‘Scary Movie’ Is Coming Back. And Its First Trailer Is Already Starting Controversies
Scary Movie 6’s trailer is here and some folks are upset already. The long-running spoof comedy series’ latest entry reunites the core cast. We’re skewing modern cinema now and that means jokes about Sinners, Weapons and more. The tone of the reboot effort is established the moment you see Ghostface stabbing someone on a subway. As a hysterical onlooker cries out that “he stabbed her,” the victim replies, “My pronouns are they/them.” Reader, my eyes rolled.
It seems like every time one of our comedic heroes from the past comes back, they have an air of “old man yells at cloud.” Scary Movie 6 looks to add another entry of “Oh, these progressive kids are annoying” to an already roaring fire. (We already did this satire better in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. Heck, throw on Queens of the Dead and treat yourself. There’s tons of this stuff!) No matter how fresh a comedic team thinks this approach is, there’s a distinct feeling we’ve been here before. And, yes, we have back in the Y2K-era’s birthplace.
A recent interview with EW lays the intentions bare. Marlon Wayans is waging a war against ‘Cancel Culture.’ He’s talking about being “equal opportunity offenders” and canceling folks being “too far.” One week after Max Landis was given the keys to G.I. Joe and Jonathan Majors announcing a new movie. We’ve lost the plot I fear. But, your heroes will disappoint you if you give them the opportunity.
“This is about bringing back comedy the way it used to be,” Wayans argued. “And I think the only way to do it is you have to cancel the cancel culture.” But, is the old way of doing things really “the best way?” Cause from here, it looks like punching down! That’s par for the course in mainstream comedy right now.
Comedy and punching down in the modern era
Lest you think this is just me getting up on my high horse, others have taken notice of these strange moments from comedians in recent years. A delightful piece from MSNOW wondered about Dave Chappelle’s penchant for punching down and vulnerable minorities. Jacques Berlinerblau argued that performers like the venerated comedian have it both ways. They pander to a conservative audience about having their free speech “infringed.” In the same breath, they get to hector LGBTQ critics as “fragile” for having the temerity to stick up for themselves.
“If so, the star comedian is speaking his truth as he punches down (which, Chappelle claims in The Dreamer, he loves to do),” Berlinerblau argues. “Better yet, he can frame the backlash to his truth as viewpoint discrimination, an assault on free speech.”
You can feel the preemptive bracing for online backlash from this entire scary movie situation. Everybody in that writers room had to know how those jokes were going to go over in a social media age where reactions travel further than the primary document themselves. But, to what end? This is the long awaited follow up to a beloved spoof series of movies. A new entry guarantees a certain number of nostalgia dollars from the word go. Scary Movie 6 is coming into a world where the hysterically relevant Scream 7 just did over $60 million in its opening weekend despite tragic reviews from critics. Ostensibly, you’ve already won.
Changing faces of conservatism and comedy
Black creators are not the only people agitating at the “social justice” gains of the last decade and change. A lot of dominant culture comedians and creators have done their fair share to make all kinds of 2000’s era slander more palatable in the eyes of consumers. However, this appeal has its limits, which is where comedy voices play such a crucial role. A conservative pose might devalue other parts of marginalized life, but they see an absolute advantage when it comes to cultural forms like music, comedy, and art. Those have to be welcomed into the tent!
Minali Aggarwal, PhD student at Yale’s Political Science and African American Studies talked about this with the Institution for Social and Policy Studies in 2024. As we face down an unmistakable rightward turn in the country’s attitudes during the latter half of that year, political scientists were wondering what to make of so many multiethnic groups turning towards conservatism. (This has since cooled considerably as kidnappings in the streets are bad. And, you can’t make eggs cheaper by ‘owning the libs.’) It turns out, political operators on the right know where to poke at pressure points in popular culture among racial groups and use that to their advantage.
“Hip-hop is being deployed in a way that advances right-wing intersectional politics,” Aggarwal observed. “They’re very aware of where the fissures are in hip hop culture — around sexuality and gender, for example — and are using hip-hop to appeal to men of color and others who uphold traditional ideas about masculinity and patriarchy.”
Scary Movie 6 or why don’t we make these any more
In essence, the trailer for Scary Movie 6 proves why we didn’t make these anymore to begin with. Mostly, when you write movies, the comedy has to stay relevant enough for the jokes to still land by the time the movies come out. You can probably rattle off all the iconic bits from the earlier Scary Movie franchisees pretty easily. However, most of those came along before the Internet became the all encompassing culture leviathan that it is now.
You can say that those jokes in the trailer are funny, or not. But, there’s no arguing that pot shots at gender pronouns, hair color and more feel hysterically dated in 2026. These are jokes that Dave Chappelle himself wouldn’t even say on stage now. Not because they aren’t offensive, or that he doesn’t believe them at his core, but because they’re hackneyed. Being “played out” is possibly the most unfunny thing imaginable? Welcome to being washed. The saddest part of this is really talented people falling into the trap without even realizing they’re doing it sometimes. Father time is undefeated after all!
Sometimes, you don’t even realize the part you play in harm until the results are staring you in the face. “You don’t need to hold a coherent ideology or believe in a singular set of policies to identify with the right,” Aggarwal said in that piece. “And you certainly don’t need to be ashamed about your racial or cultural identity.”
(Featured image: Paramount)
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