I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to scary movies. While I was watching The Strangers, I frequently checked the locks on my front door. In terms of camping, an activity I was previously dubious about, The Blair Witch Project was really just the final straw. Absolutely not a poltergeist. Things like that disregard boundaries.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that I was completely infatuated with the Blumhouse-James Wan film M3gan, which is about a beautiful doll who murders people. I've been dying to see this gorgeous mean-girl robotic cheerleader kill things, cause mayhem, and torture Allison Williams ever since the first trailer was released in October. And even though I love Chicago and am attracted to stunning women who can dance and kill (I love Chicago! ), I wasn't sure why I so strongly needed to see this movie.
Also, I wasn't by myself. There were videos of M3gan dancing all over the internet, and there were assertions that M3gan was after the crowns of Chucky and Annabelle, two other murder dolls, from people who hadn't even seen the film. A large portion of that support came from gay folks who had previously hailed M3gan as a queer symbol, just like we had done with Ma's Ma, the mother in Barbarian, the Babadook, Pearl from X, or Ghostface from Scream.
I chatted with Joe Vallese, an NYU professor and the editor of It Came From the Closet, a collection of critical essays examining the relationship between queerness and horror films, to better understand the obsession. We discussed M3gan's place in the long tradition of killer dollies on film, why LGBTQ people love the genre (hint: because it subverts actual life), and how horror can provide gay people with an escape that they would not find otherwise.
As an openly gay man, I don't entirely understand it, but I feel that this movie has activated some sort of synapses in gay brains. In the same way that we [gay people] must watch this movie with this murder doll. I simply want to know if you're experiencing the same thing because I worry that I might be hallucinating things since I'm in this homosexual bubble.
I believe that as soon as I saw the trailer and the dance, I knew exactly what was going to happen. I mean, it seemed quite obvious to me that it would instantly become some type of queer iconography.
She was destined to become a meme, regardless of the narrative content of the movie. She will, for example, dance on TikTok. For a trailer and dance to spark the kind of craze they have, there are several conditions that must be met.
Since being gay and queer are essentially acts of reclaiming and recontextualizing, it feels like we are providing context and significance to the image before we even know what it is. This is something gay and queer men of our generation have always done.
Is that one of the factors contributing to M3gan's appeal to queer people in general and gay guys in particular?
I believe it stems from what we are told is not right for us. Growing up, being feminine and engaging in girly activities certainly meant being a queer man. With dolls, that is unquestionably absolutely true. It is so understandable why gay or queer males would be drawn to this stunning killer doll who resembles Amanda Seyfried.
When we were children, we were told that you can't play with the Barbie but you can have the GI Joe. Hopefully, Gen Z is witnessing less of this occur inside their households. For instance, if the doll is harmful, you can play with it, but not if it is beautiful.
Some gay men might be responding to a subversion when they see anything like that because M3gan is both gorgeous and evil. This particular lens is being used to tell the tale of the doll. I'm not sure if the quality of the film will have much of an impact on how people will react.
Without a doubt, I sneaked into my sister's room and "borrowed" her Barbies. I had the impression that what I was doing was wrong. I suppose it's bad to sneak into someone's room. However, the notion that "playing with lovely dolls = evil" comes from what guys are "supposed" to enjoy and how they should act.
So … I suppose there's something cunning and alluring about a killer doll chopping people in half with a huge paper cutter blade.
The M3gan doll can also be seen in the teaser dropping to all fours and running toward someone like an animal. There isn't any subtext, in my opinion. I believe it is only text. It makes for a clear contrast.
I will admit that without Chucky walking, I don't believe M3gan could have crawled or run. Chucky is unquestionably a perversion of [the toy] My Buddy, mostly due to their similarity. My Buddy was a little male doll that boys could own because he wasn't very feminine. He wore overalls and was called Buddy. Then there is the Chucky doll, who, as you may know, is taken over by a nasty, foul-mouthed serial killer.
Additionally, Chucky's inventor is a gay man. I'm not sure whether you've seen the TV show...
I didn't! I have heard, though, that it is queer, that Jennifer Tilly is in it, and that Chucky is the father of a nonbinary child.
The primary character is, of course, gay. It makes sense that the sitcom is extremely queer because that is the only course it could have taken when Tiffany [voiced by Tilly], Chucky's bride, was introduced. They really leaned into this and have an androgynous child. They've basically gone down the route of having a queer killer doll family, which, you know, perhaps takes some of the spookiness out of the original.
