Happy Pride! Horror and LGBTQ+ representation
Happy Pride, Horror Queens!
When Rachel and I started this podcast earlier this year, one goal I had was to never hide the fact that I am gay. If I want to discuss how hot I think Ash is in Evil Dead 2, I will. Spoiler, Ash is a jerk but Bruce Campbell’s jawline is a legend. Anyways … I will always set out to be my most authentic self on this podcast. That’s a promise.
Why? Because representation is the key to creating a safer place for all the members of our community. I’m sure that each of you know an out and proud person and have experienced the richness that comes with having them in your life. The only way to have people understand our community is to expose them to our lives and show them that we are just like them - human.
Now, how does a podcast on horror movies and the gay community intersect? Well, I can only speak to my experience. Let’s take a look at what I know.
The first time I ever heard the word “gay” in a horror movie was in Scream 4. There is a moment when the killer, Ghostface, is about to kill a video blogger. The victim, Robbie Mercer, has been stabbed a few times when the killer goes in for the coup de gras. Suddenly, the young man yells “Wait, you can’t do this! There’s rules! I’m … I’m gay, I’m gay … if it helps!” Spoiler alert - it didn’t help and the fatal stab shortly follows.
Scream 4 was a 2011 film. And that was the first time I had heard the word “gay” used by a horror movie character in reference to themselves. I remember that it felt so cheap. I was frustrated and annoyed that the gayness of a character was being used as a “get out of stabbing card,” and it was never mentioned again. Thanks, Wes Craven, for that.
Other than Scream 4, gay representation in horror movies is almost non-existent. When it does show up, it’s tied to evil. Example: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, a film with a homoerotic undercurrent that can’t be ignored or explained away. This film in particular raises concerns for me that I cannot get past. The queerness of the main character, Jesse Walsh, is coupled with Freddy Kruger using him to kill. The hard-to-swallow part of this connection is that Freddy uses Jesse almost exclusively after moments where he is faced with his true sexuality. It creates this correlation between Jesse’s sexuality and an aggression between his true self and the violence that Freddy brings to the situation. While it’s the closest thing to representation for gay men in horror, it’s not a fair or healthy view of queerness by any stretch of the imagination.
Transgendered individuals have it worse in the horror genre. Anyone who has watched The Silence of the Lambs knows that Buffalo Bill is skinning women to create an outfit composed of the flesh of his victim’s skin to wear. The killer's desire to transition to his desired sexuality is painted in a terrifying light. We learn that he was too psychologically disturbed when he applied for gender reassignment surgery and the hospital refused to do the surgery, which is presented as the origin of his murderous tendencies. As a young adult, I never understood the situation fully but the subtle context of insanity, violence, and murder being tied to the character’s gender queerness was a programming I didn’t even realize until much later in life.
You can argue that there are tons of horror movies with LGBTQIA+ undercurrents. One film that easily comes to mind is An Interview with a Vampire. Anyone that believes that the love between Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac is a simple bromance is living in a fantasy world. But that love remains just under the surface - never acted on and never blossoming into a romance. That is the fate of queerness in most horror films - pure speculation and conjecture. The love story is never explored or built upon and the queer character is never verbally confirmed as being queer and then simply existing.
Recently, the Horror Queens covered the movie Us. In this film, Jordan Peele creates a narrative that doesn’t play into the normal horror genre cliché of using the African American character as either comic relief or early fodder for the killer. Instead, the story focuses on a black family and their complexities and humanity. It was refreshing to see a film that focused on a black family without once making their racial identity a significant part of the story. The family happened to be black, but that wasn’t a focus. They were just humans playing leads in the film.
For the LGBTQIA+ community, we are starting to see some major releases that are breaking down similar barriers between the horror genre and our community. With the release of It Chapter 2, we witnessed the love that gay character Richie Tozer had for his fellow loser Eddie Kaspbrak. Outside of horror, we have rejoiced at films like Love, Simon, that created a gay teenage coming of age story that accurately portrayed the gay experience. We have long watched the stereotypical gay character replaced with strong, complex, and multi-layered LGBTQIA+ storylines on shows like 911: Lonestar and How to Get Away with Murder.
While these are great strides toward a more accurate representation in mainstream media, we will continue to cross our fingers for more instances of accurate gay representation in mainstream horror. Sadly, the closest we often get is indie horror films like Hellbent, which are basically low budget horror flicks with moments of softcore porn. I hope that characters like Richie in It Chapter 2 are becoming a new norm, and I pray we get to see more characters like him in horror soon.
Until that day and long after, we here at the Horror Queens will continue to be our most authentic selves- and we encourage you to do the same. Be proud, Queens. Happy Pride and much love to you all!
If you would like to donate to an organization for Pride Month, below are some organizations that are near and dear to the hearts of the Horror Queens:
The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people under the age of 25.
For over 40 years the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has had one goal - to ensure that all LGBTQ+ people, particularly those of us that are trans, people of color, and HIV+, are treated as full and equal citizens within our movement, across our country, and around the globe.
— Eric
