From the salacious silence of open-mouthed heroines tied to railway tracks, to the gasping gurgling foley effects of nurses and coeds having their throats slashed, the ambiguity of the scream is most frightening because it becomes embroiled in the most inconclusive morals. The scream rings loud as if to give a warning, a message, a statement. Yet, the darkest aspect of the female scream's ambiguousness is its very intent to communicate. The wordless cry is a return to the primal but its desperation alone does not ensure clarity of purpose. The scream is a part of the disembodied voice. Cinema gleefully and remorselessly exploits the iconic effect of the scream, emptying it of its social specificity and flooding it with our interpretation.

“We tend to call a woman’s cry a scream and the man’s cry a shout.” Chion speaks of the social implications of a woman’s cry being a sign of fear which is acceptable as opposed to a man’s cry being a sign of weakness and not acceptable. He even says the evidence is in the terminology of the female cry being called a scream and the male cry a shout. The scream references a plea for help where as the shout references a demand or an expression of power. Chion uses the example of Tarzan’s call, which signifies the male dominance of himself and his surroundings. In opposition the female’s cry communicates “limitlessness” – an abyss, a never ending black hole likened to the female orgasm. This black hole is endless for men, it is an analogy that they cannot obtain or explain and therefore have no real power over. In this sense the male is only in control of the sound once it has been produced and placed.

In agreeing with Chion’s assessment of the societal inference regarding the female scream and the male scream and the accurate depiction of how society looks at a man w ho shows his emotion. Society frowns on the crying male because he is not supposed to be weak. However, I disagree with Chion’s overall explanation about the usefulness of gender screams. It is a rarity to see a man scream in a film. Many films exploit the female scream because of i

Some topics in this essay:
Screaming Point”, Kong Blow, John Travolta’s, According Chion, Michel Chion, , De Palma, Jack Sally’s, female scream, type scream, chion’s analogy, man’s cry, woman screams, shower scene, scream male, woman’s cry, black hole, male cry,