I believe that when it comes to "taking out the spook," If you take a look at recent horror films like Barbarian, Malignant, Ma, Annabelle, and even The Babadook, you'll see that they have been branded as queer films and the monsters in them as queer symbols. And it becomes less frightening and perhaps even more delightful when these villains become LGBTQ icons.
The fact that LGBT people have a long history of being demonised and then gravitating toward these "monsters" is not, in my opinion, a coincidence.
Well, the final girl and the bad guy are the only character cliches that remain in horror films. The last female has been encased in a form of heteronormativity for such a long time, am I correct? She is quite modest, straight, cis, and wholesome. The antagonist is typically the exact opposite. Many of us assume that we can't be Nancy since we are Freddie when we see that. Since we can't be Laurie, we must be Michael. Being a Pinhead or a Cenobite could be challenging for a person.
We're moving over it now, but in a way, I believe the final girl/villain binary defined the role LGBT people were left with. The bad guys are also plain more interesting. You know, like, there wouldn't be franchises, several movies, all these efforts at backstories and reboots if villains weren't compelling. like as the Scream movies!
The Scream films do their best to challenge those dichotomies. I believe that the first movie features folks discussing how it is sexist to presume that the murderer is a man. If you read online discussion, you might think it's a joke when people claim that the murderer Ghostface is fundamentally gay.
Even if there is a person hiding behind that mask when it comes to Ghostface, they are always dressed in this incredibly voluminous, flowing robe. Ghostface is just gliding around and dancing, albeit they can be awkward. It's really, what do you call it?
Flamboyant?
Yeah. It is quite flashy. Although we don't give it much thought, it exists. Then, whoever is wearing it always appears to be enormous in the outfit. Like the Emma Roberts surprise in Scream 4 — it's hilarious because, in reality, she's probably a 5-foot killer, but it doesn't matter since whatever is hiding under the robe will always be enormous, terrifying, and gorgeous.
The whole point of Scream, though, is that anyone may be down there. That is inclusive and somewhat strange in its own peculiar manner.
And of course, in the first movie, the murders are these two fumbling, possibly gay for each other males.
No, like males that are exclusively gay for one another.
Wes Craven recognised that there was something queer and subversive about what horror did because he was a homosexual man and because, in my opinion, he was a really astute, inclusive person. This is because he developed the horror film Scream.
Regarding the notion that anyone can play the role of Ghostface, I believe that much of the enjoyment we derive from watching those films comes from our simultaneous consideration of our escape plans and our hypothetical actions as Ghostface. How would I approach my target?
What would my calls from Ghostface sound like? Am I going to be as sour as Ghostface?
Regarding the type of triangulation that we frequently discuss, I have a question for you. As if there were a link between camp, queerness, and terror. And a queer sensibility, in my opinion, is the dividing line between what makes horror horrifying or campy. I was wondering if you shared my thoughts.
In my opinion, horror requires you to surprise and violate expectations more than any other genre.
When horror veers towards camp, I believe it's frequently an honest attempt to shock viewers and provide them with a unique picture, which is really challenging to pull off. You see, I indicated at the outset that reclamation and recontextualization play a role in gay culture. But I also believe that there is a component of presenting us something we haven't seen. I believe that's a big reason why the border is so shaky and why it doesn't always work.
But more than any other genre, horror, in my opinion, has the capacity to be both extremely good and extremely horrible before looping back into the former.
Well, I mean, towards the conclusion of Barbarian, everyone is vehemently invested and rooting for the 8-foot underground woman to survive, which is definitely not what we had in mind when the film first started.
You know, the eight-foot woman that lives underground didn't ask to be what she is. She didn't ask to be born into this dysfunctional, incestuous life, is that right? It crumbles if you push too hard since none of it actually makes sense. But from a birds-eye perspective, that woman shouldn't have to die because she didn't ask for this life.
I believe that horror movie escapism may be liberating. If you're not queer, you might not understand what makes a monster or a villain thrilling, and it's possible that this is one of the things that isn't even entirely explicable. But because LGBT people have spent so much time trying to defend themselves, I believe this is one instance in which we don't need to.
You must admit that liking our little M3gan murder doll is not all that dissimilar from this. She didn't choose to enter this planet at birth. She didn't request to live this life.
When you see your M3gan murder doll, I'll be really interested to know if you do love it. Like, I worry if it's all just a big charade and if the movie will be terrible and completely forgettable.
But even if it does stink when I'm talking to you, it nearly doesn't matter. We will continue to interpret M3gan in our own ways, and whether ironically or not, we will continue to adore this piece.
She will still have said something noteworthy, for sure! There isn't enough doll horror out there, and I'm all for unusual and stranger entry into the horror genre.
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