August was a very exciting month for Horror Press’s Abigail Waldron because her book finally hit the shelves after years of research, writing, and peer review! I got a sneak peek of Abigail’s book, Queer Screams: A History of LGBTQ+ Survival Through the Lens of American Horror Cinema, and got to talk to her upon the book’s release.
Horror Press: Tell me a little bit about your book and the research that you did.
Abigail Waldron: I started working on the book back in 2018. It was part of my Master’s thesis, but I started expanding it to be a full manuscript after some encouragement from my advisors. It focuses on the relationship between social attitudes toward queer people throughout the 20th century, and queer representations in horror films in their corresponding eras and decades. I’ve always thought that horror films were mirrors – reflections of what we fear most in society at a certain time – and for a lot of America during the rise of cinema, it was the fear of the queer. For example, the connection between the dozens of vampire films in the 1980s and the AIDS crisis. You have blood, contagion, and sexuality. Vampires seduce regardless of gender, so they’re very queer-coded. We can understand queer horror better if we know the history of the American queer experience. While there have always been negative portrayals of queer people in horror, a lot of positives can be found in the genre, and better yet reclaimed. Once we think critically about these films, we as queer people can find moments of catharsis.
HP: How did you originally get into horror?
AW: Good parenting! Although my parents were cautious when I was a kid, I was always into the creepy and the weird, and they were very open to that. My sister and I watched scary movies, even the rated R ones, which my parents allowed. They explained some things or asked us to cover our ears, but overall they were very open about it. Blockbuster trips always consisted of a new release and a horror movie. I also was both excited and terrified by horror. I was extremely afraid of the dark, and I always imagined the little girl from The Ring in the corner of my room. I had to sleep with a nightlight, yet I was always interested in horror. These little things just added up, and in grad school, I knew I wanted to do something I was passionate about. And I knew I was passionate about film, horror, and queer history, so I combined all those into one, so very much of myself is in this book. It wouldn’t be possible if I weren’t a horror-obsessed queer kid.
HP: Why do you think queer people are so drawn to horror?
AW: Historically, horror cinema focuses on the outcasts of society: the weirdos, the misfits. As a queer person, I’ve always felt like a misfit or an other, and I know many other queer people have felt like that. We have been categorized as others and weirdos for centuries, so in that respect we can find ourselves in the horror among the misunderstood monsters, the oppressed final girls that get their revenge at the end, and the queer-coded anti-heroes like Carrie. Yes, she kills a lot of people, but she was bullied. As someone who was bullied as a kid, especially for my sexuality (I didn’t even know I was queer at the time and was called a dyke), I loved those stories. No, I wouldn’t murder people, but it feels nice to see this oppressed queer-coded person have their revenge. It’s pretty cathartic to see these oppressed people victorious on screen. I think queer people are drawn to horror because 1. They see themselves, and 2. They see themselves victorious a lot of the time. When you look at universal horror, you remember the monsters, and they’re very queer-coded.
HP: What’s your favorite horror movie?
AW: So I used to say Jaws. I used to watch it every year on the 4th of July. It’s sort of my patriotism, if you will. The one gripe I have with Jaws is that while it does pass the Bechdel Test, it’s hetero, white, and male-centric. While I return to Jaws every 4th of July, I find myself more in the mood to watch Rosemary’s Baby, The Blair Witch Project, and Freaks. Those are the ones that I’ve been gravitating towards lately. I wouldn’t say I have a favorite horror film, but those are definitely at the top.
HP: When I was reading your excerpt, I was struck by what you said about viewers perceiving fictional characters the way they do real people. Can you talk to me a little about that?
