Editorials
Where is Tituba? Examining Contemporary Historical Erasure of Race in the Salem Witch Trials
The Halloween season is upon us. Scores of people will soon head to the capital of witchery, eager to take a historical tour of sites and memorials. While most Salem tours are historically accurate and informative, they, and the museums, tend to overlook the significance of race and slavery in 17th-century Salem. According to the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, Salem’s early economic prosperity, being an active port, “was tied to the slave culture of the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries. As early as 1638, the first enslaved Africans were brought into the Massachusetts Bay Colony […] Slaves worked as servants and skilled labor in the homes and businesses of Salem until the late 1700s.” They explain that most wealthy households in Salem at the time, including the tourist attraction The House of the Seven Gables, housed enslaved people. The townspeople’s initial scapegoat for alleged witchcraft in Salem was Tituba, a black and indigenous enslaved woman. For historians, this fact is not new. However, it is imperative for people planning a trip to Salem to know this overlooked yet incredibly important piece of the Salem story, one we have a responsibility to think about critically when we enter Witch City.
Since early American history has been recorded mainly by white men, the story of Tituba from those who knew her is practically nonexistent. Historians have scoured town and family records for bits and pieces of Tituba’s life experiences beyond being a catalyst for the Trials. Author Elaine G. Breslaw took it upon herself to dig up Tituba’s origins: Tituba was purchased and enslaved at an unknown age by Samuel Parris, along with her future husband John Indian, while he was visiting a sugar plantation in the Caribbean Island of Barbados that he inherited from his father. He was known to be “rough” with the people he enslaved. Author Diane E. Foulds explains in Death in Salem: The Private Lives behind the 1692 Witch Hunt (2013) that Tituba and John endured whippings “if found idle.” Tituba lived with the Parris family during the time when girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter and niece, started acting erratic, blaming Tituba and her “magic” for their hysterics.
The Myth of Tituba and Fortune-Telling in Puritan Salem
Throughout the retelling of the Trials, mythic stories formed about Tituba allegedly being instrumental in teaching the young girls of Salem, including Parris’ daughter Betty and niece Abigail, fortune-telling games that led them, in their boredom, to conjure up stories of being bewitched, throw violent fits, and speak in tongues. Initially, all fingers pointed to Tituba for the sake of blaming an outsider whose culture did not align with their own God-fearing Puritan way of life. However, historians have illuminated that Puritans were less averse to perceived-Pagan spiritual practices as legend would have it. Puritan spiritual and fortune-telling activities were, for the most part, widely accepted by Puritan culture, as well as abroad in both the Caribbean and Europe. Salem presented for the first time in America a cultural diffusion of magic. For Salem, the practice used that was in direct relation to the Trials themselves was a fortune-telling game. The shape of an egg white dropped into a glass of water would allegedly reveal your future. When Betty and Abigail played this game, their egg white took the shape of a coffin which spurred their bizarre behavior.
There is no concrete evidence of Tituba partaking in this fortune-telling game with the girls, nor any supporting evidence that she taught them this game. However, Tituba would not be opposed to the game. Breslaw elaborates: “She most certainly accepted the usefulness of such practices because, like most seventeenth-century people, she believed that human action could influence the spiritual realm […] The magical fortune-telling practices were not unusual in Puritan communities […] None of these techniques… was exclusive to English folklore […] The egg as a part of divining and curing ceremonies has an even more ancient history. As different cultures met in the New World, similarities of form or function would permit an easy borrowing of magical techniques by one group from another.” Thus, it was not the presence of spirituality that fed into townspeople’s paranoia, but rather the possibility of dark magic bewitching the young white girls of Salem, a magic supposedly conjured by black and indigenous people.
Tituba as a Scapegoat
The girls of Salem, fainting, sputtering bizarre phrases, contorting their bodies as if possessed, were first to blame Tituba. This must continually be stressed when discussing the Salem Witch Trials, for this is an early example of white people using BIPOC as scapegoats in American society. Puritans associated dark skin with evil and viewed Native Americans as such due to being non-Christian. In Maryse Condé’s historical fiction I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1996), written to examine Tituba’s life despite the lack of historical data, Tituba states: “she was convinced my color was indicative of my close connections with Satan. I was able to laugh it off, however, as the ramblings of a shrew embittered by solitude and approaching old age. In Salem, such a conviction was shared by all. […] “’You, do good? You’re a Negress, Tituba! You can only do evil. You are evil itself.’” BIPOC folks are still scapegoats in America today; I could even posit that this is one of the foundations of American culture, with links to one of the earliest white communities.
