sidney prescott and billy loomis, or: abusive relationships for dummies
no, but seriously: nothing about sidney and billy’s relationship is healthy. when you deconstruct the timeline of scream, and take into account the details roman gives sidney and the audience in scream 3 (most notably, that he showed billy a video of maureen and hank slinking off together and gave him the idea to murder maureen as a revenge plot), you can quickly figure out that for the majority of sidney and billy’s relationship (if not the whole thing), billy was planning to murder maureen. and leading up to maureen’s murder, sidney didn’t have a clue.
in the first movie (and hell, the first scene with sidney and billy), billy describes the early stages of their relationship as “hot and heavy,” implying to the audience that sidney wasn’t shy with her affection, wasn’t afraid to be alone with billy in her room, and was open to the idea of sleeping with him, perhaps after she had been dating him for an “appropriate” length of time (i.e., the prom night cliché). this is cut abruptly when her mother is murdered. keep in mind, sidney is the one who found the body. sidney is the one who reported it to police. sidney is the one who had to testify in court, recount the details of that night, relive the details of her mother being what the media describes, in canon, as being “savagely raped and tortured.” because her mother died in such a violent way, and because she was the one who had to witness and report it and live through the trial and deal with the subsequent impact of the media, she becomes numb. she’s not the same person she was before. while she didn’t personally experience what her mother did, she’s still a victim—the loss of a parent is a heavy one to cope with, and it’s not something you really ever get over, especially when you’re close to them. i like to think that because neil travels a lot for business, sidney was always close with maureen, but that’s another post for another time.
sidney falls into depression following her mother’s death, and fortunately, she has a strong support system around her; however, it’s clear during the movie that billy’s been a little wishy-washy with that support. while he, at first, does seem like a caring boyfriend ( “i wouldn’t dream of breaking your underwear rule” ), on further observation there’s plenty of indication that he’s carefully manipulating sidney. when he sneaks into her bedroom, she tells him he needs to leave. instead of leaving, he launches into that infamous exorcist speech, which lends itself to talking about how sidney was before her mother’s death. how she was more open and carefree and basically, how they made out more, and now she’s not doing that as much, and *straight white boy voice* it sucks. she teases him, albeit a little indignantly, about how he thought he’d sneak in and they’d just go at it, and he brings up how he’d never dream of breaking her “underwear rule”—this indicates that similar situations have happened before, to a point where sidney’s had to lay out specific boundaries and give it all a name so she can drop it whenever billy’s pushing her past her boundaries, or when she’s just uncomfortable with something and wants to stop. and sidney sheepishly gives an “okay,” which is closer to sounding “worn down” than enthusiastic consent. they make out a bit on her bed, and the second billy slides a hand up under her nightgown, she pushes him off of her, teasing him about it, pretty much gently trying to ease him off of her and out of her room because she was already not completely comfortable with it, but she doesn’t want to make him mad. they exchange a few lines, sidney stresses how she “appreciates the romantic gesture” ( again, likely doesn’t want him to be upset, because subconsciously she’s more concerned about sparing his feelings than actively claiming her own boundaries ). billy flat-out says “about the no sex thing, i was only half-serious.”—this is such a shitty thing to say to somebody, not only because it’s guilt-trippy as hell, but it’s extremely manipulative. he’s basically dangling it over her head, as if to say he’s been patient with her for a year now, but he’s getting tired of waiting around for her to get over her personal shit, i.e. give me what i want or i’m going to leave you. sidney responds to the above…. rather well, asking if he’d settle for a pg-13 relationship before flashing him. he finally leaves, and sidney goes from grinning and giggling, to this:
she’s not happy. she feels disconnected, she feels sad. she wasn’t comfortable with the situation, but she went through with it anyway, because she felt an obligation to. here’s your boyfriend, who drove all the way out to you, who is reminding you about how you two used to be, and he’s been so patient, so what’s a little kiss? what’s a little tongue? what’s a little touching? give a little, it’ll be fine. swallow that discomfort, it’s only getting in the way.
the next example we get of this is two days later, after the news about casey and steve’s deaths break, and sidney’s attacked in her home, and billy’s held in the sheriff’s station overnight because he’s the prime suspect. when sidney finds out from stu that billy was released, her first instinct is to ask him if he was pissed off at her. stu carefully throws out that he’s heartbroken because she didn’t trust him. sidney ends up tearing down the hallway a minute later because of a student running through the hall in a ghostface costume as a prank, and she bumps into billy.
the conversation’s awkward. sidney’s quick to try and clear the air, letting billy know sheknows he’s not the killer, because the killer called her while he was in jail, and billy guilt trips her, again.
“please try to understand—”
“understand what? that my girlfriend would rather accuse me of being a psychopathic killer than touch me?”
he’s quick to go for the jugular with gaslighting techniques. sidney points out that she was attacked and almost killed, and billy immediately points to how sidney hasn’t been the same since her mother died. sidney’s affronted by this, pointing out that her mother wasmurdereda year ago, almost to the day, to which billy pretty much tells her she needs to get over it because “i want my girlfriend back.” and understandably, sidney’s upset by this, and she runs off.
( while this doesn’t apply to billy specifically, it’s important to note that sidney overhears two girls in the bathroom talking about her mother, and how she was a “tramp,” and how sidney’s possibly just like her in that respect. this ties in with the rumors gale weathers has been spreading about cotton being innocent and simply a lover of maureen’s. when sidney and tatum are talking on the porch later that afternoon, tatum also brings up the rumors of maureen having affairs with other men, citing that because sidney’s father was always out of town, it was possible that maureen was an unhappy woman. this becomes important at the end of the second act, when sidney ends up sleeping with billy. )
later that evening, sidney and tatum go to the party at stu’s house. right when sidney’s looking for tatum so they can leave, billy shows up, and they end up going up to stu’s parents’ room to talk.
sidney immediately starts taking blame for everything, saying she’s been “self-absorbed with all this post-traumatic stress,” and pinning her victim complex entirely on herself. billy’s burrowed deep in her head and managed to warp her perception to where she feels like she’s at fault for her relationship being stale, and that her depression and PTSD surrounding her mother’s death is no excuse for her to put up barriers so she can be comfortable in her relationship while she mourns. she’s hoping that cotton weary’s death sentence will bring her closure; and yet with the possibility that she was wrong and the killer might still be out there hanging over her head, she’s not entirely sure she’s ever going to get that closure, so she needs her support system: and while billy hasn’t been supportive of her, and has been more concerned with himself and his needs, she can’t see that. all she can see is that he’s put up with her for a year, and that if she doesn’t give him sex soon, he’s going to leave. she’s lost her mother and her entire world’s pretty much changed for the worse; she doesn’t want to lose relationships she values, and she doesn’t want to lose billy. part of her is afraid to because she doesn’t know if she’ll ever find anyone who will “deal” with her hang-ups like billy has. she’s insecure in that respect, so she gives billy sex because she sees it as the only way she’ll be able to keep him around, and she’s so desperate to maintain that relationship. she no longer sees the validity in her emotions and her limitations because billy’s warped it all to where she thinks she’s being unreasonable and selfish, when it’s the opposite. billy feels like he won’t be able to properly kill sidney unless she’s no longer pure and virginal. what he doesn’t see is that she’s already a victim of trauma, and that’s what ultimately aids her survival in the end.
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