William A.

How a simple Netflix error led to the Babadook becoming a gay icon

This is pretty damn great

The Babadook was released three years ago and followed a monster, simply called the Babadook, as it terrorized a single mother and her son in their new house. Fast forward to 2017 and a simple clerical error has turned that horror movie’s monster into a defining gay icon.

How did this come to be?

Like many good memes, it all started with an innocent Tumblr post. When Tumblr user Taco-bell-rey uploaded a screenshot of The Babadook listed as one of the films available in the LGBTQ section of Netflix. Since that post was uploaded, it’s garnered more than 125,000 notes and been reblogged thousands of times over and has been removed from said section. The caption that accompanies the post — a one line sentence about what this could possibly mean — forever cemented the Babadook’s fate.

“So proud that Netflix recognizes the Babadook as gay representation.”

It quickly gained attention within the Tumblr community, but when the post found its way to Twitter that it began picking up even more steam. In January, Buzzfeed’s Ryan Broderick, who co-hosts the Internet Explorer podcast, tweeted about how it was his favorite trend on Tumblr. It was through his post that the introduction of The Babadook debate — whether the Babadook was gay because the movie dealt with themes of isolation, depression, and an inability to be oneself — took off.

Much like another recent Tumblr to Twitter success story — a request to have Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o star in their own heist movie based on a photo taken of the pair at Paris Fashion Week is now being turned into a Netflix movie — The Babadook meme quickly found an entirely new audience.

The trend of people discovering — and celebrating — the Babadook’s newly found sexuality continued for months, but it wasn’t until June 1 that those not paying attention to Tumblr or certain sections of Twitter finally learned about it. What followed was a number of Twitter users joining in on the joke, stretching it as far as they possibly could.

Part of the reason that June became the time to celebrate the Babadook’s chosen sexuality is because the month is dedicated to Pride, an ongoing celebration of the queer community. The Babadook meme was just big enough — and strange — that the joke caught on with people right away.

It doesn’t stop there, though. When Taco-bell-rey posted the photo, the result was an ongoing debate about whether or not the Babadook actually was gay. A debate, it should be noted, that continues today.

The arguments

Despite the humorous intent of the original Tumblr post, many writers and professors have pointed out that part of The Babadook’s underlying themes could be seen as one that resonates with the gay community: coming out and embracing your true self.

Dean Eastwood, founder of the men’s gay lifestyle magazine HISKIND, wrote about the similarities between the Babadook’s troubling history and what many men go through when they’re dealing with coming to terms with their own sexuality, eventually coming out. In a piece about the Babadook meme, he wrote:

The Babadook ultimately tells an LGBT narrative of being cast to the shadows, manifesting identities in closets and, to live up to modern stereotypes, wearing all black. In the end, the creature’s monster-like identity and traits are subdued when *spoiler alert* he comes out of his shadows and shares his truth with those he loves. Sound familiar? Despite the meme merely picking fun in the internet’s reaction to nearly anything LGBT related, despite how trivial or serious, there are arguably parallels that follow the Babadook — a lonely, confused and misunderstood creature often depicted as a monster — and the LGBT community. In an age where coming out is still tough and the notion of suppressed identities and mental health issues are still strife within the community, the brief skeleton of the Babadook story — like many a ‘tortured soul’ storyline — may be considered a little too close to home for a community where more than half of LGBT pupils have experienced direct bullying and where gay men are three times more likely than heterosexual men to suffer from depression.

Eastwood isn’t the only person to focus on the similarities as a takeaway from the movie. Michael Varrati, the organizer of San Diego Comic Con’s queer horror panel, told Mic that by modern definition of the term, the Babadook is a perfect example of a gay icon.

“This creature is trying to come out and be seen. By internet culture standards, it’s a gay hero,” Varrati said. “The Babadook just wants to step out of the dark and into the light.”

The Babadook isn’t the first “monster” to be considered a gay icon, either. When A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was released in 1985, people were quick to point out that the film’s main character, Jesse Walsh, was a teen struggling with his sexuality. Some of those fears found a physical presence in Freddy Krueger, the franchise’s iconic villain.

One particular scene has Jesse watching his male gym teacher get attacked by Krueger in a way that played into those fears that both Jesse and society had at the time. As director Tyler Jensen describes in the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, this was during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States and a time when homosexuality was feared.

The Babadook, a movie that director Jennifer Kent has specifically said is about grief and dealing with depression brought on my personal loss, resonated with fans in a similar way.

What does this all mean?

The Babadook wasn’t conceived as a movie about the struggles that the LGBTQ community deals with as far as anyone knows, but the fact that people can resonate with the story and theme of the film’s mysterious monster isn’t a bad thing. The best part about cinema is that its subjective and viewers can see different aspects of their own lives in the story reflected back at them.

It may have started as just a meme — and may end as one — but the fact that it’s resonated a little more deeply with people is pretty great.

The Babadook is currently streaming on Netflix. You can find it in the Thrillers category.

Source: Polygon – Full

Leave a comment