Tituba, after being accused by Betty Parris of witchcraft, eventually testified that yes, it was she who cast a spell on the young girls of Salem, though her admission was a well-thought-out tactic to avoid hanging. Tituba leveraged her testimonial position of being an “expert” in the subject of dark magic to stay alive. Breslaw evaluates Tituba’s testimony during the Trials by presenting the following facts: 1) Tituba was a stranger in a strange land, having to become accustomed to female Puritan life immediately after stepping off the ship from Barbados, 2) she used the Puritan mindset to her advantage during the Trials, in that, she saved herself by appeasing the Puritan idea that she was a witch based on her cultural background and her race, and 3) she used the Puritan fear of Native Americans, with whom several of the girls had past violent encounters, to “prove” her delving into witchcraft, since Puritans believed Native Americans to be involved with the occult. This saved Tituba from death, unlike many of the other alleged witches of Salem. Although Tituba “confessed,” she later recanted and spent thirteen months in prison due to Parris refusing to post her bail. An unknown person paid her bail, speculated to be an enslaved persons’ trader, and Tituba’s fate thereafter is unknown.
The Salem Witch Trials have been inspiring horror cinema for decades, with films such as The City of the Dead (1960), Lords of Salem (2013), and, most importantly, The VVITCH (2015). These films focus on white female trauma while Tituba is nowhere to be seen. Only in The Crucible (1999), with Charlayne Woodard as Tituba, do we see her involved in the narrative. The only horror movie that comes close to alluding to Tituba’s story is Fear Street 1666 (2021), where sexuality takes the place of race in blaming Sarah Fier for the sinister witchcraft befallen in the town.
Reassessing Salem’s Narrative: Balancing History and Tourism
Race and religion are pivotal in the historical discussion of the Salem Witch Trials. Salem’s town narrative, however, favors tourist-friendly history rather than a critical discussion of race in the 17th century. While Tituba is included in the town’s Wax Museum, her importance in the story of the Trials is largely glossed over to tell the stories of bewitched white girls and the subsequent white accused. Salem must find balance between accurate history and aesthetic tourism. Salem, Massachusetts is not in its own spooky little bubble: its history is rooted in the original thirteen colonies which enslaved human beings and used them shamelessly as targets of blame for wrong-doings and happenings. If we are in pursuit of honoring those who were wrongfully detained or murdered during the Salem Witch Trials, we have a responsibility to accurately remember the Trials as not only a wrongdoing by the zealot Puritan men and women of Salem, but as having severely harmed BIPOC lives, the legacy of which permeates current social and political discourse concerning race.
My first feature film, Death Drop Gorgeous, was often described as its own disturbed piece of queer cult cinema due to its over-the-top camp, practical special effects, and radical nature. As a film inspired by John Waters, we wore this descriptor as a badge of honor. Over the years, it has gained a small fanbase and occasionally pops up on lists of overlooked queer horror flicks around Pride month and Halloween.
The Streaming Era and the Myth of Monoculture
My co-director of our drag queen slasher sent me a status update, ostensibly to rile up the group chat. A former programmer of a major LGBTQ+ film festival (I swear, this detail is simply a coincidence and not an extension of my last article) declared that in our modern era, “cult classic” status is “untenable,” and that monoculture no longer exists. Thus, cult classics can no longer counter-culture the mono. The abundance of streaming services, he said, allows for specific curation to one’s tastes and the content they seek. He also asserted that media today that is designed to be a cult classic, feels soulless and vapid.
Shots fired!
Can Cult Cinema Exist Without Monoculture?
We had a lengthy discussion as collaborators about these points. Is there no monoculture to rally against? Are there no codes and standards to break and deviate from? Are there no transgressions left to undertake? Do streaming services fully encompass everyone’s tastes? Maybe I am biased. Maybe my debut feature is soulless and vapid!
I’ve been considering the landscape. True, there are so many options at our streaming fingertips, how could we experience a monoculture? But to think a cult classic only exists as counter-culture, or solely as a rally against the norm, is to have a narrow understanding of what cult cinema is and how it gains its status. The cult classic is not dead. It still rises from its grave and walks amongst the living.
What Defines a Cult Classic? And Who Cares About Cult Cinema?
