Contents:
THE GAY LEGACY OF FRANKENSTE
Yet there’s somethg about this story of unhallowed arts that mak darkly ronant for queer artists beyond any other you’re gay and grow up feelg like a hio misf, fully nsc that some believe your sir to be wicked and want to kill you for them, intifyg wh the Monster is hardly a stretch: A misunrstood beast fds solace the solu of the woods, but seems to endlsly face the wrath of the torch-bearg, small-md habants the world beyond.
JAM WHALE: FRANKENSTE’S GAY FATHER
“Frankenste, ” Boris Karloff, 1931, via Everett CollectnHOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT was hntg “Frankenste” way before “Gods and Monsters, ” though: Boris Karloff’s fond nickname for his favore role was “the ar old monster. While some people claim that homophobia end Whale’s reer and that he was disparaggly referred to as “The Queen of Hollywood, ” an terview wh Films Review, Whale’s long time iend Curtis Harrgton claimed that no one ma a big al of Whale’s sexualy.
I will never know how much of the trends uld be attributed to Whale vers the choic of screenwrers and actors, but seems hard to believe that an openly gay man creatg movi that align wh the queer experience is jt a cince. Acrdg to Arthur Flannigan-Sat-Aub, “[t]here is an tablished tradn of examg the works of prumed or avowed homosexual wrers, for example, to postulate the existence of a homosexual thematic and/or stylistic” (“Sexual Preference” 67).
This leav wh an tentnal gay readg, which is thor-centred, and an untentnal gay readg, which strs the text’s impact on the rear and dog so legimat a homosexual readg which do not have to be ncerned wh the qutn whether the thor wanted his text to be read homosexually or not. Jam Whale’s Bri of Frankenste is a perfectly suable example for a discsn on the applibily of both ncepts as has a homosexual director, a prumed homosexual readg, and the much-discsed qutn if this terpretatn was tend by the director.