Queer Bodies in Horror: Why Gendered Reveals Are Harmful

[Reader disclaimer: spoilers will be discussed. This piece also contains material of a sensitive nature].

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

Something that has really been playing on my mind lately is a specific horror trope that has been used in films for years and is regarded as one of the most well renowned plot twists in cinema: the gender reveal. You'll undoubtedly know this from films like Psycho (1960) but you may not have ever stopped to wonder why this trope is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. Not until now, anyway.

The subversion of gender as a trope, sometimes referred to as the "gender bender", is where a film features a character that can be transgender, non-binary or cisgender and the plot twist revolves around their "true" identity being revealed to the audience.

In Silence of the Lambs (1991), Buffalo Bill is described as a "transsexual" and is motivated to murder his female victims under the pretext that he was being rejected for gender reassignment surgery.

In Cassadaga (2011), Christian Burton is berated by his mother for wearing dresses and playing with dolls, and consequently castrates himself, leading him to lead a traumatised adult life wherein he murders women and forms them into real-life marionettes. 

In Insidious: Chapter 2, the ghastly apparition of the Bride in Black (also known as Marilyn) is seen to be raised as a girl and psychologically abused by his mother, then proceeds to castrate himself and later commit suicide. He spends his adult years murdering women in the iconic funeral dress and then haunts the living after his death.

This list could go on (and I'd rather not) but my main point is that we see this trope in a lot of places and don't usually think much of it. Why should we? It's just a plot twist, right?

The Problem with Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

There is, of course, one particular horror film that is famous for this trope: Sleepaway Camp (1983). What has now solidified itself in modern culture as an iconic film, Sleepaway Camp dons the gender subversion plot twist like a big, shiny medal, revealing at the end that Angela (played by Felissa Rose) is in fact Peter, raised by his "eccentric" (albeit clearly mentally ill) aunt to be a girl. 

The camera pans away, showing Angela standing there stark-naked beside the body of her camp sweetheart, Paul (played by Christopher Collet), wielding a knife, an unnerving expression on her face. She lets out a feral, scratchy sound and, as we move from close-up to wide shot, we see that Angela has a penis.

Arguments have, of course, been made for why this ending is so memorable and unforgivingly creepy. Perhaps it is the juxtaposition of scenery, standing by a tranquil lake late at night, lulling the audience into a false sense of security before bludgeoning them over the head with the truth. Perhaps it's the frozen expression on her face, somewhere between childlike euphoria and murderous intent. Perhaps, as some people on Reddit pointed out, it's the uncanny valley effect that is given when shots of Felissa Rose are interchanged with the body double wearing an unnervingly realistic mask of the actress. Or perhaps it's a combination of all three.

I've read articles that claim that the penis reveal is not what makes this ending shocking. Some critics claim it's the reveal that Angela (who is Peter) has been assuming the identity of her dead sister the entire time, or that the trauma that they experienced (seeing their loved ones killed but also the addition of seeing their supposedly depraved father in bed with another man) is what lead Angela on her murderous rampage within the camp.

But I disagree with this entirely because you can tell that the film wants you to go "oh my god, she's a boy!" which, incidentally, is an actual quote from the end of Sleepaway Camp. No, there are a couple reasons as to why the ending of this film is so disturbing, but not for the reasons you often see discussed online.

Cassadaga (2011)

Firstly, Angela's character is 14 years old. The fact that they objectify her at the end by showing off her prepubescent body and genitals is not only alarmingly perverse but begs the question as to why more people haven't spoken out about it. 

As a queer person over the age of 20, I felt repulsed to be acting as the observer, and yet I have not seen other critics point this out. This might be due to the fact that the majority of them are cisgender men who see no apparent reason to see this as a cause for concern, but the age thing is definitely creepy, no matter which perspective you take.

Secondly, I fail to understand what response the film wanted me to have. Was I meant to be afraid? Disgusted? Creeped out? Angela's character undergoes trauma at the hands of Mary Ann (played by Alyson Mord) when she accidentally murders Angela's family and has her identity forcibly removed by her aunt Martha (played by Desiree Gould) before she even gets to the damn camp. At this point, I can't help but sympathise with the character, which I doubt was the film's intention for me as a viewer. 

You might now argue that I'm justifying Angela's murder spree. I'm not entirely, but when you consider that Angela is already experiencing some kind of psychosis at the hands of the women in her life, plus the fact that most of the victims had it coming to them (a long slew of paedophiles, antagonising bullies, misogynists and sexual aggressors), you can at least understand why she did it.

The motivations for the murders are rooted in revenge, not the fact that she's biologically male or has a supposed bloodlust for the campers due to internal, psychological trauma. And that makes far more sense as an explanation, rather than a shot at the end with her penis out. 

Gender Identity ≠ Murderer

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Therein lies the main issue: using gender identity as a reveal doesn't really work when you look at it on a basic level. Showing that a character like Angela had different genitals the whole time or insinuating that gender identity is in any way inherently linked to murderous intent/mental instability is incredibly harmful to people within the LGBTQ+ community, whether they be transgender or other variations of identity (e.g. genderfluid, intersex, agender). 

These tropes perpetuate the stereotype that trans individuals are in some way depraved, made wrong or fuelled by their own dysphoria (as we see with Buffalo Bill and Christian Burton) to kill. Yes, if we look at context, Sleepaway Camp was not considerate of this, nor would I expect it to be. But we've seen this trope as recently as this year with Glass (2019), in which James McAvoy's character has seven, differing female counterparts as a result of having DID and he dresses up in feminine clothing to accommodate for the personalities' gender. Why was that needed to get the point across?

To put it bluntly, there is nothing horrifying or scandalous about the gender subversion trope. It's a cheap tactic at the expense of our community and doesn't really do anything for shock factor when you consider that gender identity is not intrinsically linked to psychopathy or other known traits of serial killers. 