The term “cult classic” generally refers to media – often movies, but sometimes television shows or books – that upon its debut, was unsuccessful or undervalued, but over time developed a devout fanbase that enjoys it, either ironically or sincerely. The media is often niche and low budget, and sometimes progressive for the cultural moment in which it was released.
Some well-known cult films include The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Showgirls (1995), Re-Animator (1985), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and my personal favorite, Heathers (1989). Quoting dialogue, midnight showings, and fans developing ritualistic traditions around the movie are often other ways films receive cult status (think The Rocky Horror Picture Show).
Cult Cinema as Queer Refuge and Rebellion
Celebration of cult classics has long been a way for cinephiles and casual viewers alike to push against the rigid standards of what film critics deem “cinema.” These films can be immoral, depraved, or simply entertaining in ways that counter mainstream conventions. Cult classics have often been significant for underrepresented communities seeking comfort or reflection. Endless amounts of explicitly queer cinema were lambasted by critics of their time. The Doom Generation (1995) by Gregg Araki and John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972) were both famously given zero stars by Roger Ebert. Now both can be viewed on the Criterion Channel, and both directors are considered pioneers of gay cinema.
Cult films are often low-budget, providing a sense of belonging for viewers, and are sometimes seen as guilty pleasures. Cult cinema was, and continues to be, particularly important for queer folks in finding community.
But can there be a new Waters or Araki in this current landscape?
What becomes clear when looking at these examples is that cult status rarely forms in a vacuum. It emerges from a combination of cultural neglect, community need, and the slow bloom of recognition. Even in their time, cult films thrived because they filled a void, often one left by mainstream films’ lack of imagination or refusal to engage marginalized perspectives. If anything, today’s fractured media landscape creates even more of those voids, and therefore more opportunities for unexpected or outsider works to grab hold of their own fiercely loyal audiences.
The Death of Monoculture and the Rise of Streaming
We do not all experience culture the same way. With the freedom of personalization and algorithmic curation, not just in film but in music and television, there are fewer shared mass cultural moments we all gather around to discuss. The ones that do occur (think Barbenheimer) may always pale in comparison to the cultural dominance of moments that occurred before the social media boom. We might never again experience the mass hysteria of, say, Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
For example, our most successful musician today is listened to primarily by her fanbase. We can skip her songs and avoid her albums even if they are suggested on our streaming platforms, no matter how many weeks she’s been at number one.
Was Monoculture Ever Real?
But did we ever experience culture the same? Some argue that the idea of monoculture is a myth. Steve Hayden writes:
“Our monoculture was an illusion created by a flawed, closed-circuit system; even though we ought to know better, we’re still buying into that illusion, because we sometimes feel overwhelmed by our choices and lack of consensus. We think back to the things we used to love, and how it seemed that the whole world, or at least people we knew personally, loved the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t better then, but it seemed simpler, and for now that’s good enough.”
The mainstream still exists. Cultural moments still occur that we cannot escape and cannot always understand the appreciation for. There are fads and trends we may not recognize now but will romanticize later, just as we do with trends from as recently as 2010. But I’d argue there never was monoculture in the same way America was never “great.” There was never a time we all watched the same things and sang Madonna songs around the campfire; there were simply fewer accessible avenues to explore other options.
Indie Film Distribution in the Age of Streaming
Additionally, music streaming is not the same as film streaming. As my filmmaking collective moves through self-distributing our second film, we have found it is increasingly difficult for indie, small-budget, and DIY filmmakers to get on major platforms. We are required to have an aggregator or a distribution company. I cannot simply throw Saint Drogo onto Netflix or even Shudder. Amazon Prime has recently made it impossible to self-distribute unless you were grandfathered in. Accessibility is still limited, particularly for those with grassroots and shoestring budgets, even with the abundance of services.
I don’t know that anyone ever deliberately intends on making a cult classic. Pink Flamingos was released in the middle of the Gay Liberation movement, starring Divine, an openly gay drag queen who famously says, “Condone first-degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth are my politics, filth is my life!”
All comedy is political. Of course, Waters was intentional with the depravity he filmed; it was a conscious response to the political climate of the time. So if responding to the current state of the world makes a cult classic, I think we can agree there is still plenty to protest.
