The Babadook’s rise to queer legend is a remarkable one. It’s appreciation of a horror movie that turned into whisper of a joke that is now a well-established meme. (Several times throughout the day, my spirit yearns to Photoshop the Babadook, jaunty top hat and all, with its finger claws wrapped around a brick, into old pictures of the Stonewall Riots.) But it’s also a fascinating reminder how everything you think is strange and funny on the internet is probably the invention of a bored teenager - and could be co-opted and destroyed at any moment.īut while the Babadook might be a queer hero for the ages, and its ascension as an LGBTQ icon has been almost a year in the making, the fleeting nature of internet-born and bred phenomena suggests that we should appreciate its queer legacy while we still can. In writer-director Jennifer Kent’s movie, the Babadook manifests itself in a baba-book called Mister Babadook. It’s unclear how the book got there, but Amelia, a widow and the movie’s protagonist, reads it to her son Sam anyway. BEST GAY MOVIES NETFLIX NOV 2016 HOW TOĪs she reads the book, she realizes that it’s actually terrifying, but it’s too late - she’s conjured up the menacing supernatural figure known as Babadook.
