View source for LGBTQ themes in horror films


[[File:Karloff-whale-mescall-bride opt2.jpg|thumb|Openly gay director James Whale (middle), actor Boris Karloff (left), and cinematographer John J. Mescall (lower right) on the set of ''Bride of Frankenstein'' (1935).]]
'''LGBT themes in horror films''' refers to figurative or literal representations of non-normative [[gender]] and/or [[sexuality]] within horror films. This may include characters or narratives that are coded as or openly [[LGBTQ]], the appearance of [[Theme (narrative)|themes]] and images specific to LGBTQ experiences, or the reading of horror from an LGBTQ perspective.

The [[horror genre]] serves as a medium for exploring and expressing societal anxieties.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brooks |first=Kinitra D. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1trkkq5 |title=Searching for Sycorax: Black Women's Hauntings of Contemporary Horror |date=2018 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1trkkq5 |jstor=j.ctt1trkkq5 |isbn=978-0-8135-8462-1}}</ref> Fears surrounding LGBTQ identities and threats to [[heteronormativity]] have thus been projected into the horror genre.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Corrigan |first1=Timothy |title=The film experience: an introduction |last2=White |first2=Patricia |date=2021 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's |isbn=978-1-319-20818-9 |edition=6th |series=Macmillan learning |location=Boston New York}}</ref> Often through the construction of the [[Other (philosophy)|Other]], a figure that exists as opposition to a supposedly normal, functioning society, such as the famous monsters, serial killers, and other antagonists that make up the horror genre. Perceived as a threat to the assumed heterosexual spectator, LGBTQ themes have often been pushed into the shadows, and must be coaxed out through [[close analysis]] and [[theory]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Elliott-Smith |first=Darren |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/961212190 |title=Queer horror film and television: sexuality and masculinity at the margins |date=2016 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-78453-686-2 |series=Library of gender and popular culture |location=London; New York |oclc=961212190}}</ref>

Film scholar [[Harry Benshoff]] posits that there are at least four different ways that LGBTQ elements may intersect with the horror film: films with identifiable LGBTQ characters; films written, produced, and/or directed by a member of the LGBTQ community; through [[subtext]] or [[connotation]]; and through LGBTQ [[Audience|spectatorship]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benshoff |first=Harry M. |title=The Monster Theory Reader |date=2020 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-5179-0525-5 |editor-last=Weinstock |editor-first=Jeffrey Andrew |location=Minneapolis London |pages=226–240 |chapter=The Monster and the Homosexual}}</ref>

Many horror films link sexual transgression to racial transgression, such as ''[[White Zombie (film)|White Zombie]]'' (1932), thus signaling both the queer and [[Race in horror films|racial "other" as monstrous]].<ref name=":1" />

== History ==
{{See also|History of horror films|LGBTQ history}}

=== Early film ===
The 1910s saw the first narrative horror films as adaptations of [[gothic fiction]], such as ''[[Dracula]]'' (1897) and ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' (1890), which carried over already existing [[LGBTQ themes in horror fiction]] and helped construct the image of the homosexual as monstrous. The [[German expressionist cinema]] movement in the first half of the 1920s, which would go on to stylistically influence [[Hollywood film]] as its members fled [[Nazi Germany]], has been and still is connected to homosexuality in film. The expressionist filmmaker [[F. W. Murnau]], who adapted ''Dracula'' into the historically significant ''[[Nosferatu]]'' (1922), was homosexual. Yet beyond this, the subject matter of German expressionism often opposed the concept of "normalcy", and was targeted by [[Nazism]] in the 1930s for its relationship to "Jews, homosexuals, and other social deviants."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Benshoff |first=Harry M. |title=Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror film |date=1997 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-4472-4 |series=Inside popular film |location=Manchester}}</ref>

[[Vaudeville]], which served as both a precursor and inspiration to early films, often involved queer subtext through gender-bending and cross-dressing. Vaudeville personnel, who were often queer themselves, began migrating to the film industry. Regulation and censorship was especially uncommon in vaudeville practices. In order to combat and control overt defiance of traditional American gender roles and sexuality, motion picture executives devised a code to regulate behavior in film production.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Waldron |first=Abigail |title=Queer screams: a history of LGBTQ survival through the lens of American horror cinema |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers |isbn=978-1-4766-8742-1 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |chapter=The Queens of Hollywood: Queer Roots, Censorship, and the Lavender Menace (the 1930s-1940s)}}</ref>

In 1927, the [[Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association]] (MPPDA) codified a list of elements which members of the association should not, or had to be careful about, portraying. In this list is included any inference of sex perversion and [[Miscegenation]]. These two elements play into what Benshoff describes as the binary oppositions which surfaced in horror films of the time period to ultimately present a [[dichotomy]] between straight/gay or "normal"/queer. Homosexuality was seen as a construction around gendered [[Hierarchy|hierarchies]] and thus binaries such as [[Gender binary|masculine/feminine]], master/servant, [[Sadomasochism|sadist/masochist]], and white/non-white created an avenue for the appearance of LGBTQ themes in early horror films and those made during the production code era.<ref name=":1" />

