The Creation and Change of The Queer Monstrous Other: Horror Cinema from 1930’s -2020’s In and Out of Context

 

Dalton L. Lodge
Dr. Amber Johnson, Faculty Mentor

Media has the potential to introduce societal attitudes that could shape the viewers’ own beliefs and identity formation. Horror film has long served as a vehicle for expressing societal fears and taboos. Some authors argue that, through depictions of monstrous others, horror cinema often invokes queerness due to subtextual and/or explicit queer coding. Previous research focused on the extent to which the queer monstrosity exists in horror films, but research that tracks the creation of the Queer Monstrous Other (QMO) archetype, and its change over time, was lacking. Here a purposive content analysis of 26 horror films spanning from 1930s-2020s is used to determine if the QMO archetype reflected the change in societal attitudes towards queerness. This analysis produced not only evidence of a pattern in aspects surrounding the creation of the QMO but also a comprehensive narrative of the evolution of the archetype in and out of context.

Keywords: Horror, Medias Influence, Content Analysis, Sexuality, Queer Representation

Topic(s):Sociology

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA