‘Queer-Wolves and Wolf-Boyz and Were-Bears, Oh My!’: Queering the Wolf in New Queer Horror Film and TV

Citation

Elliott-Smith D (2023) ‘Queer-Wolves and Wolf-Boyz and Were-Bears, Oh My!’: Queering the Wolf in New Queer Horror Film and TV. In: Queer Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-queer-gothic.html

Abstract
The emergence of the werewolf figure allows for both a celebration of the shared Otherness felt by marginalised sexualities via ‘hirsute empowerment’ or a 'furry protest', but also a complex negotiation of the shame felt in associations with such monstrousness. These range from: the emasculating stigma of the shameful feminine associations felt by the queer male subject, to complex re-configurations of masculine-femininity, menstruation and queer female desire as embodied in the ‘transforming’ werewolf. This chapter also develops Barbara Creed’s (Phallic Panic! 2005) re-reading of Freud’s ‘Wolf Man’ case from The History of an Infantile Neurosis (1918) whereby she intimates that in ‘werewolf films the male body is rendered feminine and uncanny—animal hair sprouts, flesh changes shape...’. (151–2). It does this in relation to other queer interpretations of the Wolf Man case (Leo Bersani, 1993) and recent Queer Horror film and television works that feature the queer-identified werewolf such as satirical horror film and television titles as: The Curse of the Queerwolf (1987), I Was A Teenage WereBear! (2011), The Wolves of Wall Street (, 2002) and queer oriented Gothic soaps like Teen Wolf, True Blood and The Lair (2007-2009), and via more serious depictions of queer-wolf isolation and longing for companionship in The Wolves of Kromer (2000), Der Samurai (2014), and Good Manners (2017).

People

Dr Darren Elliott-Smith

Senior Lecturer in Film & Gender Studies, Communications, Media and Culture