#it came from the closet: queer reflections on horror

[professionalqueerbookworm]

Queer Reviews: Joe Vallese, "It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror".

Summary (from Goodreads): Through the lens of horror—from "Halloween" to "Hereditary"—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes—such as the circumspect and resilient “final girl,” body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet—spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.

"It Came from the Closet" features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on "Jennifer’s Body", Jude Ellison S. Doyle on "In My Skin", Addie Tsai on "Dead Ringers", and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

[the-horologist]

[cinnamonphile]

[kunoichi96]

Reading Recap: July

Summer seems to have skipped over Scotland this month. It has been cold and gloomy despite being in the middle of the season. The closest thing we have had to summer weather is gross, muggy days. Oh well, they say it is going to be a lot nicer next month. I doubt that, but a girl can dream.  On to the books! Bloodlust and Bonnets by Emily McGovern Lucy, a young debutante in 1820, is bored with…

[groovyarouraios]

you’ll definitely find him in the HQ 70s of the library looking mysterious asf (feat the book that’s been staring at me from my bookshelf for a hot while now

[makingqueerhistory]

Do you have any recommendations of books/ studies/ articles about the representation of queer people in media? Thank you for all the work you do!

Yes absolutely, I would be happy to share. Any discussion like this needs to mention The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies by Vito Russo. Making Queer History does have a set of articles about this as well, with Queen Christina, Queer Codes, and Queer Coding and Different from the Others.

Some more modern books that I can vouch for are:

The Male Gazed: On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me about (Desiring) Men

Manuel Betancourt

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

Joe Vallese

Gays on Broadway

Ethan Mordden

Hi Honey, I'm Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture

Matt Baume

We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film

Tre'vell Anderson

(Affiliate links above)

This is just what I have read though, so other's are free to add on!

[smokefalls]

Each of us is ultimately alone: a discrete little being with access only to our own senses and sensations, our own thoughts, and our own fragile body. Left to fumble for meaning in our constant pursuit of imperfect intimacies. We submit ourselves endlessly to that mortifying ordeal of knowing each other, just for the chance to be alone together. Language might be the best thing that we have to bring the void between ourselves, but it will never be enough.

Carrow Narby, "Indescribable" from It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

[showmethesneer]

"Bisexuality itself is inherently resistant to heteronormative frameworks. Because gatekeeping is shortsighted and unbecoming. Because desire and understanding do not always go hand in hand. The project of identifying false or performative queerness is dead in the water. Do not trouble yourself to rescue it. Do not grieve at its graveside. Kiss someone. Fuck someone. Think about fucking someone while kissing someone else. Let sex be unknowable, warm, thrilling, funny, erotic, terrifying."

-"Both Ways" by Carmen Maria Machado from It Came From The Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese

[dabistits]

My Hero Academia ch. 392 | Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg | On Being a "Lesbian", Kakefuda Hiroko trans. Indiana Scarlet Brown | Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film, Harry M. Benshoff | Why be Happy When You Could be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson | Disobedience, Naomi Alderman | The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall | "A Working Definition of the Monstrous," Ryan Dzelzkalns in It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror | Notes of a Crocodile, Qiu Miaojin | "For Friendship, Perhaps," Revolutionary Girl Utena

[actual-changeling]

Still in London (and stuck in the heat rip me) and there is a bookstore called Gay's The Word that is filled to the brim with all kinds of queer books and queer books ONLY.

As one does, I had to put myself on a leash on only buy 5 new books I am incredibily excited about. So in case anyone is looking for new reading material, here's the list:

The Story of Silence by Alex Myers about a nonbinary knight "finding the courage to be who they are"

The Butch Monologues by Laura Bridgeman which is a collection of contemporary real-life stories exploring, well, butch and gender experiences

No Modernism without Lesbians by Diana Souhami, a collective biography about Sylvia Beach, Natalie Barney, Bryher, and Gertrude Stein and the Modernist movement

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, which I think many people already know–time travelling, science fiction, queer love, and existential crises

It Came From the Closet is a collection of twenty-six essays under the theme of queer reflections on horror, and I think that really tells you everything you need to know about it; critical, humorous, historical, and defined by personal experiences

They also have a website where you can browse and buy said books, pins, and more! It's a great way of buying queer books from queer people.

[twinnedpeaks]

what are your favorite queer media + books?

