Listen up, idiot hookers: Scream Queens is one of the most feminist shows on TV.
Strip away the bubblegum colors, cheeky pop-culture references and biting one-liners and the Fox hit is really a show about empowered women—taking a group of sorority sisters who should be damsels in distresses and making them heroines in Chanel dresses. They can save themselves and each other, thank you very much.
This sentiment is at the heart of the most important scene in tonight's episode, which featured Chanel (Emma Roberts), Chanel. No. 6 (Lea Michele) Chanel No. 3 (Billie Lourd) and Chanel No. 5 (Abigail Breslin) sitting at a table in the cafeteria, eating cotton balls to stay thin, before realizing that life is too damn short and they'll eat pizza if they want to. It was sad and hilarious and the perfect representation of the pressure that society places on young girls to look a certain way.
In the scene, after a jerk calls Chanel No. 6 a "b--ch" for refusing to smile for him, Chanel steps in to defend her, saying, "That's my sister and she's no b--ch, but I am." That one line perfectly sums on the series, showing off the sisterhood forming between the girls AND taking back the power of the word b--ch.
Watching Chanel punch said jerk in the face before all the Chanels start getting in on the action felt like Scream Queens was kicking the unfair standards placed on women—be it by men or the media or even other women—right in the nuts. And to that we only have this to say: Fight on, sisters!
This banding-together sentiment will only continue to grow as the first season continues. And in a candid and honest moment, co-creator Ryan Murphy revealed to E! News that the core message at the heart of Scream Queens stems from his own troubled past growing up in Indiana. (See the video above.)
"I grew up feeling very alone and isolated and gay and confused and sad," he explained. "And to be honest, I felt a lot of dark and suicidal days growing up because I felt very alone. And the only way that I got out it was that I finally just thought, 'Be true to who you are and if great things come out of it, great, and if not, hey, at least you tried.' And I feel like that's a part of the show, where a lot of young people think that they need, particularly young women, they have body issues, they think they are not complete without a boyfriend and our show says: That's not true."
For Murphy (as you can see in the video above), the ultimate message he wants young people to take away from Scream Queens is this:
"Your friends, in many cases, can become your family, they can become your community, they can become the people that help you and push you through the dark times. And I think that's really what the show is about. That's why the girls ultimately realize they don't need the men, they don't need the boyfriends, they don't need the clothes. What they need is each other to save each other."
"That's why I believe the killer is a girl and the hero will be a girl," Lea tells E! News of the strong female characters on the show. "I think that us women we are so powerful and so strong in so many ways and we have some incredible Scream Kings, but I'm convinced it will all come down to us girls."
Scream Queens air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.