was it a sympathetic portrayal? were they dancing around the rules, using the fact that it's a less-scrutinized low budget genre movie to allow them to be more pro-gay than usual? i don't know. that's tantalizing. if that's what happened, there's an interesting parallel with victorian vampire tales
my impression is that in some ways, gothic horror had freer reign around topics such as homosexuality, because it was this little disreputable pocket genre no one really bothered with. there might be some similarity between the production of this adaptation and Carmilla itself.
or maybe it's just happenstantial. maybe it was in the source material, and the high volume, low cost machine which churned out this and other productions caused this b-movie to happen to land at a fairly literal rendition of the source material. was it happenstance and pragmatism?
it doesn't seem to be a very well studied film, and i have found very little information about it. but i'd love to know more! in some ways, maybe not knowing is part of what's tantalizing about this.
there's a glimmer of something there. i'm connecting it to my knowledge that there were other queer people in that era, with various degrees of visibility, with varying abilities to publicly make art about themselves. look, there is a glimmer of light reflected by their skin.
in the present, we, too struggle to be afforded space and visibility. we've had a remarkable few years of queer horror. 'I Saw the TV Glow' and 'Huesera' vaulted to my list of all time favorites, and there are many other good ones too.
will that continue? are financiers going to suddenly fall in line with the new far right agenda, and become suddenly cowardly when approached by filmmakers? will Michelle Garza Cervera even be allowed to make a second film after 'Huesera'? it remains to be seen how, exactly, things will go.
outside the various insulating mythologies we have, experiencing media critically becomes a different process. it's defined by a detailed landscape of happenstance and cultural particulars. i find i'm less interested in broad generalizations, and more interested in understanding this.
Important questions. Love to hear thoughtful thoughts as we engage with media. Perhaps meanwhile, it is, simultaneously throughout time, the best of times, and the worst of times, and in fact the same as now. But, depressingly, I'd really like to think better times are possible. ☀️
i would like to think that too! certainly one other constant is that people really can effect change, and that pockets of people creating an alternative can influence the central line.