OOF hard question buddy. but ill try! Couldnt think of more shows sorry

books:

maurice, em forster (classic fiction)

giovannis room, james baldwin (classic fiction)

these violent delights, micah nemerever (fiction)

detransition baby, torrey peters (fiction)

the argonauts, maggie nelson (autobiographical fiction)

paul takes the form of a mortal girl, andrea lawlor (fiction)

the book eaters, sunyi dean (fantasy)

hell followed with us + the spirit bares its teeth, andrew joseph white (horror)

silver under nightfall, rin chupeco (horror fantasy)

interesting facts about space, emily austin (fiction)

a botanical daughter, noah medlock (horror)

eyes guts throat bones, moira fowley (horror)

it came from the closet; queer reflections on horror (non fiction)

oranges are not the only fruit, jeanette winterson (autobiographical fiction)

brainwyrms + tell me im worthless, alison rumfitt (horror)

playboy + love me tender, constance debre (autobiographical fiction)

cuckoo + manhunt, gretchen felker-martin (horror)

bury your gays, chuck tingle (horror)

other media:

maurice (1987)

the rocky horror picture show (1975)

the favourite (2018)

the skeleton twins (2014)

kill your darlings (2013)

my own private idaho (1991)

what we do in the shadows (2019-)

buffy the vampire slayer (1997-2002) (shut up it counts)

sense8 (2015-2018)

[morhath]

Oh I’m very very interested in your nonfiction book recs 👀

EDIT: ykw I'm gonna make this a little more organized

I listed a bunch in this post (the last question) but lemme see if I have any additions because I know I was kinda trying to keep it short when I wrote that. (But that being said, that post is the Top Faves Of All Time, so go for those first.)

Freaky medical shit I also liked:

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years by Sonia Shah

The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase (I just read this a few weeks ago and OOUUUGGHHHHHH IT'S LITERALLY JUST. LIKE THE RESPONSE TO COVID.)

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

Political shit I also liked:

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong

The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher

Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change by Janelle S. Wong

History I also liked:

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle

The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives by Bryant Simon (between those two you can tell I was on a bit of a "workplace tragedies caused by lax regulations and bad management" kick)

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore (I think everyone knows about this book, including it for completeness)

Promised the Moon: The Untold Story Of The First Women In The Space Race by Stephanie Nolen

The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison by Hugh Ryan

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke (this is nowhere near as fun and cute as you'd assume from the title)

Memoirs I also liked:

The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity by Axton Betz-Hamilton (I read this before I really got into nonfiction and it was WILD, I tell people about it all the time)

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (this one is a graphic not-novel-I-guess-memoir)

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Other:

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood

A False Report: A True Story of Rape in America by Ken Armstrong, T. Christian Miller

Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food by Lenore Newman

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror by Joe Vallese

AND here are a few on my TBR that I'm really excited for! I decided not to categorize them because they're almost all history:

Silk and Potatoes: Contemporary Arthurian Fantasy by Adam Roberts

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown

All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks

The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara by David I. Kertzer (I am actually partway through this right now but in a bit of a dry/confusing section)

The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist by Carol A. Stabile

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History by Kassia St Clair

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell (have just barely started this)

Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518 by John Waller

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea by Lady Hyegyeong

Miss Major Speaks: The Life and Times of a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste by William M. Alley, Rosemarie Alley (I'm in the middle of this but it's surprisingly, um. not exciting.)

Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond by Mark Ames

Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It by Joslyn Brenton, Sinikka Elliott, Sarah Bowen

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Gentry Household in the Later Middle Ages by Ffiona Swabey

Hitler's First Victims: The Beginning of the Holocaust and One Man's Fight to End It by Timothy W. Ryback

I am soso normal and have very normal interests that are not at all grim :)

[kunoichi96]

Page Turner: June

I hope you have had a great pride month! I did, although I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to read. So this month, I ended up reading mostly manga and graphic novels. Just a friendly reminder, just because pride month is over doesn’t mean you should stop reading queer books. That should be a year-long thing. I have more queer books on my TBR that I picked up this month thanks to…

[godzilla-reads]

“You can be a stranger to yourself; you almost certainly will be, at some point or another. It is inevitable, as inevitable as the moment of rupture that sends you hurtling toward the self you were always going to be.”

—Carmen Maria Machado, Both Ways- from It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese

[makingqueerhistory]

Spooky Queer Books

Since spooky season is starting, I thought I would share a list of my favourite queer books that are great for this time of year.

Some of these links are affiliate links.

It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

Joe Vallese

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes--such as the circumspect and resilient "final girl," body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet--spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.It Came from the Closet features twenty-five essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer's Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Into the Drowning Deep

Mira Grant

The ocean is home to many myths, But some are deadly... Seven years ago the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a tragedy. Now a new crew has been assembled. But this time they're not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life's work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

The Devouring Gray

C. L. Herman

After her sister's death, seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. Violet may be a newcomer, but she soon learns her mother isn't: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods. Justin Hawthorne's bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray--a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family's powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can't let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect. Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny--to what extent, even she doesn't yet know. The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families' abilities...before the Gray devours them all.

Tell Me I'm Worthless

Alison Rumfitt

Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice's life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go. Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own. Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I'm Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.