Ilr/itr'rl rtrrr/ rvillr rtlr irrlrrrr/rrt lirrrr /,r,

Rutgers Depth o[ Field Scrics , L-indu Williunts

Charles Af{ron, Mtrella Aft'ron, Robert Lyo\s, Series Editors

RLchard,\bel, ed., Silent Film

JohnBelton, ed., Movies and Mass Culture

Jdnet Staiger, ed., The Studio System
LindaWllliams, ed., Viewing Positions: Ways o[ Seeing Film

Viewing
Positions
Ways of Seeing Film

R
Rutgers
University
Press
Ncw Ilrurtswir.k,
N('rÿ./('r's('y
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( ril(,1
r. ( [,]'(,
i

Stl. I am refcrring cspccially ttt thc sl:rshcr etltl thc rill)('-l('v( ll]i(' lilrrr lrt rt lrt'
i 'l
lt
possession film does not evâcuate thc malc in thcqamc way, but :ls I srll+ies(c(l ilt sorll('
l
length in chapter 2, "Opening Up," it has its o'.ain) only slightly less obviotrs, wrtys ol I?honuJ. BcrensLeLn
i
"admitting" malc engagement with the {eminir-re position.
',|
I
ii9. Thus a film like Henry: Portrait of a Senal KiL\et, which plays clcfinitivcly on
sadistic impulses, does not in myview clualify as horror. The rcvicws I saw simultaneously
classified it as and distinguished it {rom horror. ("This low-budget film is gory and chilling,
i,r

iI but not exploitâtive in the wây of most slasher movies. Unrated" lSanFrancisco Exumincr,
I

ll
Pink Section, 13 May, 1989], and so on). Spectatorship-as-Drag :
90. This is not to sây thât all higher or mainstream cinemâ is so muted or minimally
l
rl
masochistic. See Studlar's analyses of von Sternberg's films lln the Realm rtf Pleasute) and
Doane's of woman's films of the 1940's lThe Desire to l)esirel.I should also acknowlcdge
The Act of Viewing and
some useful discussions with Richard Hutson on a isignificantly) "unremembered" genrc
.ri

o{ {orties films he refers to as "male melodramas." Classic Horror Cinema

ti

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1,

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l'l

i If Looks Could Kill

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'fhe performative dimensions of gendcr, râce, and

sexual identity-forma-
L
ti«rn have been the focus of significant theoretical and creative work in
I
thc past few years. Writers such as |udith Butler and Marjorie Garber have
l«xrsened gender and sexuality Érom binary poles and argued for unstable
notions of sexual identity. With the exception o{ a few recent works, such
rrs Steven Cohan's and Ina Rae Hark's Screening the Male, film analyscs
of identity as performance have used precisely the binaries that Butler
"li
:rncl Garber seek to overturn.l Film theory, especially work on sex,
r:!l

gcnder, and spectatorship, has relied on a male-versus-{emale spectator/

.:']
:urd limited concepts of amorphous sexuality (e.g., pre-Oedipal bisexual
vicwing).
Since the l97Os, film spectatorship has occupied three categories:
( I ) Lacanian-ideological approaches that posit â texrual position into
,l
which thc subject is inserted, (2) Freudian readings that propose viewing
','l position.s that correspond to the behavior of heroes and heroines (e.g.,
I,i cithcr a saclistic or a masochistic point of view), and (3)multiple positions
iil,
'l lr is is ;r rr ;rtl;rlrl rr I iorr o[ ;r ch;rptcr f ron r thc furthcortring book Atta ck of the L,euding Ladies:
ri
t:t'ntlt t tnttl l,t,tlt)ut)tnrr'r, lrr ( l/rl,ssir. llorn» (.,int:ntrr. I)rintctl by pcrntission 0{ thc author
;rrtl ( lrlurrrlri;r Urrivt.rsity. ( iopyr iglrt () I99..r lly (lolurrrhia Ulrivcrsity l)rcss.

