[Pride 2022] Comfort in the Grotesque: A Queer Take on Body Horror

As a trans person, I’d say I spend a great deal of time thinking about the physical. My own body, how it compares to the rest of the world, the physical world in general. Right now especially, it seems that everyone has an opinion on trans bodies, whether coming from a negative or positive standpoint. No matter what you read, there’s an idea ingrained in us of how our bodies should be. Some are seen as ‘correct’ and are praised, others are seen as ‘wrong’ and are marked as grotesque or gross. This is something that, as a gender-nonconforming person, is all too easy to internalise. The idea that there is a right and a wrong way for your body to be.

From what I see online, there is this contradiction between two ways that queer (especially trans) people are expected to be viewed. They’re either completely oversexualised, or completely sterilised. On one hand you have those who see trans people simply as a porn category, then on the other hand you have those infantilizing trans people to a degree where they are unable to express their sexuality at all. In both cases the issue stems from our bodies being seen as a commodity that the general population believes they have an opinion and control over. Even if you can consciously recognise this belief as incorrect, at least for me, it’s always sitting at the back of your head. There's always this idea, no matter what you watch, that our bodies must be perfect. They must fit into the neat and tidy standards and ideals of the general hetero and cisnormative society. It’s my opinion that we need to subvert these expectations wherever possible, to make people uncomfortable again. This is where body horror comes in.

Body horror as a genre is almost completely about subverting expectations. It strips away any preconceived notions about the human body, being seen only as what it is. What we see on our screen is taking the horror that many people face towards themselves anyway and pushing it to the extreme. It is the feeling of dread you might get when looking at yourself in its most pure form. A worst case scenario situation. 

My infatuation with body horror began with The Thing, and this film was a lot of people’s gateway into the genre. I remember being completely transfixed, watching as much behind the scenes footage of those special effects as I could find. This strange fascination was what sparked my love of films, especially horror, in the first place. Before I even had a name for what I was watching, I loved body horror. Re-Animator, Hellraiser, Videodrome. All these immediately demand your attention with graphic depictions of contorted human bodies and gore. If nothing else, body horror appeals to the morbid curiosity inside all of us. Even those who aren’t a fan of the genre can’t look away. But this was the kind of film that always kept me coming back, only recently I decided to dig deeper and find out why this genre in particular has this effect.

The overarching feeling throughout the genre is simply that bodies are something from which fear and disgust are derived. There’s no sugar-coating of this concept, as previously stated these films aim to show us an absolute worst case. They also, however, show us that bodies are nothing more than exactly that, they aren’t perfect. The human body is gross. So why should we have to hide that on screen? Body horror stands in perfect opposition to the perfect ideals usually presented in modern day blockbusters. Where you would normally see camera-ready actors and actresses that fit the beauty standard to a tee, you now have these same bodies being transfigured and destroyed right in front of you. There’s no room for hypersexualisation for the sake of the average viewer and there’s certainly no sterilisation either. No detail gets spared, and that’s something that I think is missing from a lot of modern day media. We shouldn’t need to sugar coat the — in the case of body horror — very, gory details in order to appeal to the general public.

Even beyond this, more than the gross-out factor, there’s an idea of bodies never being in a fixed state. The way the human form in body horror movies is presented is ever shifting with limitless possibilities. There is no set form that bodies take. Again this idea is taken to the utmost extreme, with bodies literally melting and transmogrifying the way that they do, but the overall concept stands. Bodies are fluid, not fixed, and again this shouldn’t be something that we should have to hide. Not just as a trans person but as a person in general, the idea of bodies not having one solid state is something to take into consideration. 

There’s a strange sense of comfort in seeing the human body be pushed to its limits in such a graphic way. By seeing the most extreme circumstance the actual reality pales in comparison in terms of its horror. It makes the everyday body horror we all experience at times feel more bearable, normal even. This, to me, is the beauty of the genre and of horror itself. That sense of catharsis that makes average experiences that much more average.

Overall, the message I mean to get across to any queer creators who may have fallen into the trap of writing to be perfect, don’t be afraid to push the limits. Some people might say that this is a genre that is past its prime, that peaked with the classic 80’s hits, but I disagree. This is a genre that inspires pushing a story and its characters to their absolute limits, that fully allows and even encourages imperfection in its cast and characters. We can all learn from body horror to not be afraid to show bodies for what they are, without a need for sexualisation, without a need for sterilisation. Without a need to be perfect.