"Monsters in the Closet" Transcript

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[Fade in on a projector fading in, pointed just past the camera.]

You're sitting in a packed theater. The lights go down, and you can hear a whisper of anticipation ripple through the crowd, but then it goes silent. Before the movie even begins, you're already on edge.

[Cut to black, then fade in on bed in a dark bedroom. A copy of the book It rests on a shelf.]

Or maybe you're sitting alone at night. In bed, you feel safe until you open up the book on your bedside table, a Stephen King classic that gives you chills even though you've read it ten times.

[Fade in on the arm of a couch. Someone is sitting in it, and the person’s arm is visible.]

You're curled up on your couch. It's late at night, the lights are off, and you're about to watch the latest episode of a TV show that gives you nightmares.

[Fade to black.]

These three situations all end with a smile as you laugh at yourself for being afraid.

[Clips from various horror movies.]

We love being afraid. Horror movies, books, and TV shows give us a thrill that's hardwired into us as human beings, the thrill of being afraid, having your pulse race, muscles tense, but knowing in the end that you're safe.

[Fade in on James in the dark, seemingly lit by a computer screen. Throughout, clips from the discussed movies play, interspersed with shots of James.]

I fell in love with horror movies when I was six years old. That's when I saw Friday the 13th: Part 7: A New Blood for the very first time. It was my first slasher movie and my first horror movie in general, and besides being kind of shocked to see blood on the screen for the first time, I wasn't the least bit scared. (Granted, Friday the 13th Part 7 is more akin to an X-Men movie than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The main character literally kills Jason by using psychic powers.) But it was still a horror movie and a great gateway to the genre.

For the next two decades, I devoured that genre. I had a shelf dedicated to my horror movie VHSs, DVDs, and now Blu-Rays. Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all the greats. I eventually moved on to the grandparents of the horror genre, the Universal Monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man. And in my midteens, after letting everyone know that I was gay and getting to know more people in the queer community, I came to a realization:

Gays really love horror movies.

Of course, there are exceptions (I still can't get my roommate to watch 2017’s It), but for the most part, it seemed like every gay guy and girl absolutely adored horror movies, from the top-tier ones like The Exorcist, to the bottom-of-the-rung direct-to-video sequels, to The Leprechaun, Child's Play, and Sleepaway Camp. There's even a massive amount of gay-themed slasher movies on Netflix — usually involving frat brothers.

So, where did this gay fascination with horror come from? James Jenkins of Valancourt Books notes that the connection between gay fiction and horror goes all the way back to the gothic novels of the early 1800s. Many gothic authors, like Matthew Lewis, William Thomas Beckford, and Francis Latham, were gay, and that reflected in their work. According to Jenkins:

[Quote shown in small box, repeated blurred out for background. James mostly reads word-for-word, quote is exact on screen.]

The traditional explanation for the gay/horror connection is that it was impossible for them to write openly about gay themes back then (or even perhaps express them at all, since words like gay and homosexual didn't exist), so they sublimated them and expressed them in more acceptable forms using the medium of a transgressive genre like horror fiction.

In 1890, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine commissioned a short story by then-little-known author Oscar Wilde that would eventually become the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The story follows the titular Dorian Gray, who has had a portrait painted by an artist named Basil. Once he's seen the portrait, he wishes that it would grow old and age instead of him. And his wish having been granted, the portrait becomes a twisted reflection of Dorian's deviance and vices. The wish for eternal youth is certainly present in gay culture, but the dandyism of The Picture of Dorian Gray is much more obvious in other parts of the work. For instance, when Basil has his first meeting with Dorian Gray:

[Direct quotes of the novel appear on-screen. James reads these out in a low-pass filtered voice.]

When our eyes met, I felt I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

And then later, saying:

We were quite close...

Almost touching.

Later in the novel, Lord Henry, a dear friend of the artist Basil, says to Dorian:

You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheeks with shame.

Oscar Wilde does not present any of the characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray as overtly homosexual. In fact, Lord Henry is married, and Dorian begins dating an actress, but he's more in love with the art of her acting. In fact, when she tells him that she'll stop acting to be with him, he dumps her, and he's not the slightest bit upset to hear about her suicide.

In 2005, Joseph Carroll, professor of philosophy and literature at the University of Missouri, wrote,

Among heterosexuals, feminine characteristics act as a stimulus or trigger for male sexual desire. One chief reason effeminacy can be easily integrated with a homoerotic persona is that effeminacy indirectly suggests that the effeminate male could himself be an object of male desire.

Early in the story, before the more supernatural elements kick in, Dorian is upset that the portrait will forever remain beautiful and young, while he will wither and age.

The tears welled in his eyes; he tore his hand away, and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he were praying.

Joseph Carroll finds scenes of women lying prone and weeping are common enough in Victorian fiction, but scenes depicting males in that posture are vanishingly rare.

