Welcome to the latest installment of our 2022 Pride Month Series! Each day in the month of June, we will be highlighting a different member of the LGBTQIA+ community who we think is a great example of representation and dynamic characterization. We will focus on fictional characters, celebrities, and activists alike — the positive voices within the LGBTQIA+ community and in mainstream media. Today’s spotlight is on Mindy Meeks-Martin, a brand new addition to the Scream franchise following the fifth installment’s release earlier this year.
Mindy Meeks-Martin is easily one of the most widely agreed-upon fan-favorites of Scream (2022), but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone considering the “horror geek” is always a fan-favorite. First, we had Jaime Kennedy’s Randy Martin in the first film, the 1996 classic Scream, and tragically lost him entirely too soon in Scream 2. In Scream 4, we had Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby as one of multiple horror-fanatic characters, who was believed to have met her demise in the same film until Scream (2022) released and confirmed that she actually survived her Ghostface attack. Scream (2022) also introduced the newest to this list in Mindy, and while she follows in a long line of fan-favorites, there’s another reason to love her: Mindy is queer!
Mindy is the first queer character for the film franchise, which spans over two decades now, though the MTV Scream series did introduce several queer characters with varying identities. When Mindy’s character poster was unveiled before the film’s release, it was instantly noted by fans of the films that she was wearing a heart-shaped PRIDE flag printed button on her shirt. The PRIDE flag pin was enough to confirm that the franchise would be getting their first confirmed queer character, and we didn’t have to wait long to see this play out on-screen as Mindy does make a move on another non-male presenting character toward the end of the film.
Because Scream (2022) focused primarily on sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter, we didn’t get to dive too deeply into Mindy’s character outside of her passion and encyclopedic knowledge of horror films. Thankfully, Jasmin Savoy Brown is set to reprise her role as Mindy in the upcoming sixth installment to the Scream franchise, which will release March 31, 2023. Hopefully, this gives the creative team and opportunity to further explore and display Mindy’s queerness, and I know I’m not alone in saying hopefully, Mindy survives Ghostface for another film.
Stay tuned for the rest of our Pride Spotlights this month!
