[Pride 2022] In the Flesh -- The Gay Zombie Show You May Have Missed

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Queer television is having a lucky streak between the nearly back-to-back reveals from the latest season of What We Do in the Shadows and HBO's new offering, Our Flag Means Death. In light of the joyous reactions to OFMD and its dedication to representations, humor, camp, and following through with queer love, I thought I'd take us about 10 years and line up another show for anyone who is looking for more content like this - a pairing like chocolate and wine; impactful, emotional gay TV and more impactful, emotional gay TV. 

My name’s Cecilia, and I’m a horror scholar. I run an independent horror analysis operation and literary journal, and as a queer viewer and writer, I’m often hoping to see a fragment of my own lived experience in the media I consume. Sitting down to watch Our Flag Means Death was slightly off my flight path as 95% of my viewing is something spooky, but I had heard wonderful things about it from the community and I trust Taika, so I binged it in three sittings and had to take a few days to process. There were a few things I really loved about it that stood out to me, but when I was describing it to other people, I found myself shying away from its strongest points, such as trauma, identity, and masculinity.

“It’s fun,” I’d say, or “It’s cute.” 

Fun and cute scrape the surface but not its heart. The show is what could be described as a “romp” and is often silly and over the top, but also posits very serious, deep grievances - the two main characters dance a tenuous pairing of different masculine identities at odds with one another, grapple with the bravery required to be truly authentic to themselves, and both appear to take on their individual dreams in ways that defy the expectations of others around them at great risk to themselves.

Blackbeard and Bonnet are both in the midst of becoming; changing their realities to fit their new needs, and some of that includes sexuality and relationships. On top of being honest about identity, change, and seeking authenticity, the show also pulls no queerbaiting - which has earned it much deserved recognition. Most of the relationships, both those shyly beginning to bloom and those quite in swing are between characters of the same gender. There is joy, love, hope, and genuine flirtations abound, almost seeming in defiance of the “are-they-aren’t-they bromance” trope audiences are tempered with whenever two masculine leads have a bond. 

Many popular shows (weirdly, several in the horror/spooky adjacent genre) have long-running fanbases who have spent years begging for representation and ended up starved for careful, kind, and genuine queer characters presented to us without ambiguity or fan petitions involved. There is no need to write queerness into OFMD via fanfiction, and for many viewers, that’s almost a shock and a breath of relief - could this level of earnest writing really happen in canon? I think I took a few days to process what I had watched because for a moment, it didn’t hit me - almost as if I was in shock that LGBTQ+ identities, affection, and dignity had been handed to me on a platter with no jokes, little (it’s still a show about pirates) violence, and no deception attached - almost the same way cis/straight relationships are written. 

The second key reason this show struck me so immediately is its portrayal of masculinities, to which each character lands on a very different point on the spectrum. Some of the masculine characters are gruff, aggressive, demanding, and thoughtlessly sadistic for their own gain; others are thoughtful, interested in growth, learning, expression, and art. These “softer” characters are not made fun of for the viewers’ sake, but only mocked to flip the joke back on the speaker: the show is clear in that there nothing less important about these types of personalities, and the only inherently behavior here is mocking others for their genuine expressions of self. The one sliver of homophobia by another character is immediately laughed off by the subject because almost the entire ship is similarly queer; the bigotry fizzles and dies with no sparks to keep it alight, and the character is clowned for being an asshole. The show is also clear on mental health as something to maintain, appreciate, and work with in varying ways over time, with the pirates “talking it through as a crew” to address issues and their captain encouraging expression over violence. 

In loving these representations and the way these characters were so loudly and authentically themselves, I was reminded of another show that had rocked me to my core for similar reasons, but at the time flew under the radar. For viewers who enjoyed OFMD and find it important viewing, let me deliver to you a short, two-season gut punch of a show called In The Flesh. 

In The Flesh was a 2013 horror-drama that followed the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in the UK. The government has designed a rehabilitation program and a cocktail of drugs that can return a zombie - sensitively called a Post Deceased Syndrome Sufferer- mostly to their prior self, granted that they are medicated appropriately and complete the rehabilitation program to prepare them for returning to their prior lives. The show follows a soft-spoken, gentle man named Kieran as he completes his PDS program and returns to his quiet suburban neighborhood to live with his parents so that they can oversee his progress.

Kieran is queer, mentally ill, and now overtly coded as Other in a claustrophobic and conservative small town- all identities that people around him, including his family, use as reason to suspect him. The show deals with themes of bigotry, authenticity, identity, and especially, mental health and masculinity in a way that is heartfelt, gut wrenching, gorgeous, and charming. The queerness in In The Flesh is less thoroughly explored and diverse than in Our Flag Means Death, but in part because it is very much still in the closet - the “becoming” aspect is still unfolding here, as Kieran searches for mental and physical safety in a world that would prefer to keep him in the closet - or in the ground. It is honest in its timidness, as often in real life, many people are not in a position to leap straight into their bravest identities. Like we see in OFMD, characters are questioning themselves and measuring their lives in relation to the people around them; like many of us in this capital hellscape, asking, should I be doing this? Do I belong here? What part of this life do I deserve, and what do I owe the people I’ve hurt? Is it safe, or even good, to be myself? 

Similar to Our Flag Means Death, In the Flesh has no queerbaiting, with several character relationships coming to fruition on screen; while much more serious in tone, it is still charming at every turn, and both shows emphasize the long lasting consequences of violence on mental health. Both take a campy premise (zombies! Pirates!) and then proceed to grapple with the real effects of those tropes on human life - what does it feel like to take a human life, whether on purpose (as a pirate) or accidentally (as a zombie)? How does one move past and navigate guilt while still being an objectively good person, especially if the threat of violence is always lingering? 

It is extraordinarily refreshing to watch a show that affords all of its diverse characters the dignity to explore, grow, and be authentic. Watching In The Flesh changed me as a writer in ways that I’ll carry throughout my whole life, and it changed my standards of what I wanted to see on TV - just as Our Flag Means Death has no doubt done for many viewers. Its brave writing and representations situate it firmly as a must-watch for anyone interested in LGBTQ+ genre keystones, and my gratitude cannot be overstated for having witnessed both these pieces of media; it is the least I can to to pass my appreciation on to the next generation of viewers seeking a vision of themselves. 

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