Jun 23

Jun 23 [Pride 2022] Horror and the Power of Queer Pride

dreadful, Gayly, Gayly dreadful, Gayly Helpful, LGBTQ, Movies, Pride 2022

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Queer. That is now a word, a label, an identifier that I revel in. Thanks to the wonderful surge of inclusion of all queers within horror, I have become an ultimate appreciator of that identifier. I will proudly tell someone that I am queer. That I am nonbinary. It hasn’t always been that way.

Like nearly every queer who hit adolescence in the late 90s, I’ve had the fair share of derogatory terms thrown at me. In 1996, sixth grade me was consistently called “queer” by my classmates. From those classmates, it was a term that was used with hate. Queer, along with faggot, was thrown my way on a daily basis. As an eleven year old who came from a southern baptist background, who went to church every Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday night, that term was never brought to my attention.

Granted, I knew that I had an attraction to the same sex. I knew that I didn’t fit the mold of the southern Christian gay, young male. I’d just never heard myself termed as queer. Thanks to those close minded little twits in South Carolina, I grew to refer to queer as a negative identifier. From day one that I was called queer, I lost friends. I became the outsider. To me, being called queer at eleven years old equated to negativity. There were additional outliers that applied to that: being sent to a Christian school, growing up in a Christian household, constantly hearing in school and in church that being gay or queer would lead my soul to hell, etc.

Coinciding with this time, I was just beginning to learn my appreciation for the horror genre. At that time, I was being instructed on horror via USA Up All Night and the many films being shown on the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy), USA, TBS, and my local video rental store, Finklea’s (R.I.P. thanks to Hollywood Video which also R.I.P because streaming). Throughout this viewings on this platforms, I slowly began to realize that being queer didn’t have to necessarily be a negative way of life.

It all began with 1998’s Bride of Chucky. It was with this film that I first saw a queer person incorporated into the genre that I was growing to love. That character was David (Gordon Michael Woolvett). David was the best friend of the film’s main protagonist, Jade (Katherine Heigl). He was supportive of Jade. Jade appreciated him for who he was, as did Jade’s love interest, Jesse (Nick Stabile). It was the first time in my life that I’d seen a queer person treated as an equal. Granted, David ended up a victim of Chucky (Brad Dourif) and Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly). Yet, he was an existing person who liked the same sex, and played a part in the storyline. He was the best friend to the femme main character which I - at that time - always felt like since the majority of my few friends were girls. I will always thank Don Mancini for that.

While one queer character helped me further my discovery of myself, it wasn’t enough. I still equated “queer” with negativity as I was continuously called this in a negative manner throughout high school. Yet, it was within high school that additional queer characters within the horror world would surface, and assist in me accepting who I was.

One of TV’s first and most respectable queer couples would catapult me to a further acceptance of myself. This came in the form of Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003). Season 4 four of Buffy aired during the middle of high school for me. Seeing a well represented queer couple on screen during a time when I was negatively impacted by the word, “queer,” was a entirely new revelation. Granted, queer wasn’t used to describe them within the series. Given the time of season four’s airing (1999-2000), queer wasn’t even a universally used term. But knowing that a relationship between two women was being shown respectfully was a stepping stone. Their relationship would continue to flourish. In the next season, they shared a kiss that wasn’t exploitative. It was due to emotion from the death of a loved one, and was used as a consoling moment. How refreshing - yet emotional - was that for 16 year old me? Especially since, at that age, I was experiencing my own first emotional feelings for someone of the same sex.

I had my first boyfriend at the age of 16. Knowing that a same sex relationship was being shown to me on my favorite TV show aided me in accepting myself and my boyfriend, at that time. Not that I was attempting to mirror the relationship that Willow and Tara had, but because I was seeing that the type of sexuality that I was told throughout my entire life was of sin, fire, and damnation could actually be healthy, emotional, and free. I genuinely credit Willow and Tara’s relationship with the beginnings of my acceptance of myself. While Joss Whedon is an absolute ass, I know that there are more creative talents behind Buffy than him, and I think they played a huge part in the queer aspects of Buffy.

Fast forward through my queer discovery, my queer experience, and my queer life in which I further evolved and experienced, loved and dismayed, grew and appreciated, and horror really took a toll on my acceptance of the word, queer. I actually have Terry and Gayly Dreadful to thank for that. My first queer article that I wrote for the interwebs was for the very first Gayly Helpful. It was back in 2019. Terry put out a call for articles for the first year of this event, and I sent in my pitch. It was about how Alice Johnson of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master represented the queer that I saw within myself. Not because Alice was queer, but her journey throughout the film was exactly how I viewed my journey throughout my sexuality. It was with that inaugural Gayly Helpful that I began to experience the true queer world of horror.

It was within that that I began to fully delve into how horror was and had always been queer. And so many doors opened to me for films of yesteryear that I never knew had impacted me being queer: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1982), Night of the Creeps (1986), Ginger Snaps (2000), Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), and more. After that article that was written for the first Gayly Helpful, the queer in horror shone bright to me. I began writing queer horror for other outlets. I began delving into films that I never even considered queer, and found queer aspects that aided me in my acceptance of the word queer.

It was also within 2019 that queer horror really began to boom. As I’ve said, and as we know, horror has always been queer, but horror has become so very wonderfully queer in the past couple of years. With something that I’ve always loved embracing queer culture, the word queer no longer affects me. In fact, it empowers me. The horror community’s embracing of the queer world has empowered me as well as many others. With films like Freaky (2020), Good Manners (2017), Knife + Heart (2018), Rift (2017), and countless others that have been released in the last 5 years, and the many films that coming up, horror has embraced its queerness.

This has led to me accepted that I am absolute, downright, 100% queer. This had led to me stomping my foot, clapping my hands, and appreciating that I am queer. I am proud to be a nonbinary, queer individual ingesting and digesting all of the queer horror that we are being fed. Queer writers, queer directors, queer performers, queer designers, queer musicians … all of these aspects of horror are being shown and celebrated within projects. As a 37 year old, I am jealous of the inclusion that the genre is experiencing, right now. I wish we’d had this amount of queer celebration in the genre that 20 years ago. But I’m so grateful and excited that we are experiencing it now. It matters. It helps. And if it can aid someone who didn’t accept the queerness of it all until later in life, imagine what it will do for someone who’s just stepping into their acceptance of the self, of the queer self. Thank you, horror.