=== United States ===

==== Production Code Era ====
In March 1930 the [[Hays Code]], which built on many of the existing rules codified by the MPPDA, was established. Although homosexuality was not explicitly named, it was captured under the rule that stated showing "Sex perversion or any inference of it is forbidden."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Noriega |first=Chon |date=2018 |title="Something's Missing Here!": Homosexuality and Film Reviews during the Production Code Era, 1934–1962 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/707328 |journal=JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=20–41 |doi=10.1353/cj.2018.0089 |issn=2578-4919}}</ref> This in part stemmed from the American Great Depression's encouragement of strict gender roles. Homosexuality was thus feared as it questioned these gender and social arrangements.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=William J. |title=Behind the screen: how gays and lesbians shaped Hollywood 1910 - 1969 |date=2002 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-670-03017-0 |location=New York, NY}}</ref> In 1934, the Production Code Administration (PCA) was implemented to enforce the Hays Code.<ref name=":2" />

Despite this, various films of the Hays code and PCA era can be read as having LGBTQ themes. For example, James Whale's ''[[Frankenstein (1931 film)|Frankenstein]]'' (1931) draws on the original subtext within the gothic novel and can be read as a relationship between a queer-child (the Monster) and a rejecting parent (Dr. Frankenstein).<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Waldron |first=Abigail |title=Queer screams: a history of LGBTQ survival through the lens of American horror cinema |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers |isbn=978-1-4766-8742-1 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina}}</ref>

Both Whale's ''Frankenstein'' and ''[[Bride of Frankenstein]]'' (1935) portray what Benshoff calls the "domestic queer couple." In these cases, the relationship between a master/servant or mad scientist/sidekick, takes on homosexual undertones. This can be through the act of homosexual [[Reproduction|procreation]], in which life is created without [[Heterosexuality|heterosexual]] intercourse, such as Dr. Pretorius and Dr. Frankenstein in ''Bride of Frankenstein'' or Dr. Moreau and his male assistant Montgomery in ''[[Island of Lost Souls (1932 film)|Island of Lost Souls]]'' (1933). Alternatively, it may be the contrast between gender-roles, such as the "[[Masculinity|masculine]]" countess and her "[[Effeminacy|effeminate]]" servant in Lambert Hillyer's ''[[Dracula's Daughter]]'' (1936).<ref name=":1" /> However, ''Dracula's Daughter'' portrays LGBTQ themes beyond the domestic queer couple, through its portrayal and participation in the [[lesbian vampire]] trope. This recalls other films of the period, where lesbianism was able to slip past the PCA due to misunderstandings of female sexuality that rendered lesbianism largely unthinkable and invisible within a heteronormative society.<ref name=":0" />

During the [[Cold War]], the monster movie was eclipsed by [[Alien invasion|alien invasion horror]]. The hidden homosexual became a rampant fear of heterosexual Americans, stemming in part from the [[Red Scare|red scare]], the [[Lavender Scare|lavender scare]], and similar ideas during WWII that the homosexual would lie about their sexuality and infect "normal" soldiers.<ref name=":0" />

What unified horror films of the code era that contained LGBTQ themes is that heterosexuality and "normalcy" were reinstated by the end of the film through means of killing off of [[Queer coding|queer-coded]] monsters, the reunion of previously separated heterosexual couples, and other variations of affirming heteronormativity. Depictions of homosexual characters became acceptable, as long as the ending of the film confirmed them as abnormal and incapable of a happy life.

==== Reagan-Era and the AIDS Crises ====
Like horror films of the 1950s which combined public dread of communist subversion with fears of hidden, malignant homosexuals, many horror films of  the 1980s and early 90s built upon the evil homosexual in portraying anxieties surrounding the spread of disease, specifically fear surrounding [[HIV/AIDS]] as it began spreading throughout the Western Hemisphere.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gilbert |first1=M. Thomas P. |last2=Rambaut |first2=Andrew |last3=Wlasiuk |first3=Gabriela |last4=Spira |first4=Thomas J. |last5=Pitchenik |first5=Arthur E. |last6=Worobey |first6=Michael |date=2007-11-20 |title=The emergence of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and beyond |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=104 |issue=47 |pages=18566–18570 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0705329104 |doi-access=free |issn=1091-6490 |pmc=2141817 |pmid=17978186}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Waldron |first=Abigail |title=Queer screams: a history of LGBTQ survival through the lens of American horror cinema |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers |isbn=978-1-4766-8742-1 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |chapter=Villainization: AIDS and Casual Homophobia (the 1980s)}}</ref>

The initial confusion surrounding the spread of HIV/AIDS and its conflation with the LGBTQ community led to the demonization and ostracization of LGBTQ people, specifically gay men, who were seen as purposefully infecting those around them. Similarities can be drawn between AIDS and various horror tropes of the period.