Hey, you can have trans villains, just don't make them villains because they're trans. 

- K

Film Reviews: Cut The Strings, I Wouldn't Bother [Cassadaga, 2011]

Cassadaga (2011)

[Reader disclaimer: there will be spoilers discussed. This piece also contains material of a mature nature].

During the month of October, I elected to post a horror film a day on my Instagram (aptly hashtagged "spoopy month"), which is a tradition I started last year in order to recommend niche horror films to my followers. Whilst traipsing my rolodex of horror this year, I recalled a film from a while back called Cassadaga (2011), and felt it was probably time to give it a second viewing.

It is unfortunate when you rewatch a horror film and find it to be lacklustre, and that was sadly the case for this film. Let's start with the first 60 seconds of the film, which were so insanely problematic that I'm almost ashamed to admit that I didn't realise it until I rewatched. 

We are introduced to the main antagonist as a child: a young boy playing with a porcelain, marionette doll and donning a cute, pink dress. Cue the parent coming in to cut up the dress and smash the doll, berating her son for dressing up as a girl: now, this maybe wouldn't have been such a problem if it was purely an allegory to being a transgender child, however (contextually) this is about a boy who grows up to become a serial killer. The film is heavily suggesting that the boy's dysphoria and mental instability/bloodlust is intrinsically linked, a dangerous and unforgivingly cliche for transgender characters.

No, the film does not explicitly depict the boy as transgender, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is what they were going for. Perhaps it is a homage to other films who have used this method, such as Psycho (1960) or Calvaire (2004), but either way it's problematic and arguably unnecessary. If you think dysphoria is a motivation for murder, then perhaps you should do some more research on your subject. 

Jumping forward somewhat, and staying on the subject of explicitness, the film has a difficult time letting the viewer draw their own deductions. In the first two minutes of the runtime, our protagonist suffers a personal tragedy with her sister being hit by a bus. I'm aware this is supposed to make us immediately empathise with the character, and we are given flashbacks after the fact, but slapping a character death on the viewer so early on in the narrative (and then giving us flashbacks doused in expositional dialogue) is incredibly lazy and unimaginative. We aren't given time to understand the relationship between these characters, why it's so inexplicably tragic that the sister has died: we're just given the basic formula of character + tragedy = jumpstart for the narrative. 

Another example is that the writers tried to misdirect the audience to believe that Thomas' character (played by Lucas Beck) is the serial killer, when it is in fact a different one. This isn't especially new but the best plot twists are often the simplest: however, Cassadaga did not execute this in a successful fashion. We are given scenes of Thomas masturbating to violent pornography, withdrawn and rarely seen in most of the film, as if to say "hey look! It's totally this guy! The weirdo no one sees!"

If you're too on the nose with your misdirection, you more often than not end up arousing more suspicion within the viewer than intended. Sure, I thought nothing of it when Thomas' grandmother (played by Louise Fletcher, of all people!) stated that people rarely saw him, but the moment that they showed him pleasuring himself to taboo porn was the moment that it clicked that the film was trying to throw me off and convince me that he was the murderer, which clearly he wasn't. 

I will say that this film had moments of brilliance. One example in particular is the first shot we see of Gepetto (the serial killer) in his workshop, overly saturated and industrial in its presentation. It felt very gritty and the scenes of him experimenting on women and turning them into human marionette dolls were wonderfully disturbing, albeit only taking up a few moments here and there throughout the runtime (which I found slightly disappointing, but I'm just a sucker for gruesome, bodily dismemberment in films). 

I even liked what the film was going for, blending supernatural and psychological horror together with the introduction of a ghost character called Jennifer (played by Amy LoCicero): the ghost is of one Gepetto's victims who eventually leads the protagonist, Lily (played by Kelen Coleman) to the true identity of the serial killer. It drives the narrative along but still maintains its creep factor, giving us more than one evil to focus on. 

However, I can't say much for the rest of the film. A glaring problem I had after watching it again was the plot holes, and I genuinely believe that this film relies on logic where deemed necessary. One example is that Gepetto (who is revealed to be the gardener, Christian, played by Rus Blackwell) mentions Jennifer to the protagonist early on in the film...why? I understand that this is probably an attempt to misdirect Lily (and us, the audience) but I can't quite understand why Christian would mention Jennifer in the first place: in doing so, the protagonist starts to look into her mysterious disappearance, eventually deducting that the ghost haunting her is the same woman. But if Christian had never mentioned it, it's likely that she would've never made that connection. 

Another example is that when kidnapping his victims, Christian poses as a wheelchair-bound man with his face covered, and throws his voice so that his victims turn around and he can launch from his chair to chloroform them. At first, I wasn't sure how he was doing this: I've heard of people being able to project their voices and make them sound like they're coming from a different source. But in the third act of the film, it's a female voice that can be heard, not his. So is this a ghost? Or can he magically alter his voice to sound nothing like his? Is he supernatural?

Sadly, we never really find this out. We also never find out why, in some scenes and not others, the Jennifer ghost can be seen by more than one character. And this is perhaps the largest issue with Cassadaga: it wants to be clever and subvert your expectations, but remains inconsistent in the application of its own logic. Intriguing an audience, though, means that they pay closer attention, therefore I'd argue that you cannot afford to skimp out on important details or plot points in a desperate attempt to hurl down the train tracks of your plot without putting too much thought into it. 

In conclusion, dear reader, I would recommend skipping out on this one. You cannot fault a film for trying to be inventive and clever, but you can most certainly judge it for failing to do so.

If you liked this film, I'd also recommend the following:

• The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
• Wrong Turn (2003)
• The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
• The Collector (2009)
• Hush (2016)

Overall rating: 5/10

- K