[Pride 2021] Identity in Dark Shadows Or How Gender Nonconformity Can Be Found Even in the Most Gothic of Soaps

Many famous spooky television shows  have come and gone and many a vampire have graced the small screen. But up until 1967, one year into the tenure of soap opera Dark Shadows, there had never been a vampire quite like Barnabas Collins. If you are thinking to yourself “Barna-who?” or “How the heck does this relate to the transgender experience” or even “Aren’t all shadows dark?” don’t worry. We’ll get there. 

Dark Shadows was a television program quite literally dreamed up by one Dan Curtis. It ran on ABC from 1966-1971. It was the serialized tale of the Collins Family and their friends dealing with supernatural forces, human drama, magic, elder gods, time travel and fiscal nonsense all set in the backdrop of coastal Maine. 

But why am I telling you all this? What does a gothic soap opera from the 1960s have to do with gender identity and queerness? 

Quite a lot actually. 

If you haven’t heard of Barnabas or the image in your mind is that of Johnny Depp, you are missing out on a piece of vampiric history. While not as well known today, Barnabas Collins is often credited for being at the apex of the birth of the modern vampire. And in fact, he has been called ‘The First Sympathetic Vampire’. That’s right, you have one triangle haired man to thank for your Damiens and your Angels and so forth. While Dracula and Nosferatu before him were villainous with a hint of alluring danger just to spice things up, Barnabas was different. He may have started out malicious and Dark Shadow’s next twelve-weeks-worth-of-episode villain, it was in his turning into a creature of the night that his nuance truly comes from. Because his is  a story of tragedy and loss. He lambasts his eternal night and throughout the series, he seeks  a cure for his ‘nightly’ condition. In fact, several times he earns back his humanity...until the plot calls for him be at the throat of a Kathryn Leigh Scott character 

From the beginning, identity has always been a major theme for Dark Shadows. Originally the show focused on Victoria Winters, an orphan governess, trying to figure out who she really is. But Barnabas had much more of a personality than Vicki and the mantle of the series’ main character was swiftly given to him, cementing the themes of identity. Eventually, the concept of identity branched into an exploration of “being unhappy in one’s body and wanting to change it.” Which is indeed, as the kids say, a mood.

Barnabas does not want to be a vampire. He wants nothing more than to be human again. He wants to feel sunlight on his skin and enjoy a morning breeze. When Barnabas is cured, he has a sense of euphoria. He is, in his own words, himself again. In fact, his personality  shifts when he is human. He is no longer the vampire he was, but the man he has always been. His true self was never the blood sucking monster. And thanks to serums and deals with witches and some other time travel nonsense, he gets to be his authentic self once more. What is Barnabas’ cure but a human HRT shot? I kid…mostly. 

There are accidental instances. Doctor Julia Hoffman, played by the lovely Greyson Hall, was not always called Julia. When the character is first mentioned by Dr. Dave Woodard, he says the doctor’s name is Julian Hoffman and refers to them as ‘he’ several times. Obviously, this is a case of “originally we perceived this character as a man and then we did not cast a man so we changed the character’s name and hope no one noticed by the time she appears in a few weeks. Hopefully no one invents something called a DVD or a VHS so it can be spotted and talked about nearly sixty years later.” Wildly specific, but still. It isn’t hard to imagine the character of Julia to perhaps be a trans woman and Dave Woodard, knowing her pre-transition is accidentally dead naming her. Should it count as representation? Maybe, maybe not. But you can pry trans Julia from my cold dead hands. I’ll take unintentional representation from my 1960s soap.

Adam, the Frankenstein of Dark Shadows, is also another example of the transgender experience. Originally built to just be a body for Barnabas’ consciousness to jump into to continue to be human (long…long story that I am most certainly over simplifying), Adam developed a mind of his own. He stumbles through this new, fresh life unsure of everything and has to be taught how to speak, how to read, and what love is. But being made of the bits and scraps of body parts means he’s got many scars lining his face and body. And those scars make him fearsome. 

Though there are many factors at play, Adam blames his “hideous” physical condition on why so much goes wrong for him; romantic rejections, shunning from society, lack of friends. He just wants to be fixed, to present himself as un-scarred so the world will no longer reject him. If he no longer looks like how he does he will no longer be what people perceive him as.  While Adam does a lot of other things beyond just having a scarred body that makes him a supposed threat to the other characters of Dark Shadows, the body dysmorphia he displays is undeniable. 

In fact, when Professor Eliot Stokes, the very man who helped teach him about the world and what being a man is, offers to have a plastic surgeon pal of his  get rid of Adam’s scars, he’s eager for it. Having surgery to affirm one’s authentic self on an exterior level is something some transgender individuals choose to do and often plan for. Adam’s story ends with him being told to hide in a closet (the irony is too much I swear) and vanishing into the plot hole ether, but the dysmorphia he experiences hits very, very close to home. How you look shouldn’t be the end all be all for how someone identifies you and wanting to change your physical appearance to reaffirm your true and authentic self is something the trans community knows all too well. 

And of course there is Jeb Hawkes. Jeb is the result of a complicated plot involving leviathans (yes, those kinds of leviathans) cults, Armageddon and Faustian interference. He is supposed to be a sort of antichrist; the beginning of a new race of eldritch beings. But overtime Jeb’s feelings change and he wants  to be human while everyone else wants him to be what he was ‘born’ as.   He was assigned “elder god” at birth. He says he’s human. He knows he’s human. He wants to be human. And the rest of the characters shut him down. Often. It’s kind of upsetting to see, especially when it’s obvious how much happier Jeb is in his human form.. It’s an unfortunately familiar and all too frequent tune for gender non-conforming individuals. People refuse to acknowledge who you are because of their notions of who you are ‘supposed’ to be. What you’ll always be to them because that’s the gender you were assigned at birth.

Maybe I find the struggle of being unhappy in one’s body too familiar. Not everyone’s dysphoria and dysmorphia is the same, of course. But when I see Barnabas struggling between the man he really is and the vampire he was forced to become; when I watch Jeb declare his humanity to others only to be told he can only be eldritch horror they want him to be; when I watch Adam being told he can’t pass for anything other than a monstrous due to his physical appearance, I see my own struggle. I see the struggle of so many trans and gender non-conforming people. It’s got the melody of supernatural nonsense, but it is still a familiar tune I know the words to. 

Who I am--really, the person I know I am--may not be what others see me as is. It may not be what they want to perceive me as. And everything I do from stating my pronouns to wearing a binder to how I dress is me trying to change that. It isn’t exactly anti-vampire serum or running away from a cult or but hey I guess it’s close enough. 

I find a lot of comfort in Dark Shadows because it is such a deeply human story about inhuman people. There is so much one can connect to and draw upon personally from these characters that you can’t not see yourself reflected in them sometimes: even if they are werewolves or Cthulhu or a ghost. Wanting your body to reflect your authentic-self is something so many trans people go through and seeing it reflected through these characters can be just so validating. 

Also, every single one of them is gender envy. Including the skeletons. I said what I said. Gender envy has never been more powerful than when Michael Stroka donned five layers of eyeliner and a cape. 

Dark Shadows has always held a special place in the hearts of many an LGBTQ+ fan. Queerness has always been deep within the stitches of the show, as present as any of the orchestral music sting or shadow of a boom mic on the walls. But it is the T part that struck a chord with me deeply. Hopefully you can look at certain parts of the show in a new light now. Intentional or not, this soap opera found a way to speak deeply to transgender identity and experiences. And for all it’s flaws and camp, I love it all the more for it.   

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