, rather similar to WP:CSD A9. The table is unneeded, it could simply be broken and dispensed in a section.  • S • C  • A • R  • C • E •   06:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up this article + proposal
Hi guys, I'm sorry, but this article really went out of control. Every girl/woman that knows how to scream and/or did so in a film seems to be in this list that goes on and on and on and on. Also, there are so many people named, but without any sources. And, really strange, it almost looks as if this article is about what film is the best horror film. :s So I took the liberty to respond to the clean-up label, and really reorganised. I got rid of every link that had no source (or was dead), and I cut back the list by replacing it by a list created by Comcast. I've searched the entire internet, and there are a lot of lists of scream queens, but they all are too focused on one thing, like "Scream queen list of the recent years", or "Most hottest Scream queens". Also, you have scream queen-lists that only allow the 'classic' scream queens (classic SQs = actresses from films from the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s), and there was even someone who made a list of scream-kids. :s. But I found this list by Comcast that really merged them all into one. As far as I'm concerend, this list just nails what a scream queen is, not being hindered by age of the actress, age/year of release of the film, and the gross revenue at the box office. But that's my opinion. That list can be ditched, if needed. Just as long as we don't get this endlessly long list of like half the female population of earth. :( Anyhow, you can have a look at this at User:Robster1983/Scream_queen. Let me know what you all think. :) --Robster1983 (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2010 (UTC)


 * PS Please do not change anything on the aforementioned testing page. Please let me know via message here and/or on my talk page.


 * PPS Scream quens of the '50s are welcome, for I couldn't find them. :( Again, let me know via the already mentioned ways. :) Thanks. :) --Robster1983 (talk) 22:30, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

People, I, and I hope everyone agrees with me on this one, am trying to keep this page at a normal wiki-level. Which means that there is no room for dead links and ad random adding actrices. As far as I'm (and wikipedia, for that matter) concerned, no actrice is allowed on this page if there isn't even a source. And even if there is a source, I am asking for your common sense. I mean, if there is one blog from a guy named Tom, living in Tomville, somewhere in Tom-Tomland, and he considers Tomma Tommini a scream queen... People, that is ''not' a reliable source. I really don't want this page sliding off again. So please, help me with that. :) Robster1983 (talk) 16:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Carry on Screaming?
It might be worth mentioning that the best of the UK's 'Carry On' films was 'Carry On Screaming' - a tribute to the Scream-Queen film genre81.157.27.129 (talk) 23:33, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comcast scream queens table
I removed a table of "top 20 scream queens" based on this feature on the Comcast website. I did this firstly because I didn't think the table merited the prominence it had in the article, and secondly because the table effectively reproduced the entire text of the comcast feature, which is problematic from a copyright perspective. Eljayess (talk) 10:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Ingrid Pitt?
No mention of Ingrid Pitt? I thought she was one of the prime actresses of the genre. Valetude (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The Terror empty mention
In the Beginnings section there was this short phrase:

In 1928 first sound horror film The Terror (1928).

It was just there, between Fay Wray and Barbara Steele. I guess it's a leftover part from a previous mention to May McAvoy or Louise Fazenda, but I'm removing it because right now it makes no sense. I leave this notice here in case it is considered important to mention that movie. --Elideb (talk) 08:54, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced original research
Much of this article is simply editors' personal opinions about who is a scream queen. We need sources or that information has to go. Unfortunately that leaves very little in some sections. Sundayclose (talk) 01:26, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Scream kings?
I don't recall ever having heard the term Scream Kings. Can we see some citations for this? Examples of Scream Kings? Anything at all to back this up?

119.18.9.138 (talk) 23:28, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

https://www.cbr.com/best-horror-movie-scream-kings/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.17.129.215 (talk) 02:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Only miming
It is well known that the actual scream is provided by a specialist scream-artist, who is audio-only. Did any of the famous Scream Queens actually do their own screaming? Valetude (talk) 18:27, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

What? Karen Black is not in the list?
Unbelievable. Truly, this Wikipedia entry is a mess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2803:9800:98C6:85ED:6DBA:28FC:85DD:5546 (talk) 05:44, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

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