There Is No Single Formula for Cult Cinema
Looking back at other cult classics, both recent and older, not all had the same intentional vehicle of crass humor and anarchy. Some didn’t know they would reach this status – a very “so bad, it’s good” result (i.e., Showgirls). And while cult classics naturally exist outside the mainstream, some very much intended to be in that stream first!
All of this is to say: there is no monolith for cult cinema. Some have deliberate, rebellious intentions. Some think they are creating high-concept art when in reality they’re making camp. But it takes time to recognize what will reach cult status. It’s not overnight, even if a film seems like it has the perfect recipe. Furthermore, there are still plenty of conventions to push back against; there are plenty of queer cinema conventions upheld by dogmatic LGBTQ+ film festivals.
Midnight Movies vs. Digital Fandom
What has changed is the way we consume media. The way we view a cult classic might not be solely relegated to midnight showings. Although, at my current place of employment, any time The Rocky Horror Picture Show screens, it’s consistently sold out. Nowadays, we may find that engagement with cult cinema and its fanbase digitally, on social media, rather than in indie cinemas. But if these sold-out screenings are any indication, people are not ready to give up the theater experience of being in a room with die-hard fans they find a kinship with.
In fact, digital fandom has begun creating its own equivalents to the midnight-movie ritual. Think of meme cycles that resurrect forgotten films, TikTok edits that reframe a scene as iconic, or Discord servers built entirely around niche subgenres. These forms of engagement might not involve rice bags and fishnets in a theater, but they mirror the same spirit of communal celebration, shared language, and collective inside jokes that defined cult communities of past decades. Furthermore, accessibility to a film does not diminish its cult status. You may be able to stream Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the comfort of your couch, but that doesn’t make it any less cult.
The Case for Bottoms
I think a recent film that will gain cult status in time is Bottoms. In fact, it was introduced to the audience at a screening I attended as “the new Heathers.” Its elements of absurdity, queer representation, and subversion are perfect examples of the spirit of cult cinema. And you will not tell me that Bottoms was soulless and vapid.
For queer communities, cult cinema has never been just entertainment; it has operated as a kind of cultural memory, a place to archive our identities, desires, rebellions, and inside jokes long before RuPaul made them her catchphrases repeated ad nauseam. These films became coded meeting grounds where queer viewers could see exaggerated, defiant, or transgressive versions of themselves reflected back, if not realistically, then at least recognizably. Even when the world outside refused to legitimize queer existence, cult films documented our sensibilities, our humor, our rage, and our resilience. In this way, cult cinema has served as both refuge and record, preserving parts of queer life that might otherwise have been erased or dismissed.
Cult Cinema Is Forever
While inspired by John Waters, with Death Drop Gorgeous, we didn’t intentionally seek the status of cult classic. We just had no money and wanted to make a horror movie with drag queens. As long as there continue to be DIY, low-budget, queer filmmakers shooting their movies without permits, the conventions of cinema will continue to be subverted.
As long as queer people need refuge through media, cult cinema will live on.
Most of my early happy memories are of being released by my mother, free to wander the video store. I was at my happiest roaming the aisles when it was my turn, but I always walked a little faster going through the horror section, as this was before my love affair with the genre started. There was one VHS cover that particularly scared me, so I always avoided making eye contact with the sinister face on the front of Child’s Play.
A Video Store Recommendation That Changed Everything
Many years later, as I would return to the video store on my own as a teen, I was on a mission to watch as many horror movies as possible. I was also a closeted queer teen harboring a massive crush on the girl who worked the counter, who happened to like horror, and I took any chance I could to talk to her. One night, feeling brave and definitely not overwhelmed by gay feelings, I worked up the courage to ask for her any recommendations.
“Hey! I have a three-day weekend coming up, and was wondering if you had any suggestions for some movies I can just dive into all weekend. Horror preferred.”
“Do you like slashers?”
“Love them! Michael, Jason, Freddie. The classics.”
“Well, and of course Chucky.”
“The talking doll?”
Her eyes widened, and she walked around from the counter, making me realize I had never seen her from the waist down before. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the horror section.
“Your homework for the weekend is to watch Child’s Play 1 through 5. The first three are great, but Bride of Chucky is really where it’s at. You’ll see what I mean when you get there. If you make it to Seed of Chucky, we’ll talk.”
With a wink, she left me to do my homework assignment, and of course, I wanted to be a good student, so I picked up the DVDs, grabbed some Whoppers and a popcorn, and went home to study.
