Silent Hill 2 owes much to Christina Aguilera at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards

Konami’s Silent Hill series is famously inspired by film and pop culture, as proven by the first game’s strong Kindergarten Cop influence. But one specific ’90s reference in Silent Hill 2 has been fascinating fans for more than 20 years: the game’s Christina-Aguilera-at-the-1999-Teen-Choice-Awards connection.

Maria, one of Silent Hill 2’s antagonists, is clearly modeled after Aguilera’s red carpet appearance at that inaugural Teen Choice Awards event. Aguilera, who was nominated for her “Genie in a Bottle” video, showed up to the Fox network awards show wearing a raspberry cardigan, a pink and black leopard-print skirt, and a gold medallion body chain. That’s nearly identical to the outfit worn by Maria in 2001’s Silent Hill 2, which could imply two things:

• The Silent Hill team was inspired by Christina Aguilera to represent the villainous doppelganger of James Sunderland’s wife Mary
• James Sunderland watched the 1999 Teen Choice Awards and had impure thoughts about Christina Aguilera, manifesting her as the lustful version of his deceased wife

For the record, here is Christina Aguilera at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards:

And here is Maria, as she appears in the original Silent Hill 2 (via the very good Enhanced Edition mod) during her initial meeting with James:

The visual similarities are striking, so much so that the Silent Hill 2 remake developer Bloober Team and Konami have updated Maria’s appearance for the new version — possibly to finally disassociate Maria from Xtina. In the same initial meeting scene, we see that Maria is now wearing a red leather jacket and a black leopard print dress. Her butterfly tattoo has been moved to her chest, now that her midriff no longer abides late-’90s fashion trends.

The developers of Silent Hill 2 have been pretty forthcoming about their influences, pointing to David Lynch films Blue Velvet and Lost Highway and Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder as sources of inspiration. Stanley Kubrick was also a big influence, according to Japanese-language Silent Hill 3 Official Complete Strategy Guide, which touches on the overall series’ inspirations, with developers noting that Vincent D’Onofrio’s Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence served as the reference model for Silent Hill 2’s Eddie Dombrowski.

One other more subtle, but still important, visual influence comes from another piece of late ’90s cinema: Simon West’s Con Air. Like Maria, James’ late wife Mary’s appearance appears to have been strongly inspired by a real human. Mary’s style appears to be lifted from Tricia Poe (played by Monica Potter), the wife of Cameron Poe (played by Nicolas Cage) in that memorable action movie. Tricia and Cameron’s daughter Casey is also likely the inspiration for Silent Hill 2’s Laura.

The Laura inspiration is more than just skin deep, for what it’s worth. Both Silent Hill 2’s Laura and Con Air’s Casey love to draw and have an affection for stuffed animals.

Whether any of this trivia is of any use to humankind is up for debate. But for the fan who wants to one-up the know-it-all who points out that the first Silent Hill game was heavily informed by Kindergarten Cop, you’re now armed (or mentally refreshed) with the knowledge of the Christina Aguilera at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards/Con Air/Silent Hill 2 connection — with which you can kneecap any person trying to flex their survival horror trivia powers.

Anyway, the Silent Hill 2 remake is out now on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. It’s great.