l
|il
 Iilrrrltrl /. lir', r'rt\l( tlt
thât conceive of cinema âs â phantasy-tcrrâin or tliscr.rrsivc sitc Lllx)ll
which spectâtorc access shilting subject-pEitions.
The first and second approaches have dominated the analysis of
genres-horror movies in particular (e.g., |ames B. Twitchell lDreadful
Pleasuresl and Carol |. Clover lMen, Women, and Chain Saws]|.2 The
lii
second model has also held sway in a significant segment of feminist
work on spectatorship. Yet the conflation of spectatorship with sadism
tl
or masochism provides too simplistic an evaluation of the spectâtor-
ir'
tr genre relationship. The paradigm also limits the imputed spectator's
identification with and desire for on-screen characters/ âs some feminist
i
,i scholars have pointed out (e.g., Miriam Hansen [Babel and Babylon]].3
l,
rll What has yet to be accomplished in feminist film studies is the
detailed investigation of the third category of spectatorship, which con-
lr
ceives of multiple viewing positions, with recourse to theoretical frame-
li works beyond the psychoanalytic pale and with a view to dislodging the
I
field's favorite dualities: male/female and heterosexual/homosexual.
,1,,
Such a project is important for its commitment to theorizing the sex and
gender permutations of spectatorship in a mânner that takes into account
historical and generic specificity and does not reduce viewing to a
il
masochistic-sadistic duality.
,i
This chapter is devoted to interrogâting the ways in which
Hollywood's 1930s horror films, usually thought to be home to sadistic
iii
and male forms o{ viewing pleasurg allow fluid subiect-positions and
invite spectâtors to engage in roles similar to those appropriated by actors
in the performance of drag. In this context, drag is understood as the
theatrical adoption of sex and gender behavior, with the term sex refer-
il
ring to biological sex and gender to the display of behaviors culturally
ii
conceived as either feminine or masculine. I argue that classic horror has
been misinterpreted by most critics as a representational venue for the
ii.
promotion of solely patriarchal mores, which in turn elicit sexually
;li
diff erentiated spectatorial responses.
The multiplicity of identifications and desires available to film
spectators has been addressed, primarily, in terms of psychoanalytic
I
,l
rl
phantasies, especially Freud's work on beating fantasies. In this context
I too will appeal to Freud's oeuvre in order to expand prior analyses of
ii
til horror viewing. However, the model of spectatorship proffered by the
beating fantasies provides only part of horror's viewing puzzle and is best
augmented by a theory that can âccount for horror's confusion of catego-
ries of sexual identity, biological sex, and gender. Drag offers such a
modcl not only because it provides a framework for addressing gendcr
l lr, \, r ,4 \ rr rr trrr' ,rrr,l t l,r..r, 1 1",,',, I iltr',r'r
1,.'lrrrvrt,rs ;rs rrrorlt's1rrl Pcrlrlrrrr:rrrcc llLrt lrls«l bcclrtrsc it throws into
rlrrt'st ion t lrt' rrot iorr oI :rrr :rutltcrrtic spcctâting sclf. From this pcrspcctivc,
tlrt'rr, it['ntity politics rcnrain a crucial mocle of action in the political
;il('n;1, hut sl)cctrltors scatccl in a movie theater, especially those who
w;rtch cl;rssic horror, arc likcly to engage in and exhibit â more fluid and
rrrrrllcrrblc rangc of s«lcial ernd sexual identities than they would in their
t'vcrytlrty livcs.
Stuclying imputed spectatorship is never a.purely theoretical
urrrlcrlv«rr, as |udith Mayne has recently pointed out: "[T]he analysis of
slrcctatrrrship is an analysis of one's own lascination and passion. Unless
tlris is acknowledged, then we âre left with a series oL fuzzlly defined
'itlcal readers' in whom it is difficult to know how much of their
rcsponses are displaced representations of the critic's owrt."4 While
thcorists may describe an ideal viewer promoted by textuâl systems, that
clairn is always informed by their personal investment in describing the
spccificities of spectâtorial pattcms.
As a lesbian film scholar and spectator living in a late-twentieth-
ccntury culture in which heterosexuality is thc norm, I delight in classic
horror's transgression of dominant renditions of sexual differencc and
gcnder trâits. While I rnay experiencc fcar (although historical hindsight
offers much in the way of critical distancc), I also derive plcasure from
vicwing a monster that toys with the rcquisites of sexual identity as
cither male or female and that American patriarchy deems a threat to its
nlores. Thus, from a personal perspective, one of the draws of evaluating
classic horror cinema is to address imputed spectatorship in a genre that
may do little to unhinge the workings of patriarchy outside the theater
but plays havoc with conventional identifications and roles behind
closed doors.
Classic horror provides textual and extratextual terrains im-
bricated in the adoption of disguises and role-playing-the masking and
runmasking of creatures and characters. For example, in the publicity
r.rratcrials distributed by Paramount {or its 1933 possession film, Super-
naturul, one poster proclaimed of the heroine/monster: "Beneâth Her
Mask of beauty [sic] . . . . . . Lurks The [sic] Spirit of âDemon" (Library
of Congrcss Collection). The publicity campaign for Daughter of the
l)rttgon (Paralnor.rnt , lc)31l1, a film about the monstrous evils of a Chinese
rkrctor anrl his clar-rghtcr, cmployed similar tactics: "Fu Manchu's Daugh-
tcr, rt F:rscirrrtting llcrttrty Wh<lsc l3cauty Masks the Vengeful Heart of a
Scr lrcrrt Aborrt to Strikc" (Lihr:rry of (J«lrrgrcss Collcction). Thc appc:rl to
nrlt' plrry;rs rl st'lling ploy wirs n()t linritcrl to fcrtt:tlc ficrrrls,:ls ()nc bylinc
 ,]l
Ii/trrltrt i Iir ir'ttslr'ttr
for The Crime of Dr. Crespi (Rcpublic, 1935), a r.nad-ckrctor f i lnr, srr,ggcsr s:
"Great Surgeon-or Inhuman Fiend?" (§brary of Congrcss Collcction).
While it would be imprudent to draw â one-to-onc corrcspon-
dence betr /een publicity ploys and spectatorial positions, it woulcl bc
equally unwise to ignore the influence of textual and extratextual fornts
of disguise on audiences. As I argue iri a more sustained fashion clsc-
where, classic horror relishes "gender-bending."5 Not only arc hcroincs
the monster's victims, but they also often desire the fiends and arc
visually and narratively doubled with them; male leads not only valiantly
âttempt to save heroines from monsters but also often fail in their heroic
efforts, are porffâyed as effeminate and helpless, and exhibit homoerotic
inclinations; a\d, finally, monsters are not only male aggressors but
sometimes female, and, by being creatures that defy ontological catego-
ries such as humanness, they trouble the stability of biological sex and
gender. Thus, monsters that are coded male also exhibit strikingly
feminine characteristics and often adopt nffrâtive roles traditionally
reserved for heroines.
Here, Marjorie Garber's recent work on cross-dressing lends a
useful paraliel: "[O]ne of the most important aspects of cross-dressing is
the ways in which it offers a challenge to eâsy notions of binarity, putting
into question the categories of 'female' and 'male,' whether they are
considered essential or constructed, biological or cultural."6 And she
continues: "The transvestite . . . is both terrifying and seductive precisely
because s/he incarnates and emblematizes the disruptive element that
intervenes, signaling not just another c,ategory crisis, but . . . a crisis of
'category' itself."7 Garber's description of the transvestite is consonant
with the role of monsters in horror, since they too are interstitial
creatures. They repeatedly transgress conventional categories of scxual
and human identity, and they incite fear and desire in those they
encounter.
While classic horror spectatorship is not ecluivalent to thc textual
manifestations of role-playing and disguise, there is much to suggest that
horror's investment in a multiplicity of roles resonates with spectâtors.
Yet the specific impact on viewers, though transgressive of conventional
readings of the genre/ mây not be disruptive of the social sphere per st:.
Although horror promotes the adoption of multiple positions/ sometimes
aligning those positions with gender-bending, it is unclear to what degre e
spectatorial identifications and desires can be attributed progrcssivc
ideological significance outside the viewing context. This is especially
true from the perspectives of identity politics and spectator subjcctivi ty,
/ir, \,r,'/ \ t,tttttr',ttt,/r l,r"'r' llrlrr(rr I lrlr'rrri
lor wlt:tt t'lrtssic ltorlor Ittrty «rllcr is rt tctrtlltlr:try rclcltsc lrotu tltt'tt't;trt
si(cs ol cvcrytlay iclcr-rtitics whilc at thc saruc tirlrc rclying u1'rtlu th«lsc
itlcrrtitics:ts a l'all-back position. Classic h«lrror's dynamics suggcst thât
t:incrlrrtic spcctâtorship may Senerâte multiple and sometimes trans-
grcssivc 1'rositions from within a culture committed to the maintenance
ol rigid scx rolcs and gender behavior.
Mayne introduces this possibility when she writes of cinema's
"s^fc zorte": "Film theory has been so bound by the.heterosexual sym-
nrctry that supposedly governs Hollywood cinema that it has ignored the
possibility, for instance/ that one of the distinct pleasures oi the cinema
rnay well be a 'safe zone' in which homosexual as well as heterosexual
clesires can be fantasized and acted out" (p. 97l.In other words, cinema
rnay allow heterosexual spectators to perform homosexual desires and
vice versa. Classic horror, as the following arguments indicate, is one
genre in which spectators are invited to play it safe, in Mayne's tems.
S adism, M asochism, and Sp ectating T r av ails
In her now-classic contribution to feminist fihn thcory "Visual Plc:rsure
and Narrative Cinema, " L,an)raMulvey âsscrts that Hollywoocl's spccta-
torial pleasures âre sadistic.S She also maint:rius that those pleasurcs find
cxtrâtextuâi support in the heteroscxual male vicwcr who idcntifics with
the hero's dominant point-of-view and objectifying gaze. Mulvey's esti-
rnation of male spectatorship has becn entrenched in feminist film
analysis and implicitly embraced in a range of classic horror criticism
(c.g., that by Roger Dadoun).e
The most striking challenge to Mulvey's estimation of sadistic
rnale viewership comes from Gaylyn Studlar, who asserts the primacy of
rnasochism: "Mulvey's deterministic, polarized model . . . cannot admit
that the masculine look contains passive elements and can signify
10
submissionto rather than posses sion of the{emale." Relying on Gilles
l)clcuze's work, Studlar aligns masochism with the male subject's pre-
Ocdipal identification with and subjection to a powerful mother.ll
Studlar bclieves that much of this male-maternal bond is replicated in
thc spcctator's relationship to the cinema screen and endures, to a degree,
in thc Ocdipal phase.
Mulvcy and Studlar offer two primary approaches to spectator-
ship in [cr.r.rir.rist f ilrn thcory-approaches thathavebeen appliedto horror
cirrcrrr;r witlr v:rrying tlcgrccs «lf thcoretical complexity. The importarlcc
ol s:rrlisttt ;ttttl ttt:tsot:lristl ttl h«lrr<lr filrn analysis cannot be overcsti-
 /illr)lJ(l / Ijr,r l\lr lt
,r,1,