AW: Many people still have yet to meet an openly queer or trans person, whether they know it or not. Many of these people haven’t met a queer person because maybe they’re not the most friendly to come out to, or people are afraid to say anything around them. So for them, the only exposure they get to queer people is on screen. These people can take in the negative representations of queer people and grow to harbor discriminatory beliefs, or they’re even emboldened in their discriminatory beliefs. For example, in the documentary Disclosure, there’s a trans woman who came out to a coworker, and the coworker immediately responded, “Oh, like Buffalo Bill.” Buffalo Bill was an extremely problematic antagonist in Silence of the Lambs, and these portrayals are evocative, and so many people saw that movie, so they assume this is what a trans person is. This is what media tells them trans people are: violent and confused. These portrayals stick with people and paint trans people as mentally ill, unstable, and violent, and the fact is trans people have faced violence for decades. The issue is not trans people being violent, it’s violence towards trans people because of the equation of violence with being transgender. Look at the bathroom bills, and all these legislative battles, and abuse and stereotypes, and a lot of it stems from portrayals like Buffalo Bill. It’s sad because I love that movie, and so do so many other people. It’s unfortunate because for many people, it could be their only interaction with what they see as a trans person.
HP: Your book is incredibly relevant right now with all of the anti-trans legislature that is trying to be passed.
AW: I used the study from Haley E. Solomon and Beth Kurtz-Costes, where they looked at audiences who watched evocative portrayals of trans narratives or imageries of violence. The study showed that audiences take in these images, especially if it’s their only interaction with a trans person. It causes a lot of damage to both transgender and cisgender people because it’s effectively brainwashing these people. I know, for example, Angela Baker from Sleepaway Camp has a narrative in later movies that allows her to be reclaimed – she targets bigots and racists – but I don’t think anyone is going to reclaim Buffalo Bill.
HP: As much as I love that movie, I don’t think we want him.
HP: Do you have a favorite genre of horror films?
AW: I keep going back to bad movies. Is bad horror a genre? I was going through my Letterboxd, thinking, “You know what, I would love to watch some 80s trash”. So I went through the lowest-rated horror movies from the 80s because they’re just fun, and you can watch them with people who don’t even like horror. You can laugh at them, they facilitate conversation, and they’re usually a treat visually with practical effects or even really shitty CGI. So I think trash horror is my favorite subgenre.
HP: When we critique horror films, it can make other fans see us as killjoys, but we still love those movies. What can you say to that?
AW: I think I’m biased because I’m a historian. For me, critique is fun. I love diving into something. It gives you an opportunity for introspection. Because you think, “Why do I like this piece of media? What does this tell me about myself? What does that tell me about the world?” For me, that’s fun, asking those questions. While watching a film for pure enjoyment is an experience, when we critique – at least for me – I feel more connected to the world around me and the history of the world around me. Yeah, we can be killjoys, but if that’s the way you feel, don’t read critique – watch the movies and enjoy them because that’s great too. Once I was done with the book, I realized I could just watch movies and not have to keep an ear out for any gay slurs or keep my eye out for queer signifiers. Now I can just watch them. For me, at least as a historian, critique is fun. I don’t know if that makes me a killjoy or not, but it definitely makes me lame.
HP: In your book, you mention Transgender History by Susan Stryker. What did you think of that book, and do you have any other queer book recommendations?
AW: That was a great resource because within queer studies for the past 50 years, there’s been a focus on discussions of drag and queer sexuality but not gender. So I liked that book for its historical analysis of trans experiences in certain time periods. The other book I would recommend is Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Carol J. Clover, the author, basically states that final girls, in their essence, are very nonbinary. They go against the mold of cookie-cutter female protagonists during that time. For example, Nancy from A Nightmare on Elm Street is very much a girl next door and very sweet, but because she’s a final girl, she’s not focused on having sex. She spurns her boyfriend’s advances all the time. She’s concerned with her friends and this man who haunts her dreams. She has no time for sex. Carol J. Clover dives into the idea of the final girl transcending the binary in that she is very androgynous in her actions. They’re not passive, which goes against the traditional gender idea of women as passive and emotional. And that’s not the case for final girls: they’re going to fuck you up! I think eventually, the term final girl is going to become an umbrella term. Jesse from A Nightmare on Elm Street II is a final boy who became a scream queen. That’s what they called him back in the day, and Mark Patton, the actor, has taken on that label as a symbol of pride in being the final boy, and being an inspiration for many gay kids. I think many queer people can see themselves as the final girl because she is so androgynous and breaks these traditional roles.
