Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film

"Monster in the closet" is a history of the horrors film that explores the genre's relationship to the social and cultural history of homosexuality in America. Drawing on a wide variety of films and primary source materials including censorship files, critical reviews, promotional materials, fanzines, men's magazines, and popular news weeklies, the book examines the historical figure of the movie monster in relation to various medical, psychological, religious and social models of homosexuality. While recent work within gay and lesbian studies has explored how the genetic tropes of the horror film intersect with popular culture's understanding of queerness, this is the first book to examine how the concept of the monster queer has evolved from era to era. From the gay and lesbian sensibilities encoded into the form and content of the classical Hollywood horror film, to recent films which play upon AIDS-related fears. Monsters in the closet examines how the horror film started and continues, to demonise (or quite literally 'monsterise') queer sexuality, and what the pleasures and 'costs' of such representations might be both for individual spectators and culture at large.

Table of Contents

1. Defining the Monster Queer in the Classical Hollywod Horror Film, 2. Shock Treatment: Curing the Monster Queer during World War II, 3. Pods, Pederasts, and Perverts: (Re)Criminalizing the Monster Queer in Cold War Culture, 4. Exposing the Monster Queer to the Sunlight, Circa the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, 5. Satan Spawn and Out and Proud: Monster Queers in the Postmodern Era

Author Biography

Harry M. Benshoff recently received his doctorate from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television. He teaches film and television classes in and around Los Angeles