Nosferatu

The Monstrous

In “The Monster and the Homosexual,” Harry Benshoff discusses the intersections between queer identities and an association with the monstrous. Benshoff cites Robin Wood’s formulation of the monster who “can often be understood as racial, ethnic, and/or political/ideological Others, while more frequently they are constructed primarily as sexual Others (women, bisexuals, and homosexuals)” (4). These figures can be understood as queer, as they deviate from the dominant ideology of capitalistic, monogamous, white patriarchical heterosexuality. As Benshoff explains, despite being predominantly concerned with sexual orientation,“queer is also insistent that issues of race, gender, disability, and class be addressed within its politics, making interracial sex and sex between physically challenged people dimensions of queer sex also, and further linking the queer corpus with the figure of the Other as it has been theorized by Wood in the horror film” (5). Benshoff continues by explaining that having the “Other” is necessary for defining normality, as without an “Other,” normality would become Otherized-- “without gays, straights are not straight” (8). This is an important point to consider when discussing F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, as I will argue in this blog post that the vampiric Count does have a queer identity, is multiply marginalized in his queer identity, and to understand this marginalization must be put back into the German context under which the film was made.

The Four Ways Homosexuality Intersects with the Horror Film

In the article, Benshoff identifies four ways in which homosexuality intersects with the horror film. The first way is “when a horror film includes identifiably gay and/or lesbian characters” (14). The Count in Nosferatu may not say “I am gay,” but through his physical appearance is codified as homosexual (which I will elaborate on a little later) and engages in “gay sex,” which the film represents through penetration of the neck, exchange of bodily fluids, and in terms of a domestic relationship between Thomas and the Count. As homosexual relationships are seen as mere parodies of heterosexual relationships, there can never be an even level of power between two male homosexuals. Thus, “one man “must” feminize himself (give up the phallus) and act as the “woman” to another man” (7). The Count, by violating Thomas, has momentarily castrated him.

The second way in which homosexuality intersects with the horror film is when the homo-horror film is one written, produced, and or directed by a gay man or lesbian...gay or lesbian creators of film products infuse some sort of ‘gay sensibility’ into their films either consciously or otherwise...the homo-horror auteur approach” (14). By way of a quick google search of “F. W. Murnau gay?,” I can confirm that Nosferatu is no exception to the homo-horror auteur approach, and is thus intersected by homosexuality in its means of production, with an unavoidable, subliminal “gay sensibility.”

The third way that homosexuality intersects with horror is “through subtextual or connotative avenues” (15). My hesitation earlier to deem the Count overtly gay is due to the fact that homosexuality on screen at this time was relatively allusive, read through characterization and subtextual clues. As Benshoff explains, “connotation (conscious or otherwise)... allows for and fosters the multiplicity of various readings and reading positions, including what has been called active queer...reading practices” (15). Thus, the slenderness of the Count’s body, his solitude, his predatory practices can all be read as indications of homosexuality through queer reading practices and the understanding of the codification of homosexual figures.

The fourth and final intersection is when a film is viewed by a homosexual spectator, it may be considered queer. Queer spectators may be more readily equiped to identify homosexuality in cultural artifacts. “In the case of horror films and monster movies, this ‘complex range of queerness’ circulates through and around the figure of the monster, and in his/her relation to normality” (15). Thus, through identification with the monster or the relationship of the monster to normality, a queer spectator would be able to identify the ways in which a monster exhibits queer traits.

Historical Characterization of the Monster Queer

Going back to the late 1800s, we see the advent of Nosferatu in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, upon which the film was based. The text features an elegant and seductive count who preys not only upon the bodies of men and women, but also on the very being of his victims, transforming them into creatures as sexually monstrous as himself. This might be understood as mirroring the culture’s invention of the homosexual: the vampire’s victims not only indulge in vampiric sex, but also now become a new and distinct type of individual/monster themselves” (19). Preying on the bodies of both men and women would characterize Dracula as bisexual. This sex, as Benshoff explains, results in the individual who engages with the monster to themselves become monstrous and continue the cycle of victimization. We see this cycle in Nosferatu, as the estate agent Herr Knock can be seen beginning to turn into a vampire in the beginning of the film--pale with dark circles under his eyes--he cries out for his lover/master from his prison cell when he senses that the Count is in danger, and also bites one of his guards while inside of his cell (presumably turning him as well). The association with death (or the undead) and queerness is nothing new. “Queer suggests death over life by focusing on non-procreative sexual behaviors, making it expecially suited to a genre which takes sex and death as central thematic concerns” (5). The anxieties surrounding reproduction and homosexuality in the horror film can be seen in Cthulu, when the failure for the gay son to procreate would mean the end of the cult. Homosexuals mark the end of the bloodline, and thus they are commonly characterized with images of death and decay, as Benshoff references “The Decadents,” who “celebrated themselves as thin, delicate, aestheticized, and emotional creatures,” fascinated with death and decay (19). In The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari, which was made only two years prior to Nosferatu also features a thin, delicate figure in the somnambulist, the undead puppet of Dr. Calagari who adorns thick eyeliner over his sharp pale facial features. Nosferatu also features somnambulism in Thomas’ wife Ellen, who is brought into a trance by the Count. Both of these figures are taken over by external forces in a psychological coercion of sorts in the preditorial endevors of older homosexual men.

Nosferatu in the German Context

It is very important to not extricate Nosferatu from its historical and national context, Germany in 1922. As aforementioned, Nosferatu follows the fellow German-made film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is well known for its psychological landscapes, slanted buildings and winding streets representing the inner musings of the id. “It was the Germans who would ultimately create the distinctive ‘look’ of the horror film by wedding its queer characters and occurrences to a visual style drawn from modernist painting, one that eventually became known as a cinematic style in its own right, German Expressionism” (21). Furthermore, in Germany, publications such as “Der Eigene, a German male homosexual magazine published between 1896 and 1981” was already advertising the associations between the character of the vampire and the homosexual, as it “contained much vampire imagery in its fiction and at least one complete vampire story” (20). To date, German Expressionism is closely linked to homosexuality, as not only were many of the filmmakers homosexuals themselves (see F.W. Murnau), but also through its “opposition to ‘normality’...constructed through realist styles of representation” (21). With this in mind, the Nazi Party, founded in 1920, rejected these queer perceptions in art. As Benshoff notes, “Nazi Germany...in 1937 when it invited its citizens to denounce and mock modernist art at a Berlin exhibit slidely entitled ‘Degenerate Art.’ The aim of the exhibit was to demonstrate how Aryan culture had been polluted by primitivism and the modernist style practiced (of course) by Jews, homosexuals, and other social deviants” (21). This brings me to my final point, that the Count in Nosferatu is multiply marginalized, and must be recontextualized in early 1900s Germany. The Count is clearly codified as bisexual, but what I saw more strikingly in his characterization were ties to Jewish codification. In Nazi Germany, Jewish people were described as Untermenschen, or subhuman, which David Livingstone Smith outlines in his book Less Than Human. I was brought back to films such as Life is Beautiful, where banners associating Jews with vermin and rats hung from store fronts and in town squares. The Count’s sharp teeth, large nose, black eyes, and overall narrow, pointed features are exactly the features from these posters associating Jewish people with rats and bats. Furthermore, Jewish people were characterized as money-grubbers and leeches. The Count is obviously extremely wealthy and quite literally leeches off of others. It is important to understand the Count as multiply marginalized, as he is not simply the homosexual “Other,” but can be understood as the “racial, ethnic, and/or political/ideological Other” too within an early 20th century German context.