What is so queer, wonders the average straight person (a very average creature indeed), about the hapless misadventures of Mister Babadook? It has come to our attention, however, that the heterosexual community, in their usual loud and baffled way, is somewhat mystified by this icon of LGBT culture. The film is the story of a bereaved family coming to terms with their new tenant – a shambling, screeching storybook demon who lives under the stairs and, once given name or thought, can never be exorcised: “If it’s in a word, or it’s in a book / You can’t get rid of the Babadook!” He is gay.
The internet is taking a moment this week amid its confetti-storm of Pride celebrations to revisit a beloved masterpiece of queer cinema, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014).