mated. Perhaps more than any othcr gcnrc/ horror/s ltil rrrl I ivcs oI lll( )t)st ('l
attacks and human victimization âppcaï to be pcrfcct hornc.s to .srrtli.snr
'',:i and masochism. That said, the degree to whiôh modcls of s:rtlisric :rrrtl
rl'
masochistic viewing can be easily applied to horror has yct to bc clctcr
mined. This sectionwill evaluate film theories of sadism and masochisnr
t, and their applicability ro spectâtorship.
''ii
Unlike Mulvey, Studlar proposes the viability of male oppositc-
sex identification.l2 However, problems rernain. First, Studlar,s outright
reiection of sadism is an awkward inversion/ versus negotiation, of ..
Mulvey's work. Second, although she argues that opposite-sex desire ancl
ri,, identification coexist in the Oedipal phase, Studlâr's privileging of the
pre-Oedipal relegates mature scxual desire to a later time-one thâr
favors the father and not the mother. As in Mulvey's schema, the patemâl
realm âccounts for sexual desire. Since Studlar claims that the pre-
Oedipal is marked by a form of bisexuality that accommodares male
identi{ication with the matemal, male opposite-sex and {emale same-sex
identifications are given preem inence.
As a result, male same-sex and female opposite-sex identification
and desire are relegated to the Oedipal stage. Although Studlar does not
go so far as to câll the pre-Oedipal better, she privileges its reievance for
spectatorship. By focusing on masochism, Studlar forecloses the dual
operation of masochism and sadism in cinema spectatorship. In fact, she
is at pains to ârgue that Freud's "supposition of a sadomasochistic
duality"-!q wrong and that sadism and masochism are incontrovertibly
distinct. 13 As I argue in the next section, Freud,s claims, and not Stud-
lar's, better approximate classic horror.
Here, I would like to address a film briefly in order to underscore
the constraints of foregrounding either a sadistic Oedipal model or a
masochistic pre-Oedipal paradigm of viewing pleasure. Tod Browning,s
classic vampire film Dracula (Universal, 193 I ) lends suppoït ro Mulvey,s
sadistic schema. Not only does the rnale-coded fiend possess an agÉfes-
sive gaze, which he uses with panache, but he also assumes a distinctly
paternal role. For example, in a scene at the symphony, Dracula enters
the box occupied by Dr. Seward, his heroine-daughter Mina, her friend
Lucy, and Mina's fiancé |ohn. Dracula causes Mina's father to leave (on
the pretext that he is wanted on the telephone) and takes up Seward,s
vacated pâternal position next to Mina.
In a latersequence, in which ProfessorVanHelsing discovers that
.rt Dracula's image is n«rt reflccted in a mirror, the count occupies â patemill
position again. At thc cnd of the scenc in qucstion, Scwarcl cxprcsscs
I Jr, \, I ,,/ \'t, tr ttr.r' ,ttt,l r l,t',rt, I irrt,(r, ( rrrr rrri/
( r)n('('nr lor lris tl;rrrglttt:r's lr;ril lreitlth itnrl rrrgcs hur t«l hcr rrlrlttt. ()rrly
,rltt'r l)r;tctrlit rcitcr,itcs Scw:rrrl's c«rtttllaud, httwcvcr, cltlcs Mitra hccd
t lrc rt'tprcst .
'l 'h:rt is, I )racula trxl lrccorncs hcr father-the man who bids
Ir.'r tk r h is w ill. 'l'hc couflatirxr of Dracula with Mina's father is reinforced
lry slrot irltcrnations bctwecn three-shots, in which Mina, Seward, and
I )r:rt:rrlrr :lppcâr, ancl two-shots, reflected in the mirror of a cigarette case/
Irorrr which Dracula disappears. In a goodportion of the images, therefore,
w(' :rrc :rwà rc of Dracula's presence (we hear his voicef but he is visually
cr rnllirtccl with Seward, Mina's real father.
While this description of Dracula's Oedipal role is compelling and
rt:inforccs associations âmong classic horror, patemity, and sadism, it
provitlcs a partial description o{ the count's furiction. Inboth the symphony
;rrrtl mirror sequences/ Dracula also occupies a matemal position. As in a
r';rngc of other classic horror movies, such as The Mumm.y (Universaf 1932)
rrntl 'I'he Old Da* House (Universal, 1932), the matemal role is associated
w i tlr death and absence in Dra cula.Ivlina' smother never appears in the film,
rs rrcvcr directly mentioned, and is not depicted in a portrait or photogaph.
lrrstcad, the matemal is located in the roles the count assumes and the
t)irrrâtive fissures that populate this film.
For examplg Dracula's entry into Seward's symphony trox is prc-
t:ipitated by his hlrpnotism of an usher, whom he commands to inform
Scward of a phone call. Before Seward departs, Mina notes: "If it's from
Irornc, will you say I'm spending the night in town with Lucy?" Mina's
r:rther vague phrasg "If it's from homer" suggests that the caller may be her
ru«rther, for who else would she need to alert that she is spending the night
i n town ? After all, her other parental caretaker, her father, is in her compâny.
ll it is true that the caller is Mina's mother, however, it is also Dracula; for
t hcre is no real caller except him, except his hypnotically manüâctured one.
That Mina's rapport with Dracula invokes her mother rein{orces
ir point made by Lindâ \,t/illiams in "When the \üoman Looks," namely,
t hc rapports between horror's male-coded monsters and heroines signifu
rclrrcssed female sexuality.l4 In the context of Drucula, a film marked
hy a maternal absencg the erotic powers attributed to monsters by
Williarns mây connote mâternal potency. ln fact, Dracula's alignment
w ith thc mâternal is reinforced by the very lack of a mother figure in the
lilnr ancl by his ability to give birth to his victims. For the count serves
rrs rrn objcct «rf fcar and desire (Mina and Lucy are fascinated with and by
lrirnf o[ a rathcr diffcrent sort from the conventional men who populate
tlrc nrovic. Tlrus, whilc Dracula may bc the film's sadistic father, hc is
;rlso l rrryslt:riotrs :ttttl tlcatlly t-trothcr.
 lilr,'rr,r I li.lr rrllt lrr
Thc vistral fltrcttratitln hctwc.:tl I)l:tcttl;t's llrescll(:('itrttl ;tlrst'ttct'
^-' thc miffor scene reinforces thc vânrpirc's tltral llrlsiti«lnilr.g ls :l lllillcr-
nal ând patemâl signifier; like Mina's firthcr wc scc.hirn, Iikc hcr tlothcr
he disappears into narïative space. Dracula is, thcreYorc, a familial ictln,
s
a role attributed to him by a ,rrrmlrer of horror critics.l In his analysis of
the vampire in cinema, for example, Dadoun argues for the count's sexual
and parental prowess by aligning him with the "phallic mother," a
maternal figure entrenched in Oedipal configurations: a woman who
fulfills the father's castrating powers.16 Ir, "Horror and the Monstrous-
Feminine," Barbara Creed posits a more expansive version of matemal
monstrosity and takes issue with Dadoun's reading. More than the
phallic mother of the Oedipal stage/ argues Creed, the monster signifies
an "archaic mother," one who is powerful not in a castrating but in a
regenerativ" ,..tr".17 Creed's version of the maternal reminds us of
Studlar's masochistic schema; the rnother/monster is a pre-Oedipal
source of fascination and anxiety. She is not, as Dadoun would argùet a
father in disguise.
Both Dadoun's and Creed's 2lalyses of monstrosity are compel-
ling, yet each alone is inadequate to âccount for the fluctuation of
parental roles that characterizes Browning's Drucula. In contrast to
theories intent on positing a temporal separation between the matemal
and patemal, or the conflation of matemal functions with Oedipal or
pre-Oedipal concerns, Dracula suggests the simultaneity of pre-Oedipal
and Oedipal configurations and the conflation of sadism and masochism
in a single character.
The separation of the maternal from the paternal is, therefore, a
poor mode of accounting for horror's textual and extratextual fascination
for viewers. Moreover, Dracula indicates that the pre-Oedipal/Oedipal
distinction reduces the genre to parent-focused psychoanalytic configu-
rations of identification and desire, and elides one of horror's most
insistent terrors: the lures of that which lies outside the familial domain.
From this perspective, Mulvey's Oedipal and Studlar's pre-Oedipal biases
may each account for important identifications, but forcclose malleable
,i sexual identities, especially those thât depend on the reiection of familial
relations.
Like Studlar's theory, Carol |. Clover's recent work on contem-
i porary horror is a notable effort to move beyond the con{ines of
Mulvey's model and is the only sophisticated study of horror to reject
the primacy of sadism. According to Clover, neither masochism nor
sadism is cinema's sole mode of operation. Horror, however, is more
llr, \,r,'f \r,rrlrrr',rrtlr l'r"'l' ll"rrrI I l'rr'rrrl
r l,,s. ly tclrttt'tl ttrlltt'lottttt'l lttttt:(iolt:"'l'ltctttltsocltistic:tcstltcticis;ttttl
.rlw:ry:, lt,ts lrt't'tt lltt'tlottti;tt:tllt ()llc itt lrtlrror. . ' ' tlrc littrtasics in wlrich
l',,,,,,, t'ittcttrrt trrttlcs rlrc l)ilrticrllar (thtltrgh l'lot cxclusivcly) tailorcd ttl
rrr:rlc lot ttts ol tttâstlchistic cxpcricncc (accounting for the dispropor-
tronrltc tnrtlcue ss of thc audicnce).18'l9 Like Studlar, Clover expands
rrr;rlt: spcctirtorship beyond sadism' However, by turning the con'
vt'rrtion:tl cstimation of viewing relations on its head, that is, by
pr ivilcging masochism over sadism, she limits the genre's investment
rrr both contlitions. Moreover, Clover privileges a spectatorial model-
rrrrrs«lchism-which may be transgressive for male spectâtors/ t0
whom she applies it, but is highly conventional and confining for
w()nlen.
There is every indication that classic horror's theaters were filled
with women as well as men. If the genre's contemporary texts ale
oricnted primarily toward male forms of masochism and male subiect-
positions, as Clover ârgues/ is there another modcl to âccount fclr female
vicwing pleasures in classic films-fihns to whicl-r fcrlalc spcctatols
were drawn?
Not
S/he Loves Me, S/he Loves Me
In a compeliing articlg Lawrence S. Kubie notes thât "from childhood,
and throughout life - . . in varying proportions or emphases, the human
goal ,eem-s almost invariably to be both sexes, with the inescapable
Ëo.rr"q.r"rr"e that we âïe always âttempting in every moment and every
act bolh to aifirm and deny our gender identities'"2o Kubi" provides us
with an important entry into spectatorship' For if he is correct in
proclaiming a human desire to be both sexes, a most important and
undertheorized aspect of cinematic spectatorship may wellbe that view-
ing pleasures are derived as much from the unleashing of mechanisms of
sexual similaritY as difference.
Lr the context of classic horror, the drive to become both sexes,
as the title of Kubie's article claims, is developed not only via an
ontologically and biologically liminal monsteï but also by the very fact
that the monster is a source of dread and fascination for protagonists and
viewers alike. The monster often signi{ies the dissolution of sexual
difference and stable gender traits, threatening to dislodge a range of
patriarchal structures upon which characters and spectators depend' The
 .'l()
lilt(),1(l I lir', r'tr\lr't,r
-Ionster also personifics thc vicwcr's clcsirc, irs l(u[ric's w()rl( sug;{csts/ (()
blur conventional divisions within câtegories of biologicrrl scx and gcnclcr.
Here we must remember that in classic \orror, thc clesirc to bc
both sexes occurs in a narrative inflected by sadism and masochism ancl
in which the monster is usually assumed to be male. The dual operations
of these conditions in other types of fikns have been noted by theorists.
For example, Hansen argues that Rudolph Valentino was an icon of
female spectatorial ambivalence.2t Spectatorial pleasure for women,
ârgues Hansen of Valentino, is imbricated with sadomasochistic intima-
tions: Valentino's persona, like viewer identifications and desires, oscil-
lates between sadism and masochism.22
The concept of oscillation, often grounded in Freud's work on
beating fantasies, comes closer than prior efforts to theorizing a model
of spectatorship that can account for malleable subject-positions, such
as those deployed in classic horror. But absent from previous analyses
has been a recognition of the degree to which Freud is at pains to shut
down a fluid definition of subiectivity in spite of the evidence provided
by fantasies to the contrâry.
Freud's analysis of male and female beating fantasies in "A Child
Is Being Beaten" lI9I9l is useful for our consideration of classic horror
not only because of what it may teil us about the coexistence of sadism
and masochism in a viewing context but also because of what Freud fails
to address in terms of viewing pleasures.2s The bulk of "A Child Is Being
Beaten" is devoted to four fantasies experienced by female pâtients. The
fantasies are composed of three phases: two articulated by patients and
one articulated by the analyst. The first phase-"a child is being beat-
s11//-is noteworthy because the child who has the phantasy is not the
one being struck. Freud concludes that the distance between the fanta-
sizing child and the one appearing in it confirms thât the phantasy "is
certainly not masochtstic."24 He hesitates to call it sadistic, however,
because the patient is not doing the beating herself.
Another crucial component of this phase is that the sex of the
adults meting out the punishment is ambiguous. Although Freud asserts
that"Later on this indeterminate grown-up person becomes recognizable
clearly and unambiguously as the (girl's) father," Freud never indicates
whether that recognition is articulated by the female patients themselves
or the analyst. In fact, patients often refer to the adult as a teacher, a
sexually ambiguous figure that is not necessarily a stand-in for the father.
Moreover, in his analysis of male fantasies, Freud literally replaces the
mother with the father. His insistence upon naming the sex of the adult
'll
i/r, \, L,/ \ ri r\ [rr' ,ilr,/ r i,r',,r, Ilr,r rrl I ilrr ,]rl
,rrrtl lrts;tsscttiott tlt;tt thc tttotlter itt lttltles'lrtttt:tsics is lrcttr:rlly:t l:ttltct'
rrr;ry lt'l lt't t lrrr'tttl's l<ccrt rtttrtlytic Ittitrtl, lttrt alstl rcvcals Frclttl's pr()pcl1-
\rly l()slrtrt tkrwrt;ttlttlt scxtr:tl;rnrltigttity in thcfirstinstanceandclevatc
,r prrtcrttrtl signilicr in hoth tyl,es «lf fantasics.
'l'lrc seconcl phirsc of thc phantasy is articulatedby Freud as "I
,rrrr lrcing lrcrrtcr.r by my father."27 Despite the fact that Freud admits that
tlris phrrsc "ncvcr hacl a real existence" and "is a construction of analy-
sis," it is thc rnost important stage and the linchpin of his interpreta-
t i,,rrs.28 Through his own constructions Freud arrives at the masochistic
scgrrrcnt of thc patient's phantasy, links it to her {atheç and consolidates
;r hctcroscxual incest motif.
Passing through the second stage, Freud phrases the final one as
lolkrws: "I am probably looking on." Freud contends that the little girl
secs children (often boys) being beaten by her father. Yet, as the patient
rt'n'rcmbcrs it, she watches children being punished by a nonsexcd adult.
( )f the third phase, Freud notes that in its passage through thc uncon-
*c[,us second stage, it becomes attached to scxual cxcitcmcnt and
:;,rrlism.29 Although Freud implies that thc fcrnalc paticnt idcntifics with
thc adult doing the beating, he ncver articulatcs this point. lnstcacl he
IocLrses on the excitations aroused and on tracing the girl's :rttrerction to
lrcr father.
In lieu of further examining the girl's responses/ I would like to
st«lp here in order to address the coextensivc relationships among sadism,
rnasochism, and multiple-sexed identifications that exist in the phantas-
ics. Although Freud wavers between calling the phases sadistic, the very
inrirginary and unconscious quality of the second phase underscores his
bclicf that sadism and masochism inform each other. For Freud to
nranu{acture the second stage, that is, to align the patient with masoch-
ism, hc depends on a sadistic buffer created by the first and third phases.
|rcud allows sadism and masochism to oscillate in female phantasies,
,rncl hc suggests that they occupy central positions in a female experience
si nr ilar tcl spectatorship.3o
Thc pattems of identification and desire unleashed in the phan-
t :rsics rrrc shif ting and complex. Since Freud notes that the sex of the child
bcing bcatcn in the first and third phases is unimportant and since the
seconrl phasc figurcs thc phantasizing child in the positions previously
ot:crrpictl lry boys ancl girls, cross-sex identification with a masochistic
lole is irnplicrl. Whitt Frettcl rlvcrlttoks, rtr chooscs not to explore, is that
(r()ris scx itlcrrtilic:rtion with s:ttlistic aclults is also possiblc ur the part
ol tlrc plt;ttttrtsi,:irrg chiltl. -flris t:hiltl-:ttltrlt, cross-scx iclcr-rtificatitlrl is
 .,1.,
li/trrltrt / lir'lr ttslr'ttt
rmplied when Freud refers to thc third stagc as saclistic. Yct irr relttsitrg
to articulate that aspect, Freud insists on lirniting thc chilcl's irlcrrtifice-
tory pâttern to other children and confines her relat\onship with thc adr"rlt
to a perverse daughter-father link.
While Freud allows the children's sexes to fluctuate, he docs not
confer the same freedoms upon adults. ily naming the adult a fathcr,
Freud creates sex where there is none and manufactures a social role-the
parent-where there is none. Freud's maneuver is not surprising consid-
ering his theoretical reliance on the Oedipal family structure.3l The
effect is a streamlining of identification pattems/ thus reducing the
patient's sexual excitation to heterosexual incest. However, not only
does a cross-sexed reading o{ the phases reveal that identification and
desire may exceed the confines of heterosexuality (little girls identify
with and desire other little girls), but it also throws into question the very
parameters of identification and desire.
If the beating phantasies generate pleasure for the patients expe-
riencing them and if the identifications and desires deployed fluctuate
among sexes, ages, and social roles, then part of the pleasure may be that
the phantasies generate and facilitate cross-sexed or nonspecified identi-
fications and desires. That Freud is at pains to attribute the patient's
excitation to a heterosexual framework consonant with the Electra
complex does little to silence the plausibility that his analytic maneuvers
disguise as much as they reveal. Freud masks the possibility that sexual
excitation may result from the very fact that the identities of the adults
and children are shifting. That possibility has significant implications for
classic horror.
A malleable approach to the phantasies allows us to envision
oscillations between sadism and masochism for male and female view-
ers. Although the phantasies mentioned belong to female pâtients, Stud-
lar's recent claim is important: "Instead of suggesting a direct parallel
between female patients and female spectâtors/ the situation of Freud's
female subjects more exactly duplicates cinema's positioning of all
spectators."S2 Whereas Studlar sees that positioning as masochistic, an
oscillation between sadism and masochism more fully approximates the
phantasies. But cross-sex identification of females with males and adults,
and nonsexed identification of females with adults allow for an expanded
definition of viewing that accommodates the ambiguities of horror's
characters, especially monsters.
This revised reading of "A Child Is Being Beaten" allows idcnti-
fications and desires to be conferred upon those committing sadistic acts
'tr
I i r, \, t ,,/ \ t, tt'lttt' ,trt,i r l,r',',rr I Lrr r,rr ( l,l, ,,r,i
.rrrtl tlrost'itt tt:tt'ipt ol l,tttttislrrrtcrtt. Altlrotrgh in Iirctrtl's view tllc rrttrgc
ol irlt'rrtilir';rtiorts:tv:tilrtblc to le tlrtlcs:rtrcl uralcs cliffer, his articlc allrlws
lor ;r lltritl conccptrrrtlizatiotr of idcntificatory positions lrascd on scx/
1,,t'rrtlt'r, :rntl scxLral «rricntation (c.g., in the male phantasies, Freud attri-
lrrrtt's:r honr«lscxuetl objcct-choice to men whose mothers are read as
l;rthcrs). Sincc the Inonster is an aggressor/ ân obiect of desire and
rtlcrrti[icati«ln, itnd a su{{erer at once/ an expanded view of the beating
plr:rntasics accornrnodates movements between sadism and masochism
:rntl bctwccn identification and desire in horror films.
Victor Halperin's Supernatural (Paramount, 19331 is a good ex-
;rrnplc of a classic horror film that facilitates shifting identi{ications and
tlcsircs. Supernatural traces Roma's travails after her twin brother |ohn
rlics. Willing to believe anyone who promises her the chance to commu-
rricatc with John, Roma is taken in by a fake spiritual guide. In the midst
of. hcr psychic explorations, Roma is possessed by the spirit of Ruth
l(ogcn, â murderess executed ât the film's start. Through mctonyuric
,leviccs, such as parallel editing, Ruth's and |ohn's clcaths arc alignccl,
suggcsting that it is no coincidencc that Roma channcls a clcacl wtlttl:ll1's
soul while trying to communicate with a clc;rd man.
By the film's end, Roma's intcrnalization of thc ficnd rcnclcrs her
status as the innocent heroine precaritttts: she bcgins to act sexually
rrggrcssive; she becomes monstrous. Rotna's fiendish exploits âre evcn-
t trally compounded by the mystical âppearance of |ohn's face-without
t hc psychic's intervention-late in the narrative. Like Ruth's migrating
;
soul, fohn too trâvels among the living and stays close to Roma. While
l{rrth literally occupies Roma's body, }ohn is not farbehind-he is bonded
t«r his twin in death as in life. In a sense, therefore, when Roma channels
l{uth, fohn also participates in that transmigration of souls.
On the one hand, Roma is the movie's appealing and innocent
hcroine-an object of desire for the hero, Grant Wilson, a suitable locus
of iclcntification and (potentially) desire for viewers and a prime victim
in l{uth's vengeful postmortem plans. On the other hand, Roma inter-
rrrrlizcs a rnonstrous figure-a womân framed for the mass murder of a
groul'r «rf urcn found dead in her Greenwich Village apârtment. Further-
rnorc, thc ghost of fohn lurks nearby, revealing his translucent visage in
thc srrr.r.rc llrrlnncr that Ruth appears to the spectâtor. Like other classic
lll()nstcrs, l{ot.t.trt cr«lsscs boundaries: she is ât once a heroine, a fiend, and
:r signiIicr of hcr rr.ralc twin. Ruth and fohn too are liminal figures: thcy
rrrovc crrsily ht'twccu tlrc rcalt'us of thc visiblc and invisiblc, thc living
,ttttl I ltt' rl,';ttl.
 ,,ll
liirdrrrr /. lir'lr',1\h ilt I1t, ..\,I,rl \,t,'tÿtttri,ttt,l( [l\\tr Ilr,,trr, ( lilr'illrl

Roma's contradictory on-scrccll rolc sLlggcsts thrrt shc is rrrr .l urrrn :rtttl/ol :r worrr:rnj nl(llstcrs highlight thc constructctl aspccts ol
equally complex object of identification and desire for spcctators. Altcr- st'xrrrrl itlcrrtity. As rr rcsult, â tropc aligncd with thcatrical display and
nately exhibiting behavior that connotcs passivity, fcmininity, nlirsclr- t lrt' pcrlorrrrirrrcc of r<llcs provicles an important addition to the sâdomâs-
linity, sexual depravity, and danger, Roma is a fluctuating ccntcr of oclt ist ic llitratligm.
: âttention. A good part of her fascination resides in hcr ability to rpovc
I
among her roles with ease. That she is an object of dcsire in spite âf or,
i
perhaps, because of her monstrosity is s rggested by her nâme, which
spelled backward reads Amor. That she is intended to elicit the spcc- Horror is Such a Drag
tator's fear is indicated by her association with Ruth, a calculating
\Momân who is anything but sympathetic. And that Roma allows for
"( )krthing typical of one sex wom by â person of the opposite sex" is how
cross-sex identification and desire is hinted at by lroth her intimate
Mcrriam Webster defines the term drag. It is a sartorial inversion, a
râpport with her dead brother and the doubling that is inherent in their
revcrsal of the cultural relationship be reen biological sex and sex-role
stâtus as twins.
tlisplays. The transvestite is in drag whenever she or he wears men's or
This reading of Supernatural expands thc spectâtorial options
!ii
wornen/s clothing, as the case may be. As noted earlicr, drag's relation-
I
available to viewers in prcvious writing on horror. However, in an
slrip to classic horror includes its transgression of scx rolcs, as wcll as
attempt to confer oscillating positions upon female and male viewers, I
have neatly removed the specificity of biological sex from the visual conhotations of terror and allure. Cross-dressing, Iikc monstrosity/ poscs
rr crisis of categories for those who perform and watch it.
realm. By describing Roma as a contradictory figure, I explore the multi-
ple identifications and desires she may inspire in sexually unspecifiecl Drag provides â sartoriâl scenario that cngagcs fluid iclcntifica-
t ions and desires. For example, despite thc fact that most mâlc transvcs-
viewers. In other words, by accepting Studlar,s clairn that the female
patient/s oscillating experience can be applied to men, the sex and gender t itcs are heterosexual, drag is associated with h«lmoscxual pcrforrnanccs/
traits that may well differentiate viewers and their experiences of classic thus troubling the boundary between heteroperforrnance and homo-
horror are overlooked. pcrformance practices. Drag also allows us to situate classic horror's
While one of my projects is to challenge a polarized model of prcoccupation with the adoption of disguises and theatrical displays in a
spectatorship, it would be imprudent to discârd altogether the relation- rn«rrc explicit framework. Like the form of drag defined by Merriam
i
ships between biological sex, gcnder, and hor:ror. This is especially true Wcbster/ the monster often invokes both sexes at once. For example,
i

il since culture often invites differential responses to the genre (e.g., het- whcn Ling Moy agrees to continue her father's reign of terror in the Fu
Manchu film Daughter of the Dragon, she tells the dying patriarch thât
:

erosexual women are expected to scream, and heterosexual men are

ii
lt called upon to prove their mettle and calm their female companions). In shc will become his son. The fiend personifies a theoretical movement
I
order to develop mechanisms to more comprehensively account for prrst the binaries of biological sex. In being like men and women, but not
forms of subjective specificity such as biological sex and sexual orienta- bcing tnen and women/ monsters disrupt categories of sexual dilference
tion, the remainder of this chapter is devoted to an evaluation of theories :rntl hutnanness. They pose the threat that sexual identities are unstable
t,:
,I
of spectatorship that address sexual identity and to the introduction of :rrrtl that so-called essential identities, which are assumed to iie beneath
:l
spectatorship-as -drag. thc tlrag costume, are manufactured.
iti

ii
There is yet another reason to move beyond the beating fantasie s.
Although the fantasies depict fluctuating sexual and social identities (thc
adults are alternately nonsexed, fathers, mothers, teachers, and parcnts),
they still rely on the ontological category of humanness. Classic horror
rclishes the transgression of that category by introducing tl-rat which is
tu<lnhurnan int«l thc farnily. By being rnorc-than-human ancl rtr<lrc-th:rn-
Writing about underlying messâges in transvestite self-help mag-
rrzir.rcs, Marjoric Garbcr comments/ "The social critique performed by
thcsc trânsvcstitc magazincs for readers who are not themselves cross-
rlrcsscrs is to 1'l«lint otrt thc dcgrcc to which all women cross-dress as
w()nl('r'l wlrcrr thcy prorltrcc thcrlsclvcs as:utifâcts."33 In order to con-
st nr('t t ltt' silirrilicr w.,tnttn vi:r :rcc()utrcrl)cl'tts sttch as clothing, icwclry,

'lt,
Iilrorrrt /. lj{'r(',1\lr'ltr
and makeup, Garber confirms that many wolrlcll cllgagc irl clrag. I'llcy
performsexual identity and adopt a costumed role.
Performance is a privileged trope in recent gay ancl lcsbian
writing. Noting that the homosexual/heterosexual binary creatcs a tcn-
sion between the concepts of original and copy, |udith Butler intones, !-f
it were not for the notion of the homosexual as copy, there would be no
construct of heterosexuality as origin. . . . the entire framework of copy
and origin proves radically unstable as each position inverts into the
other."34 If sexual identities cannot be traced to an origin, Butler argues/
" gender is a kind. of imitation for which there is no otiginal."3s Butler
uses drag to {ocalize the imitative and manufactured clualities of gender
and identity. Although, in its popular guise, drag refers to a sex and gender
performance enacted by gay men, it is also part of a more complex sex
ànd gender continuum, as Garber's cross-dressing comment reinforces.36
From the perspective of classic horror, drag is a useful means of highlight-
ing the precarious stâtus of sexual identity and opens a door to theories
of spectatorship that move beyond the dualities male/female and homo-
sexual/heterosexual.
In her book on female impersonators of the 1960s and 1970s,
Mother Camp, Esther Newton describes drag's disruption of binaries:
[Drag] symbolizes two somewhat con{licting stâtements conceming the
sex-role system. The first statement is that the sex-role system is really
natural: there{ore homosexuals are unnaturâI. . ' ' The second symbolic
statement of drag questions the "naturalness" of the sex-role system in
toto; lf sex-role behavior can be achieved by the "wïong" sex, it logically
follows that it is in reality also achieved, not inherited, by the "rigltt"
.17
sex."
The symbolism of drag resonates for classic horror, for the monster poses
the tension between Newton's symbolic stâtements: (1) as a monster/ â
figure who transgresses ontological classifications of humanness and
sexual difference, s/he confinrrs the normalcy oI those categories, and
(2) the fiend is a reminder that monstrosity and normalcy are interdepen-
dent, that the unnatural resides within the natural and vice versa, and
that both are constructed.
Newton ffgues that one of the most compelling âspects of female
impersonators is that "they do not consider themselves to be females and
neither do audiences. So if one is rcally male, it is even more of a feat to
look likc a glamorous and exciting woman.rr3ti 4 similar interaction
bctwccn knowlctlgc and disavowal characterizes spectators' rclati«lt-t-
,1,
l/r, \r1,,/ \r,r\ttr.r,rilrr/r /,r,,r, /i,,rrr,r t lrr,rrr,l
\lul)s {() lrorror'. Wlrrlc vicw;crs nlily, ()n onc lcvcl, rlcccl)t tlte ntrrlc-cotling
ol rrrost t'l;rssic lll()nstcrs rrnt[ bc convincccl of thcir humanncss, on
,rrrotlrt'r lcve I ;rrrtlienccs kuow that ficnds arc monstrous and that they
rlt'ly ontological catcgrlrics. Spcctators trade in a process of disavowal by
rlt'rryirrg that ficnds :rrc inhuman and attributing stable sex and gender
lr;rits to thcr-n. Yct thc terms of horror demand that disavowal be
srrbtcntlccl by thc acccptancc of monstrosity. In a sense/ viewers practice
r('vcrsc fctishism; in lieu of devising elaborate means to disguise the
crcrlt [rrc's rnonstrosity-its "lack" of humanness-they encounter nar-
r;rt ivc ancl visual tropes intended to unmask monsters. Instead of reveal-
rlg an innc:r core, however, unmasking provides more layers o{ drag, and
instcircl of positing the stability of humanness, heroes and heroines are
irrrplicated in the realm of monstrosity.3'
Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museu;m (Warncr Bros.,
19,33), for example, relishes and underplays the removal of thc ficnd's
l;rcc rnask. Having been burned in a firc that clcstroyccl his first wax
nl r.lscum/ Ivan traverses the film wearing irnd rcmoving ir mask that l-ridcs
lris moltcn features. Although a series of nirrrativc cucs br.rilcls towarcl thc
rrct of unmasking, that gesture is anticipatcd by thc audiencc. Vicwcrs
rrlrcady know that beneath the vcnccr of Ivan's mask lics:r disfigurcd
visage, alace that itself has an artificial look. Furtherlrlore, thc disguisc
t lrat Ivan wears to hide his bums is identical to his appearance before he
wirs maimed. If his original features are the essence of his visage, that
('sscncc is aligned with the constructed rnask that Ivan later discards.
l.il<c Butler's ârguments, this suggests there is no reallvan, no original,
lrtrt only a series of appearances.
The question thât arises is: what effect do textual forms of drag
;rnrl role-playing have on spectâtors? As a sexually ambiguous figure, the
nlonster prevents a rigid one-to-one pattern with female or male viewers;
rrr:rlc viewers mây identify with a male-coded monster/ but not on the
hrrsis of a stable sexual identity. Here the concept of drag makes an
inrportant contribution to classic horror criticism by introducing a
schisrn bctwcen character and role. The necessary theoretical leap is the
:rssrrrnption that that schism can be transposed, to varying degrees, to the
rt'rrlrl «rf vicwing. fust as horror's characters highlight both the strength
rrrrtl rrrtificiality of conventional sex roles, so too mây spectatorial re-
:rt't iolrs 1'rlrry «rrrt traclitional iclentifications and desires while also lending
;r pt'rlorrrr:rl ivt' :rrrtl t rrursgrcssive climcnsion to viewer rcsponses.
()orrcciving ()l sl)ecLatorship-as-drag providcs thc mcans with
wlrit'lr t() ( ()n('('l)tu:tlizt' r:tlnvcntiotr;tl rttrtl nrrlrc tnrtllcablc rclrctiotrs t<l
 ,,ll{
I
lilirrrrrr i. li, t r'tttl,'irt
I
on-screen characters. The first of thesc is prornotccl by dotnin:rnt cttlt trre .
"[Gender] is parformativeinthe sense that it constitr.rtcs âs alr cffcct thc
very subject it appears to express,/' writes Butler. "It is compulsrlry
performance in the sense that âcting out of lirre with heterosexual [ancl
other] norms brings with it ostracism, punishment, and violence/ got to
mention the transgressive pleasures produced by those very piohibi-
tions."40 The performance of gender is often constrained by traditional
cultural norrns; however, the viewing sphere-a locale aligned with a
phantasy scenario-seems a likely place in which those norms may, if
only temporarTly, break down or oscillate. Thus, a female spectâtor
viewing a classic horror film may respond as culture dictates, with
screâms, but she may also aggressively identify with and desire the
,ir
monster whose exploits transgress the sex role she usually âssumes.
The Sex and Gender Limits of Spectatorship
ii
The reigning feminist models of spectatorship have centered on familiar
I binaries such as male/female and heterosexual/homosexual. Even those
theories that propose the dissolution of oppositions (e.g., models of
bisexual viewing) eventually return to bi{urcated concepts, reminding us
of the need to theorize spectatorship diÏferently-performatively.
In the introduction to her book The Women Who Knew Too
Much, Tania Modleski notes that A1fred Hitchcock's films portray a,
feminine ambivalence that undermines male mastery. Modleski asserts
rl
that one of her "intent[s] is to problernrtize male spectatorship ând
masculine identity in general"; she explores the concept of double
identi{ication, in which men identify with characters of both sex"s.4l
According to Modleski, maie identification with and desire {or Hitch-
ii
cock's heroines aligns men with female bisexuality and reminds "mân
of his own bisexuality . . . a bisexuality that threatens to subvert his
'propeï' identity."42
Modleski's alignment of male ambivalence with female bisexu-
I
ality is a noteworthy attempt to loosen male spectatorship from thc
sadistic, heterosexual confines of Mulvey's model. However, Modleski's
version of bisexuality is circuitous: it reveals itself to men only vi:r
women and therefore via a woman's, and not a man's, inherent biscxu-
ality. One of the limitations of this concept/ in addition to its ccyuatiorr
I «rf nralc spcctâtorship with fcmale viewing (a refreshing revcrsal «rf scxist
'l't
l ln ..\t t ,,l |r, ryurr, ,rrr,,/ ( Jrt..,.l( / lrr,,(r, { /,lr.inr/
cl;rrrrrs tlrrrt posit rtrrrlLs ils thc norrrr), is tlurt tlrc [«lrnr ol ltiscxtr:rlity
:rllrrtlt'rl to hy Motllcski is rlnc in which idcntification is privilegccl ovcr
tlt'sirc. Slr:rrcrl hy a numbcr «rf fcminist critics, this model depends on the
It'rrrrrlc infant's iclcntification
with the mother and, therefore, does little
lo trotrhlc hctcrosexuality. It follows, then, that the male spectator,s
lrr;rrrtl of biscxuality in Modleski,s schema is as constrained as that of the
hiscxull fcmalc, that is, he may be ,,bi,, in terms of identification, but
t':rn rcrnain hcterosexuâl in terms of desire.
' In an article on Hitchcocl<,s Strangerc on a,Train, Robert f. Corber
grapples with the often unintended heterosexisr biases of much feminist
lilur thcory. In response, Corber urges for a closer look at psychoanalysis:
"tlrc male spectator's identification vri+h the hero always involves the
lcpression of a homosexual^object-cât :xis that recalls his pre-Oedipal
;rttachment to the father.,,43 Like Modleski, Corber appcals t,, the pic_
()cclipal to âccount for same-sex forms of identification. Unlikc
female
hiscxuality, however, Corber explicitly eroticizcs thc nralc spcctirtor/s
itlcntification with on-screen heroes. yet as I notccl carlicr of Studlar,s
rrrasochistic model, the valorization of the prc-Occlipal limits thc rc_
visionist scope of theories of viewing.
Corber's article returns us to thc prol.rlcms inhercnt in thcories
of spectatorship that privilege either Oedipal or pre-Oedipal configura-
t ions. As f. Laplanche and
|.-B. pontâlis note of the pre-Oedipal/Oedipal
tlivision in Freud's work: ',one mây either accentuate the exclusiveness
of the dual relationship [between the pre-Oedipal and the Oedipal] or else
irlcntify signs of the Oedipus complex so early on that it becomes
irnpossible to isolate a strictly preoedipal phase.,,44 If Oedipus indeed
intcrvenes in the pre-Oedipaf as Laplanche and pontalis suggest he
rrright, then Corber, Modleski, and Studlat are r/rong to privilege the
errrlicr temporal mode and attribute all malleable sexual identities and
irlcntifications to it.
By relying upon the pre-Oedipal phase, Corber,s theory rreads
cl«rsc to the limitations he critiques. He reduces the field of sexual
itlcntity to a pitched battle between homosexuality and heterosexuality.
Altlr«rugh I syrnpathize with the lure of discussing homosexual desire as
lroth ce ntral ancl preexistent to heterosexuality, theorizing the primacy
ol h«rnr<lscxuality manufactures a whole new set of constraints.as Surely
( lrrhcr is wrong whcn hc âssumes that
all male gazes are marked by
Irorrroscxtr:rl irlcntificati«rn ancl dcsire. The question remains: how can
w(' rlcc()unt lor thc spccificity <lf malc horloscxual ancl hctcroscxual
ri;r:rirrlii
 ,, ,() -',1
liirrrttri /. lj( tr'll\lr'r,r / /rr .\, Lr/ \ r, rlrrrr, ,rrr,/ r i,r,,,,r, i ir)r t(r, ( tttr'ntrl
1i

