This February, Midnight Social Distortion will be celebrating Black History Month by honoring Black horror characters, in particular Black horror survivors, throughout the twenty-eight day period. Each day will feature one black male and one black female survivor in horror and sci-fi to bring light to the positive, albeit still problematic, black champions of representation in horror. Some disclaimers first: obvious spoilers ahead, and not all horror survivors will be featured this go round, but will appear in later posts down the line.
Jessica “Jessie”/“Braces” Tyler (Paulina Singer)
Character Arc:
Coming off as bitchy and slightly boy crazy, Jessie Tyler (aka Braces) was actually a smart, disciplined student who only had dreams of going to her college of choice and surviving a highly irresponsible mother, who acted as if she was still a teen herself. While trying to reconnect with her childhood crush, Jessie played up her cool girl act, while initially being oblivious about the strange events surround Camp Stillwater.
In the end, Jessie emerged as the main final girl to fight the evil that took the lives of her friends and fellow camp counselors. She gave a nice chase scene and finally went head up, not once but twice with the evil forces (both supernatural and mortal) to become triumphant and break the curse (temporarily) of Camp Stillwater.
Fun Trivia
The survivors of the Camp Stillwater massacre were all minorities. Jessie (black girl), Blair (the gay Puerto Rican/Italian boy), and Drew (transgendered boy).
Final Thoughts
Dead of Summer was before it’s time, combining elements of LOST, Once Upon A Time, and American Horror Story to weave a somewhat self-contained narrative that was slightly wrapped up when the gates literally closed on Camp Stillwater. Seeing Jessie go from possible slasher victim to a horror heroine in a handful of episodes was beyond thrilling, and for the survivors to be three minorities?! Stupendous. Simply stupendous.
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