I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them.

I know I should have a very specific political response to them. I know, for example, I should be offended by Disney’s lineup of vain, effete, ne'er-do-wells (Scar, Jafar), sinister drag queens (Ursula, Cruella de Vil), and constipated, man-hating power dykes (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent). I should be furious at Downton Abbey’s scheming gay butler and Girlfriend’s controlling lunatic lesbian, and I should be indignant about Rebecca and Strangers on a Train and Laura and The Terror and All About Eve, and every other classic and contemporary foppish, conniving, sissy, cruel, humorless, depraved, evil, insane homosexual on the large and small screen.

And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually–the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness become a kind of shorthand for each other–I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.

“Dream House as Queer Villainy” from In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

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16. shelink said: For me, Thomas has been attacked and forced into hiding since simply being attracted to men was illegal back then. He’s been made into a scheming, jaggy mean boy through circumstance. He comes through it, though and by the time the film comes along he’s been brought very low indeed, gone to work somewhere else and then returned to Downton. Where everyone knows and accepts him, where he’s liked. It’s a second chance for him in so many ways. He’s a decent character.
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