What’s This? A Queer Reading of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’

Posted on Thursday, October 31st, 2019 by Ariel Fisher

(Welcome to Queering the Scene, a series that explores LGBTQ themes and content in films of all kinds…especially where you least expect it.) 

The Nightmare Before Christmas has been the source of great debate and contention for decades. In the 26 years since its release, it’s ruined friendships, torn families asunder, and stoked the flames of sibling rivalries across the globe over this one conundrum: is it a Christmas or Halloween film? 

I know. I’m sure you remember the very first fight you had about this exact issue. Both sides battling one over the other. Eventually, the wars would subside, both sides lamentably agreeing that it could be both, I guess. And so, on this auspicious occasion, as we celebrate one of the two holidays this film is decidedly about, I thought I’d throw a wrench into the whole machine and postulate the following: 

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a perfect allegory for the struggle bisexual, pansexual, and queer people feel while straddling two worlds, or several, depending on how you interact with the gender pantheon.

Yup, that’s right folks. In this edition of Queering The Scene, Jack Skellington is queer AF, and his journey is more than just an experiment with different holidays – it’s an experiment in sexuality and expanding his consciousness beyond the exnominated factor of heteronormativity.  

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‘Mission: Impossible II’ and the Final Bastion of Hollywood Villains Being Coded as Gay

Posted on Monday, July 15th, 2019 by Ariel Fisher

(Welcome to Queering the Scene, a series that explores LGBTQ themes and content in films of all kinds…especially where you least expect it.) 

Queer representation in cinema has often been problematic. As a result of queer coding, the LGBTQ+ community was often portrayed as violent, threatening, and abhorrent, an active threat to civilized heteronormative society. But queer coding isn’t a new concept. In fact, its roots lay deep within film history. 

Those roots will eventually take us to Mission: Impossible II of all things. But first, we need to look back. Far back.

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How ‘Slumber Party Massacre II’ Rewrote the Language of the Slasher Horror Film – and Became One of the Great Queer Horror Movies

Posted on Friday, June 28th, 2019 by Ariel Fisher

(Welcome to Queering the Scene, a series that explores LGBTQ themes and content in films of all kinds…especially where you least expect it.) 

One of the most sexualized subgenres of horror, the slasher film lives in a voyeuristic place where the male gaze is king, and women are but tidy little morsels to be hacked up and consumed. It started with films like Peeping Tom (1960), whose name itself is a dead giveaway to the appetites and predilections we’d come to know and love. John Carpenter and Debra Hill swear they never intended to portray sex as a punishable offense in Halloween, but the imagery was nevertheless embedded in the cultural zeitgeist forever. From then on, the slasher would always be associated with a kind of heteronormative, puritanical reckoning from the male gaze, leaving nothing in its wake but blood, guts, and a final girl.  

That is until Slumber Party Massacre II offered something … different.

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