The other texts I would look into are The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo, which was a huge resource for me in writing this book, and Monsters in the Closet by Harry M. Benshoff. The Celluloid Closet isn’t as focused on horror, but Russo does discuss some horror movies. Monsters in the Closet dives into the history of horror movies.
The roots of horror are very queer because a lot of those vaudeville actors, who dressed in drag, and performed gender-bending on stage, went into horror. Case and point, James Whale, the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, and his friend Ernest Thesiger, who was in Bride of Frankenstein, both originally came from vaudeville. Vaudeville is incredibly queer, so you have these queer roots of horror. Unfortunately, when the Hays Code kicked in, the party was over for a while, but until it did, there was a lot of that vaudeville influence.
HP: That’s an interesting connection, and certainly when I think of vaudeville, I think of camp.
AW: Right, it’s very campy. The Bride of Frankenstein is very campy, and it’s supposed to be! It’s an ode to that vaudeville mentality, and they were able to slip it in before the Hays Code. The Bride of Frankenstein was kind of the last hurrah.
HP: Can you tell me a little more about the Hays Code and how it affected the history of queer horror cinema?
AW: Before the Hays Code, the world of Vaudeville and theater was incredibly queer and seeped its way into motion pictures of this time. Because of the gender-bending that they were putting on screen, it scared the establishment and conservative audiences who detested “perversion” and saw it as a threat to traditional American values. The Hays Code, which was the production code, was established in March of 1930 by Will H. Hays and demanded that “all films should not imply that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing.” They thought that if you show these things on screen that kids would think it was normal, which it should have been. When the code talks about “low forms of sex relationships,” it implied adultery, premarital sex, and explicitly said “sexual perversion” was to be forbidden. The Catholic church was brought in to help set these guidelines for film. It insinuated that homosexuality was sin, and it was a big issue to be monitored closely. As people will see in my book, there’s an extensive list of 1930s queer-coded horror movies, but once you get into the 40s, 50s, and even 60s, there aren’t many. Because of the Hays Code, writers and artists in film had to get more creative. They had to figure out ways to display queers on screen without being explicit. Luckily for us, we were very crafty, and were able to sneak in a bunch of stuff. Vito Russo called it gay sensibility. If you had gay sensibility, you’d be able to spot these ques.
HP: Do you think that has continued into current times?
AW: To an extent. I think it’s definitely gotten way more open. I think of the movie They/Them; regardless of what you think of the film, it’s a huge step considering that in the mid-2000s, films were still pretty coded, or gay was used as a slur. But to have a movie like They/Them exist from a major studio is huge. I think some television shows and movies still skirt around queerness, and they don’t say it outright. We saw that in our faces in Stranger Things. It was extremely coded, and I just wanted them to say it. I get it: the show is set in the 80s, and Will’s character was probably scared, but if you’re telling these stories, and you want to make queer viewers, especially young queer fans, comfortable, just say it!
HP: Can you tell me a little about what queer representation looks like in movies today?
AW: Horror scholarship, while it’s fabulous, and I can’t thank Harry Benshoff enough for writing Monsters in the Closet, that was in 1997. So we have all this other scholarship from the past two decades. It’s moving towards, how I phrase it, revenge through representation. Movies are reacting to the Trump era. You have films like the Fear Street trilogy, and The Perfection. In these movies, you have openly queer protagonists battling homophobes, pedophiles, racists, and sexists. They’re fighting all these groups that were emboldened and fueled by the far right and the Trump administration. The horror genre these days is very angry. It has a very fuck you attitude that I’m very pleased about.
Queer Screams is available now on McFarland Books and Amazon.
