“So many LGBT people have been barred from seeing themselves represented in popular culture, so we’ve had to project ourselves into so many of these figures,” Tongson said. But historically, fictional characters haven’t needed to say “I am gay” out loud to be read as gay or to become gay icons. He never displays physical attraction to another person. Naturally, there are counter-arguments: The Babadook never says he’s gay. “For many LGBT people, that’s what it feels like to be in your own families sometimes,” Tongson said. The family is afraid of what he is, but finds a way to accept him over time. He exists in a half-acknowledged state by the other people in his house. Instead of living in a proverbial closet, he lives in a literal basement.
The Babadook is creative (remember the pop-up book) and a distinctive dresser.
“He lives in a basement, he’s weird and flamboyant, he’s living adjacently to a single mother in this kind of queer kinship structure.” “Someone was like, ‘How could “The Babadook” become a gay film,’ and the answer was readily available,” said Karen Tongson, an associate professor of gender studies and English at USC. It began as a joke but, in the greater context of the Babadook himself, LGBT history and so-called gay icons, it actually makes sense.
