Chanel Oberlin and Our Desire to Be On Top 16

from MODE Magazine Fall/Winter 2022 SIDE A

The Rebirth of Venus: Paris Is Burning 57

Enter Chanel Oberlin, president of the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority, who is exactly what you would picture when you envision a mean girl/queen bee of the early 2000s: wealth beyond comprehension, paper thin figure (which she accredits to her diet of cotton balls and habit of bulimia), perfect natural blonde hair, a squad of minions that she aptly refers to as Chanel 2-5, (She’s Chanel #1… obvi), and a boyfriend who is the president of the top Fraternity on campus. To tie up her mean girl status with a big Chanel tweed bow, she makes it very clear from the pilot that she does not care about anyone but herself, and will not stop until she reaches her ultimate goal: winning back her equally awful boyfriend. Despite everything awful Chanel does, viewers still find themselves rooting for her. In her own words “[I might be an awful person] but I’m rich and I’m pretty, so it doesn’t matter.” This is very much of the time; Regina George was awful but nobody would pass up the opportunity to be one of her friends, the same goes for Heather Chandler, and Chris Hargensen. How far will we compromise our moral compass to be popular? How many people will we push down the stairs (literally, in Chanel’s case) to be top dog? Scream Queens may seem like a camp dramedy on the surface, but it really is a critique of the compromised moral compass of our generation.