so much of the horror genre is informed by the metaphor of queer/transness as monstrousness. especially emphasizing the amount of horror that depends on the audience's repulsion at seeing a human body changing into a new, other body. I Saw the TV Glow is about the horror of NOT transitioning. the horror of static. the horror of looking into yourself and being terrified of what you see. the horror of seeing who you are and choosing to do nothing about it. the horror of looking away. and by god is it terrifying.
this. i am particularly fascinated by the use of zombies as a metaphor for queerness!
Julia Kristen wrote an essay called “Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection”, and god i love this part:
The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life. Abject. It is something rejected from which one does not part, from which one does not protect oneself as from an object. Imaginary uncanniness and real threat, it beckons to us and ends up engulfing us. It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite. The traitor, the liar, the criminal with a good conscience, the shameless rapist, the killer who claims he is a savior.
(Kristeva 1982: 4)
she further states: “the zombie is already queer, and the queer is already zombie; they share a metonymic relation, defying cultural normativity equal which disturbs identity, system, order.”
the defining of zombie as “abject,” or “othered,” cast out from society because it represents a disturbing of the system and identity is just. so good. zombies and queer people are equated bc they both represent the disruption of norms and structures. not to mention that the motif of zombies is synonymous with the motif of exclusion, and mirrors homophobia/intolerance towards differences expressed by some members of society