Discovering the Child’s Play Franchise as a Queer Teen
Child’s Play was instantly a hit for me. Maybe it was my childhood fear of Chucky, or maybe it was Don Mancini’s anticapitalist take on a killer in the form of something much smaller and cuter than the hulking slashers I was accustomed to, but I had to see how they would bring back my new favorite guy. While I have love and affection for 2 and 3 (I later named my cat Kyle after Andy’s foster sister), I rushed my first watch because I wanted to get to Bride of Chucky to see exactly what Video Store Girl was talking about.
Bride of Chucky was like Dorothy going from sepia to full-spectrum color for me. Having seen Bound at a very formative time for me, Jennifer Tilly was worshipped as queer royalty in my heart. She was instantly magnetic as Tiffany Valentine. The sheer camp of it all, combined with the fact that it had one of the first gay characters I’ve ever seen that was just a “normal” gay person, captured my heart. I dreaded the death David would face for the horrible crime of being a gay man on screen, but to my surprise and delight, he wasn’t punished for it. He was dispatched in the same gruesome manner as any of Chucky and Tiffany’s other villains.
Seed of Chucky and the First Time I Felt Seen
I was excited to get to Seed of Chucky, both because by this point I had fallen in love with the franchise, but also because I wanted to do a good job and impress Video Store Girl. What I didn’t expect was to have my core shattered in a way that I couldn’t fully express until I was an adult. Seed of Chucky is about a doll, first named Shitface by a cruel ventriloquist, that realizes Chucky and Tiffany may be their parents. Throughout most of the movie, Chucky and Tiffany argue over the gender of their child, whom they named Glen/Glenda. The name itself is a reference to the classic Ed Wood movie about a character that we would now likely call genderfluid, who likes to wear men’s and women’s clothing. At the end of the film, it’s clear that for Glen/Glenda, they are two souls inhabiting one body.
“Sometimes I feel like a boy. Sometimes I feel like a girl. Can’t I be both?”
Those words felt like someone was skipping rocks across my heart. It felt like a secret I wasn’t supposed to know, but it was the answer to a question I had never thought to ask. Gender fluidity wasn’t something that was discussed in my conservative home of Orange County. Did Video Store Girl see something in me that I wasn’t hiding as well as I could be? I loved my weekend watching the Child’s Play franchise, but I asked my mom to return the movies for me, as I couldn’t face someone who had seen me so clearly just yet.
Rewatching Seed of Chucky as an Adult
Seed of Chucky, a script that had been rejected by Universal for being “too gay” came to me again as an adult upon rewatch. Where I had found questions, I could not find the answer to in Glen/Glenda, I found acceptance through an unlikely character: Chucky. It’s in Seed of Chucky that our main character, Chucky, gives up the ghost and decides, for once and all, that he no longer wishes to be human. He loves himself exactly as he is for the form he chose for himself, a doll. If a psychopathic killer doll could love himself exactly as he was in a body that he chose to present himself in, why couldn’t I?
Don Mancini and Queer Voices in Horror
One of the best parts of having the same writer at the helm for every entry into the same franchise is that, unlike other typical slasher villains, Chucky gets to experience character development and growth. And because Don Mancini himself is gay, his voice behind the experience has been an authentic beacon of hope for queer audiences. “It has really been nice for me, again, as a gay man, to have a lot of gay, queer, and trans fans say that movie meant a lot to them, and that those characters meant a lot to them as queer kids.” He says in an article by Rue Morgue.
Why Chucky Remains a Queer Icon
One of my greatest joys was watching all three seasons of the cancelled too soon series, Chucky. Jake (Zacary Arthur), the show’s new gay protagonist, goes from clashing with his homophobic father (who is quickly dispatched by Chucky) to his first love and found family. Chucky with his own found family in Tiffany, G.G. (formerly Glen/Glenda), Caroline, and Wendell (John Waters). While the show has ended, I hope this won’t be the last we see of him, and I’m excited to see where Don Mancini takes the character for future queer audiences. One standout moment from the series is when Jake sits with Chucky and talks about G.G.
“You know, I have a queer kid…genderfluid”
“And you’re cool with it?”
“I’m not a monster Jake.”
If a killer doll could love his genderfluid child, I expect nothing less from the rest of society. Growing up feeling the way I felt about my gender and sexuality, I didn’t have peers to rely on to learn about myself.
But what I did have was Chucky. My friend til’ the end.
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