{"id":178047,"date":"2023-01-05T18:32:19","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T18:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/m3gan-the-murder-doll-is-already-a-camp-horror-icon-in-the-making\/"},"modified":"2023-01-05T18:32:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T18:32:19","slug":"m3gan-the-murder-doll-is-already-a-camp-horror-icon-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/m3gan-the-murder-doll-is-already-a-camp-horror-icon-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"M3gan, the murder doll, is already a camp horror icon in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When it comes to horror movies, I’m a scaredy cat. I watched The Strangers<\/em> and was checking the locks on my front door multiple times a night. I saw The Blair Witch Project,<\/em> and that was really just a nail in the coffin when it comes to camping, an activity I was already skeptical about. poltergeist <\/em>\u2014 nope, absolutely not. Those things do not respect boundaries. <\/p>\n

So imagine my surprise when I, of my own free will, found myself deeply obsessed with M3gan<\/em>, a Blumhouse-James Wan movie about a pretty doll that murders people. Since the initial trailer release in October, I’ve wanted nothing more than to watch this beautiful mean-girl animatronic cheerleader kill things, wreak havoc, and terrorize Allison Williams. And while glamorous women who dance and are capable of homicide appeal directly to my homosexual tastes (I love Chicago<\/em>!), I couldn’t figure out why I desperately needed to see this<\/em> movie <\/p>\n

I wasn’t alone, either. All over the internet were fan-made videos of M3gan dancing as well as declarations \u2014 from people who hadn’t even seen the movie \u2014 that M3gan was coming for the crowns of fellow murder dolls Chucky and Annabelle. A lot of that love was from queer people who were already (ironically and unironically) anointing M3gan as a queer icon, not unlike the way we’d done for MA<\/em>‘s Ma, or the mother in barbarian<\/em>or the Babadook, or Pearl from x<\/em>or Scream<\/em>‘s Ghostface. <\/p>\n

To help figure out the obsession, I spoke with Joe Vallese, a professor at NYU and the editor of It Came From the Closet<\/em>, a collection of critical essays about the intersection of queerness and horror movies. We talked about where M3gan<\/em> fits into the long history of killer dollies on screen, why LGBTQ people love the genre (hint: because it subverts real life), and how horror can give queer people an escape that they might not find anywhere else. <\/p>\n

I can’t fully explain it myself, but as a flagrantly homosexual man, I feel like this movie has triggered some kind of synapses in gay brains. like we [gay people] <\/strong>must<\/strong><\/em> see this movie with this murder doll. I worry because I’m in this homosexual bubble that I might be imagining things, and I just want to know if you’re seeing the same thing. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that as soon as I saw that trailer, and I saw that dance, I was like, \u201cOh, I know what’s going to happen here.\u201d You know, it was very clear to me that it was going to be sort of instant gay iconography. <\/p>\n

\n