Screaming along to mixtapes: Yellowjackets and the choral female voice as subversive noise

Abstract

ABSTRACT Engaging with collectivist voice that challenges the “communicative injustices” of neoliberal feminism, this article analyses how the TV horror series Yellowjackets’ soundscape employs unruly female chorus as a form of branded “feminism,” vocalised in places traditionally coded as masculine: punk scenes, the wilderness, and soccer as a team sport. Analysing the opening credits, the title track “No Return” employs Riot Grrrl feminist noise that is synaesthetically embodied by the show’s female characters. Synaesthetic embodiment continues within the series where the female choral voice pendulates between the monstrous screamscape acousmêtre and the joyous singing along to pop music. Furthermore, the article demonstrates how such sonic solidarity becomes the source of “feminist nostalgia” for the then-adult characters whose “affective dissonance” with, and siloing within, present-day neoliberal society leaves them longing for the yesteryears of the 1990s. Finally, the article critically interrogates this nostalgia that, on the one hand, fosters increased diversity onscreen, yet on the other, revises history in popular feminist fashion that obfuscates past and present structural inequalities and the marginalisation of non-hegemonic identities.