Once the novel saw its final publication, at least for the 1800s, critics zeroed in on the effeminacy of the novel, especially the main character. Over the next century, critics and fans would discover the more overt homosexuality in Oscar Wilde's most famous work.

Now, instead of pulling quotes from novels and intellectual articles for the rest of the video, I'm going to start focusing on more modern interpretations of gay horror. And I'd like to talk about the world’s the most famous monster... that you never knew was analogously queer.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus. Victor Frankenstein, the titular mad scientist, shows little to no interest in his wife-to-be and is determined to create life on his own: his own perfect man. (Something explored without subtlety in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) But when digging up the body parts that he'll eventually use to compile the monster, he makes sure to pick the... sexiest body parts he can find. He wants an Adonis, just like Frank-N-Furter.

Once born against his own free will, as we all are, Frankenstein's monster is rejected by its creator as something terrible, a regretful mistake that ought to be done away with. He even flees from the monster because it's so hideous. Frankenstein's reaction to the birth of his creation isn't that far off from the reaction of many overly religious parents when they find out that their child is gay. They look at them as monsters: ungodly. And although most of these parents don't actually attempt to kill their children (though that does happen) they may cut them out of their lives; an emotional murder, if you will.

But at the same time, there is a homoerotic subtext between Victor Frankenstein and his monster. The monster tracks down his creator, and Victor discovers that the monster is intelligent, well-read, and curious. He is, ostensibly, everything a man like Victor would want a lover. There's a direct connection between them. Victor's repulsion toward the monster could read as the Victorian equivalent of “no fats, no fems”.

Every time Frankenstein's creature (sometimes referred to as Adam) is seen by the local population, he's met with horror. He hasn't done anything to them, but they look at him as a monster anyway. And rejection drives him to become the monster they see him as. Eventually, Adam begs Victor to create for him a mate. He just wants someone like him, someone who knows his struggles, someone to share his life with. He, like any other person, deserves as much. (Sound familiar?)

Though Victor initially agrees, he eventually destroys the potential bride. Adam the monster is not allowed to have a mate, not allowed to have someone to love and be loved by, because he's a monster. He's not like normal people. He doesn't deserve to have what everyone else does. Because... he is different. And so, you see the parallels between Frankenstein's monster... and being gay.

Now, this all changed a little bit with the film adaptation. James Whales, himself a gay director, helmed 1931’s Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein. Whales, oddly, made sure to remove the more overt homoerotic subtext between Victor and his monster by adding the character of Fritz for Victor to speak with and by making the monster mute, and also making Victor much more socially active. Off-topic, but Fritz is the character we've all come to known as Igor, for some reason. Also, Victor is inexplicably renamed Henry in the movie, but I'm gonna stick to calling him Victor for the sake of consistency. Victor is also much more socially active in the movies, as I said, adding a further layer of separation between him and the monster.

Victor's relationship with his wife-to-be, Elizabeth, is also much more prominent in the films. She's an active part of his life, even being there for the birth of the monster.

Indeed, the films never seem to question Victor's sexuality but, on the contrary, repeatedly emphasized his heterosexuality, whereas the novel leaves this aspect of Victor's character more open to discussion. The novel’s Victor is obsessed with the creature who repeatedly makes his pulse beat faster and his brows sweat.

In 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, the queerness is more obvious. An old friend of Dr. Frankenstein's, Dr. Septimus Pretorius, interrupts the evening of his wedding with the request that they partner up to create life, stopping Victor from consummating the marriage with his bride. The two men go off to [air quotes] “use his creativity” and become the same-sex parents of a monster, Frankenstein the bringer of life and Pretorius the nurturer. Though Frankenstein is reluctant to admit it, the thought of creating life with Pretorius, and thereby stifling the female necessity inherent in the process, inspires him. Whales’ decision to cast two known bisexual actors in the roles only furthers the queer reading. Film historian David Scales said,

[quote appears on-screen]

“There is an overriding fantasy of male–male procreation. There is the persistent undercurrent of men creating life without women.”

The original cut of Bride of Frankenstein was actually 15 minutes longer than the one we have now, which sits at just over an hour long. That's because the ending was drastically edited and changed. The reason for this was that it conflicted with the Hayes production code, the era's version of the MPAA. What went against the code? Well, it was originally made obvious that the heart of the monster’s bride was taken from Frankenstein's wife, Elizabeth. This would imply that Frankenstein and Pretorius’ mutual goal was predicated on the destruction of Frankenstein's heterosexual relationship, that he literally sacrificed Elizabeth for the realization of his other ambitions. Effectively, he would have chosen a homosexual partnership over marriage, and since gay anything was a big no-no for the Hays Code, that had to be cut down. Instead, Elizabeth is actually present for the ending and escapes the destruction of the lab, along with Dr. Frankenstein, while the monster’s would-be bride and the overtly queer-coded Dr. Pretorius are left to perish. Gotta let that breeding pair escape, right?