1 Introduction: the Monster and the Homosexual in a 1984 Study of Anti
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1 Introduction: The Monster and the Homosexual In a 1984 study of anti-homosexual attitudes, the investigators broke heterosexuals’ fears of gay and lesbian sexuality into three topic areas: (1) Homosexuality as a threat to the individual-that someone you know (or you yourself) might be homosexual. (2) Homosexuality as a threat to others—homosexuals have been frequently linked in the media to child molestation, rape, and violence. (3) Homosexuality as a threat to the community and other components of culture— homosexuals supposedly represent the destruction of the procreative nuclear family, traditional gender roles, and (to use a buzz phrase) “family values.”' In short, for many people in our shared English-language culture, homosexuality is a monstrous condition. Like an evil Mr. Hyde, or the Wolfman, a gay or lesbian self inside of you might be striving to get out. Like Frankenstein’s monster, homosexuals might run rampant across the countryside, claiming “innocent” victims. Or worst of all, like mad scientists or vampires, who dream of revolutionizing the world through some startling scientific discovery or preternatural power, homosexual activists strike at the very foundations of society, seeking to infect or destroy not only those around them but the very concepts of Western Judeo-Christian thought upon which civil society is built. For the better part of the twentieth century, homosexuals, like vampires, have rarely cast a reflection in the social looking glass of popular culture. When they are seen, they are often filtered through the iconography of the horror film: ominous sound cues, shocked reaction shots, or even thunder and lightning. Both movie monsters and homosexuals have existed chiefly in shadowy closets, and when they do emerge from these proscribed places into the sunlit world, they cause panic and fear. Their closets uphold and reinforce culturally constructed binaries of gender and sexuality that structure Western thought. To create a ' Ser Dhn Wayne Plasek and Janicemarie Allard, ‘Misconceptions of Homophobia,’ Bashers., alters, & Bigots: Homophobia in American Society, ed. in John P. De Cecco (New \t>rk: Harrington Park Press, 1985) 23-38. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 broad analogy, monster is to “normality” as homosexual is to heterosexual. Ostensibly based upon these melodramatic fears, as well as a host of others, the conservative right wing and Fundamentalist Christian sectors of American society have sought to demonize homosexuals within all aspects of civil(ian) life, as well as more specialized sectors such as the military and institutionalized pedagogy. They do so primarily by painting the gay and lesbian community in shocking, horrifying colors. THE GAY AGENDA (1993), a recent anti-gay propaganda video tape (which was produced in Antelope Valley, California by a Christian group calling itself the Springs of Life Ministry), uses discredited “expels” purportedly to tell the truth about what depraved creatures homosexuals actually are: carefully selected footage from gay and lesbian pride festivals “document” their claims. The point comes across loudly and clearly: homosexuals are violent, degraded monsters and their evil agenda is to destroy the very fabric of American society. Many members of Congress, who received this tape gratis from the helpful Springs of Life Ministry, seemed to find its argument compelling and reasonable, especially during the recent national hysteria surrounding the question of whether or not homosexuals should be legally discriminated against within the Armed Services. A similar use of horror movie iconography has recently been employed by other Fundamentalist Christian groups in seasonal Halloween “Hell Houses.” In an attempt to frighten teen-age patrons into conforming to heterosexual norms, the traditional Halloween haunted house tour is reappropriated for anti-gay propaganda. Instead of showcasing vampires and werewolves, these “Hell Houses” now use monstrous effects to delineate the horrors of homosexuality and AIDS/ The AIDS crisis, which has spurred Christian compassion from some quarters, has also significantly fueled this “homosexual as monster” rhetoric: now more than ever, gay men are contagions—vampires-who, with a single mingling of blood, can infect a pure and innocent victim, transforming him or her into the living dead. Some people have always considered anything that opposes or lies outside the ideological status quo intrinsically monstrous and unnatural. Perhaps expectedly, an ideological approach to fictional *For more on the pi lomenon, see Kellie Gibbs, ‘Fundamentalist HalloweenrScared All the Way to Jesus,’ Out29 (February 1996) 20. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 monsters frequently bleeds into an accounting of real life honors such as AIDS: recent critical essays on the mass media have demonstrated how the representational codes and narrative tropes of the monster movie (plague, contagion, victimization, panic) have been grafted onto much television and newspaper coverage of AIDS.3 Yet, in his book on how the media in Great Britain has covered the AIDS crisis, Simon Watney warns us that “Aids commentary does not "make’ gay mot into monsters, for homosexuality is, and always has been, constructed as intrinsically monstrous within the heavily over-determined images inside which notions of ‘decency,’ ‘h«.<man nature,’ and so on are mobilized and relayed throughout the internal circuitry of the mass media marketplace.”4 The multiple social meanings of the words “monster” and “homosexual” are seen to overlap to varying but often high degrees. Certain sectors of the population still relate homosexuality to bestiality, incest, necrophilia, sadomasochism, etc.-the very stuff of classical Hollywood monster movies. The concepts “monster” and “homosexual” share many of the same semantic charges and arouse many of the same fears about sex and death. 3 Some of these essays include: Ellis Hanson,*Undead.' Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Diana Fuss (New \brk: Routledge, 1991) 324-340; Andrew Parker, “Grafting David Cronenberg: Monstrosity, AIDS Media, National/Sexual Difference' and Katharine Park, ‘Kimberly Bergalis, AIDS, and the Plague Metaphor,’ both in Media Spectacles, eds. Marjorie Garber, Jann Matlock, and Rebecca Walkowitz (New \brk: Routledge, 1993)209-231 and 232-254. Other writings on the connections between fictional monsters and homosexuality (not cited directly below) include: Terry Castle, The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modem Culture (New Mark: Columbia University Press, 1993); Rhona J. Berenstein, Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatonship in Classic Horror Cinema (New \brk: Columbia University Press, 1996); Richard Dyer, 'Children of the NightVampirismas Homosexuality, Homosexuality as Vampirism,* Sweet Dreams: Sexuality, Gender, and Popular Fiction, ed. Susannah Radstone (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988) 47-72; Bonnie Zimmerman, 'DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS: Lesbian Vampires,’ Jump Cut24/25 (1981) 23-24; Marlin R Norden, ‘Sexual References in James Whale’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN,* Eros in the Mind’s Eye: Sexuality and the Fantastic in Art and ed. Film, Donald Palumbo (New Vbrk: Greenwood Press, 1986 141-150; Elizabeth Reba Weise, 'Bisexuality, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and Me,’ Bi Amy Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out,eds. Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu (Boston: Alyson, 1991) 134-139; Patricia White, ‘Famale Spectator, Lesbian Specter. THE HAUNTING,” inside/out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Diana Rjss (New \brk: Routledge, 1991) 142-172; Diana Rjss, 'Monsters of Perversion: Jeffrey Dahmer and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,’ Media Spectacles, eds. Marjorie Garber, Jann Matlock, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz (New \brk: Routledge, 1993) 181-205; Edward Guerrero, AIDS as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema," Journal of Popular Film and Television 18:3 (Fal 1990) 86-93. 4 Simon Watney, Policing Desire: Pornography, AIDS, and the Media, Second Edition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) 42. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 True to the postmodern condition, it seems clear from the preceding examples that the melodramatic formulas and patterns of representation to be found in the horror film have slipped into the realm of “real life” politics. And while horror films and monster movies are frequently dismissed as children’s fere or vacuous, meaningless escapism, the demonization (or “monsterization”) of homosexuals in American society is a very serious life and death issue. One might well wish that American society could dismiss anti-gay propaganda like THE GAY AGENDA as easily as it does the latest B honor film. To do so would require the unmasking of another institutionalized power hierarchy, one embedded in the form of media texts themselves: ibcumentaries (no matter how propagandistically they are produced) are usually perceived as somehow inherently true, while fictional film and television shows, in an attempt perhaps to bolster their own significance, maintain their own hierarchies of meaningfulness. Thus, “political significance” in fictional film and television is reserved for realist “social problem” formats, while horror movies, like soap operas and comic books, lie at the bottom of those particular media hierarchies. What these