Contents:
THE GRABBER, 'GAYFACE,' AND THE DANGER OF CONFLATG THE TWO IN THE BLACK PHONE
The character distills and exprs many of the fears that animated whe suburban Ameri the late ’70s and to the 1980s: Wispread ncerns about homosexual pravy and boyhood nocence transformed horrific but rare cints such as the Etan Patz abductn and the Adam Walsh kidnappg and murr to major events wh natnal ronance. But clearly taps to eply rooted moral panics ncerng child sexual exploatn, “groomg, ” and homosexual predatn—panics that are, not cintally, very much ongog today.
Senate hearg, the mother of missg paperboy Johnny Gosch sisted that the North Amerin Man/Boy Love Associatn (and possibly other “homosexual groups”) had kidnapped her son and rporated him to their “anized pedophilia operatns. Bee the are imaged threats rather than substantive on, is not surprisg that the anxieti have alced around vague notns of “groomg” and recg, which were central to the anti-gay mpaigns waged by Ana Bryant and others the late 1970s, the same moment which Fney gets taken by the Grabber. Bryant famoly claimed that gay men “mt rec” bee they uld not reproduce.
Content warng: This article discs homophobia, pedophilia/hebephilia, and child abe at length and ntas spoilers for "The Black Phone. " When discsg John Wayne Gacy, we refer to him as a serial killer, a hebephiliac, and a necrophiliac, but what we don't ll him is "gay, " bee he wasn't. So why are some people llg Ethan Hawke's performance of a character spired by him "gayface?