'Citing Frank Booth from Blue Velvet (1986) as an influence, Johnson created a violent and horrifying phantom in his villain, a man who terrorises and dominates every scene. Still, it's hard in a film that is so terrified of queerness to not read the fears beneath the text. David Lynch was fascinated and scared of traditional masculinity and so, hyperbolised Frank's qualities to skewer the role models that had been mediated through American film and television. Here, there is an acute fear of being perceived as unmanly, most evidenced in the 'comedy' of a man choosing to feminise himself in order to pay his rent. [...] There is an anxiety that the masculinity on display by Will and Syd, is simply not equipped to deal with any real danger, unable to really defend themselves, and this manifests in a cartoonish and erratic man violating heterosexuality, and making 'women' of them, the worst thing a man can be. '