The vampire's historical relationship to infectious disease and the plague, as well as similarities between the contagion of fluids and significance of blood, allows for the alignment of the vampire with the spread of HIV/AIDS.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dang |first=Duy |date=2013-04-01 |title=A Disease with a Bite: Vampirism and Infection Theories in Bram Stoker's Dracula |url=https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/xulanexus/vol10/iss2/1/ |journal=XULAneXUS |volume=10 |issue=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fink |first=Marty |date=2010 |title=AIDS Vampires: Reimagining Illness in Octavia Butler's "Fledgling" |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/25746442 |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=416–432 |doi=10.1525/sfs.37.3.0416 |jstor=25746442 |issn=0091-7729|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Films such as ''[[Fright Night]]'' (1985) and ''[[The Lost Boys]]'' (1987) can be analyzed in this respect. The connection is made clearly in ''[[Blade (1998 film)|Blade]]'' (1998) when the vampire villain is referred to as a "sexually-transmitted disease."<ref name=":3" />

In science-fiction horror ''[[The Thing (1982 film)|The Thing]]'' (1982) has been discussed as a primary allegorical example for the threat of the pandemic spread of HIV/AIDS.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Guerrero |first=Edward |date=1990 |title=Aids as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956051.1990.10662021 |journal=Journal of Popular Film and Television |language=en |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=86–93 |doi=10.1080/01956051.1990.10662021 |issn=0195-6051|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Not being able to detect those who have been "penetrated and replicated" is one of the key elements that incites fear within the film. The entirely male station crew, who liberally indulge in alcohol and marijuana, replicates the media and public imagination of homosexuals being responsible for their own contracting of HIV/AIDS due to indulgent, promiscuous lifestyles.<ref name=":4" />

Other horror films of the era, such as ''[[A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge]]'' (1985), contributed to negative attitudes towards the LGBTQ community through explicit homophobia and the casual usage of anti-gay slurs.<ref name=":3" />

While still other films, despite lacking clear indications of LGBTQ themes, were discussed in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by viewers. ''[[The Hitcher (1986 film)|The Hitcher]]'' (1986) was described in a review from the same year as a "slasher movie about gay panic, a nasty piece of homophobic angst for the age of AIDS."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hadleigh |first=Boze |title=The lavender screen: the gay and lesbian films: their stars, makers, characters, and critics |date=1993 |publisher=Carol Pub. Group |isbn=978-0-8065-1341-6 |location=Secaucus, N.J}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===

* {{Cite book |last=Benshoff |first=Harry M |title=Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=1997 |isbn=0719044723}}
* {{Cite book |last=Brooks |first=Kinitra D |title=Searching for Sycorax: Black Women's Hauntings of Contemporary Horror |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-8135-8462-1}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Corrigan |first1=Timothy |title=The Film Experience : An Introduction |last2=White |first2=Patricia |date=2021 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin’s |isbn=9781319208189 |edition=6th}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Dang |first=Duy |date=2013 |title=A Disease with a Bite: Vampirism and Infection Theories in Bram Stoker's Dracula |journal=XULAneXUS |volume=10 |issue=2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Elliott-Smith |first=Darren |title=Queer Horror Film and Television: Sexuality and Masculinity at the Margins |publisher=I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-78672-137-2 |location=London}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Fink |first=Marty |date=2010 |title=AIDS Vampires: Reimagining Illness in Octavia Butler's 'Fledgling' |journal=Science Fiction Studies |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=416–32|doi=10.1525/sfs.37.3.0416 }}
* {{Cite journal |last1=P. Gilbert |first1=M. Thomas |last2=Rambaut |first2=Andrew |last3=Woasiuk |first3=Gabriela |display-authors=2 |date=2007 |title=The emergence of HIV/AIDS in the Americas and beyond |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=104 |issue=4|pages=18566–18570 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0705329104 |doi-access=free |pmid=17978186 |pmc=2141817 }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Guerrero |first=E |date=Fall 1990 |title=AIDS as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema |journal=Journal of Popular Film & Television |volume=18 |issue=3|pages=86–93 |doi=10.1080/01956051.1990.10662021 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Hadleigh |first=Boze |title=The Lavender Screen: The Gay and Lesbian Films : Their Stars, Makers, Characters, and Critics |date=1993 |publisher=Carol Publishing Group}}
* {{Cite book |last=Mann |first=William J |title=Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 |date=2001 |publisher=Viking |location=New York}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Noriega |first=Chon |date=2018 |title='Something's Missing Here!': Homosexuality and Film Reviews during the Production Code Era, 1934–1962 |journal=JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=20–41}}
* {{Cite book |last=Waldron |first=Abigail |title=Queer Screams: A History of LGBTQ+ Survival Through the Lens of American Horror Cinema |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-4765-4}}
* {{Cite book |last=Weinstock |first=Jeffrey Andrew |title=The Monster Theory Reader |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-4529-6039-5 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota}}

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[[Category:Gender in horror film]]
[[Category:Horror films]]
[[Category:LGBTQ themes in horror fiction|*]]

{{Wikipedia attribution|original_title=LGBTQ themes in horror films|access_date=2026-03-04}}