“ ... in Victorian times, of course, there’s Bram Stoker’s devotion to Sir Henry Irving, reflected in the homoerotic aspects of Dracula (Dracula’s line “This man belongs to me!” as he warns off the female vampires and claims Jonathan Harker) ... ” — early gay literature rediscovered
“ Vampires, especially in modern American literature, film, and television, can be used as a “window” on gay culture of the corresponding era. [...] Vampires were also becoming more conspicuous in American popular culture in the ’20s and ’30s. Just as homosexuals seemed centered in specific areas, vampires were mostly limited to Hollywood films, and both groups were seen as “spectacles” by much of the public (Dracula on the big screen or a Harlem drag ball). Much of gay culture during this time was as flamboyant as was 1931’s Dracula, with his flowing cape, transfixing gaze, and heavy accent. Tod Browning, the director of Dracula, was himself gay, and much of his work centered on the position of the outsider. ” — vampires are us
“ ... treatments of Bram Stoker’s novel analyze its homoerotic desperation, unconscious desire, and deeply buried trauma. Not one critic, however, has recognised that Stoker began writing Dracula one month after his friend, rival and compatriot Oscar Wilde was convicted of the crime of sodomy. [ ... ] Wilde’s effect: an earthquake that destabilized the fragile, carefully elaborated mechanisms through which Stoker routed his desires ... ” — a wilde desire took me
“ It is easy to see how Wilde resembled the Count: Thanks to the rapid “Gothicization” of his personality throughout 1890s, Wilde came to represent numerous repressed values of the late-Victorian age. [...] The vampire figure did not portray Oscar Wilde per se: Rather, it stood for all the fears and fascination Wilde inspired in British society. ” — coming out of the coffin
“ At one point, Harker refers to his “strange night-existence” (Stoker 30), referencing his frequent all-night conversations with the Count. The word strange is footnoted, and its Victorian English homoerotic undercurrents are pointed out. ” — repression of homoerotic undertones in dracula
there are many hundreds more sources and examinations that could be made on this and that homoeroticism has always been prevalent in horror, particularly in the vampire genre — carmilla predates dracula by twenty-five years — but these are some really relevant highlights.
to me personally - trans queer nonsense abound - the act of writing dracula as a gay man is a kind of reclamation; reframing and re-writing him as the hero of his own story ( but yes, the villain of many other stories ) and as a gay man turns some of the things bram stoker was thinking about after oscar wilde’s arrest on its head, and is in defiance of stoker’s later-life homophobia that is kind of generally considered to involve a lot of self-hatred and repression
un-repress the vampire! let him out! just ... let him go!
and, to prove it’s not always that deep, i just love explicitly queer horror - i think it is one of the best kinds of horror - and dracula can take dick like a champ. dracula also said trans rights. that’s not relevant but he said it.