Ellis Hanson inadvertently providcs a prclirninary rcsl'ronse in lrrolor',it';rl st'x)rrrrtl

1

se xtrlrlrlrivcs (c.g., strlright wolttclt arc ror.narrtically

'il
his article "The Undead." Unlike Corber, when Hanson aclclrcsscs rlralc rrrvt'slctl irr hcrocs tlrrc (o hcteroscxu:rl clcsirc). What is lcft out is thc
,ll viewing pâtterns/ he asks some importânt questions: "Is thc girzc thc possibility tlr:rt spcctators als«l iclcntity against themselves. Viewing
gays? What could it mean for a mân to engâge the gaze of another man?
ii

l):rttcnts tlcpcncl as rnnch on the dissolution of a one-to-one viewer-

In psychoanalytic terms, such a gaze would be a form of madness. , . .
l,i
The gay rnale gaze is the gaze of the male vampire: he with whom orie is
forbidden to identify."46Instead of beginning with a consideration of men
l
clr:rrrrctcr rclationship as they do on its perpetuation.48 In fact, as
M:ry rrc r.r<rtcs «lf cincma's ,,sàfe zorte,,, identification in opposition may
hc orrc «rf cincma's primary pleasures-viewers may relish the ability

1i,

in toto, as Corber âttempts/ Hanson focuses on gay men.
il Hanson's proposal that homosexual gazing is analogous to the
i'i look of a male vampire fits neatly with a consideration of classic horror.
For Hanson implies a theoization of viewing pattems based on social
iii
and not only sexual categories. If a gay male gaze is horrifying, part of its
t() cs.capc thcir everyday social, racial, sexual, and economic identi-
tics.49 This concept, thus, reminds us of narrative cinema,s import-
;urcc as a phantasy scenario, as both a con{irmation of and temporary
rclcasc frorn the subiectivities engag in by spectâtoïs in their every_
tl:r y li ves.

rli
horror resides in the recogrition by gry man and monster of their similar The ability to identify against oneself-spectatorship as a form
status within patriarchy. In other words, while not all male gazes are of drag-is invoked by Mulvey in ,,Afterthoughts on ,Visual pleasure and
informed by homosexuality, some arel and, in the realm of horror,
i'ii

ii
Narrative Cinema."' Female spectâtors, Mulvcy argucs, oscillate be_
homosexuality (a culturally monstrous identity) fosters desire for and twecn passivity and transvestitism. In the first rolc thcy arc alliccl with
i
il
identification with a socially marginalized fiend on the basis of shared ()n-screen wort€n; in the second they aclopt a malc point_of-vicw.
While
marginalization. thc latter approach includes cross-sex connntations, Mulvcy vicws it as
ii Moving beyond the realm of homosexuality, this approach indi- c«rnventional. Nowhere does she allow for thc fact that spcctatorial
cates that viewer idcntification may be forged on the basis of shared social transvestitism may offer women thc plcasurcs of idcntifying against their
'ii status. In other words, ii a homosexual viewer's identifications exceed socially prescribed roles. She asserts that to give men what they want,
rl
ii the traits of sex, gender, and sexual orientation by including social irnd to access male poü/ers, \4/omen imagine themselves into male posi-
I
standing, then it follows that other groups may also identify via means tions.S0 Doing so offers female specut;rs iittle more than the elusive
i
other than biological sex and gender. Thus, identification and desire on cxperience o{ wearing the emperor,s clothes.Sl
l1

the basis o{ race, class, ethnicity, nationality, and so on/ may be as strong In "Fi1m and the Masquerade,,, Mary Ann Doane tried to theorize
'i1
as sexual identity. :l way out of the constrictions posed by Mulvey. As she notes, the passive
il

The concept of viewing based on social categories raises an
l
important question: to what degree do the sexual and social identities of
viewers determine the identifications and desires deployed in viewing?
,tI
Although gay and lesbian work has focused on homosexual subjectivity,
il
the thorny question of the equivalence of a spectator's everyday identity
rl
I with viewing positions has yet to be fully addrcssed. Having raised the
issue, queries emerge. Is it possible {or a male homosexual viewer to
I
identify with and desire a female character! Or, for that matter, is it
I
possible for a heterosexual male to both identify with and desire ahero?47
I
While it is important to th eorize â space in which gays and lesbians access
same-sex desire, that approach does not exhâust all venues of viewer
identification.
The theories that dominate the field describe viewing pleasurcs
via sirnilarities (e.g., women identify with heroines on the hasis «rf
position introduced by Muivey constructs female viewing as oveï-
idcntification with women and images. Female overidenti{icarion is
gcncrated by women's pre-Oedipal alignment with their sexually alike
rnothers; overidentification is, thus, a side effect of bisexuality. Lacking
thc ability to fetishize their mothers, according to Doane, \Momen cannot
:rssLlme a position of difference, as can men, and thereby engage in
ovcridcntification and masochism.52
As an alternative to Mulvey,s spectatorial options-transvesti_
tisrl and rnasochism-Doane suggests that female viewing may also be
rr nrâs(lucraclc, a performance in which the spectator cïeates distance
lror» thc irlagc. That distanced position is not unlike the form of drag
rrrcntioncd carlicr vis-:ï-vis trânsvestite self-help magazines; Doane,s
rrurst;trcr;rtlilUl w()lll:ln, as wc will scc in thc ncxt section, constructs her
It'rrrirrirrity rrs rr rolc.l''l
: Iiirrrttrr f. Iir', r'rl\l( l,l
Doane's theorization of female ovcridcntificÉrtion is l'rasctl (,n thc
ii
model of bisexuality mentionecl previously. Female bisexuulity is, irl a
i
sense, â misnomer in that it functions as the means with which ttl
articulate pre-Oedipal identifications between r,ÿûmen and their mothers
i,
at the expense of addressing adult, female, sâme-sex desire. Despitgthis
,i
limitation, female bisexuality has been mobilized as â progressive means
of theorizing spectatorship. As noted earlier, Modleski's work on Hitch-
i, cock is, like Doane's, based on a pre-Oedip alvalorirzation of the matemal.
iil
Modleski, however, goes ân important step further when she addresses
lesbianism and asserts that "the desire of women for other y/omen" sends
ï a subversive ripple through culture.S4 Yet, ultimately, Modleski and
i Doane suggest that the desire of one woman for another is explicable
ii:
either as a form of regression or as an idealized relationship, both of which
I
are pârt of a mother-daughter dyad.
This approach is replicated by Williams in her work on horror
'l
cinema. By noting that the monster and the heroine are sexually alike in
their shared difference from the male, Williams repeâts the core ârgument
,l
of female bisexuaLity; she accentuates identi{ication with the monster while
l'
downplaying an âttraction based on similariry: "The sffange sympathy ând
I affin§ that often develops between the monster and the grl may thus be
I less an expression of sexual desire . . . and more a flash of sympathetic
identi{ication."55 Desire based on sexual sâmeness is not only rendered
ll secondary but is almost effaced.
These feminist approaches havg therefore, utilized bisexuality as a
I
theoretical way out of the dead end offered by heterosexual models of
spectatorship. But the form of bisexuality employcd confirms the primacy of
heterosexual desire. Not surprisingly, this approach has come under attack by
1i
lesbian theorists such as Sue-Ellen Case, who argues that " the queer" occupies
ri
an ontological and social position between the living and the undead. Case
uses this perspective to critique heterosexist feminist theory:
i' This "woman," then, in Doane, Williams, and others, is really hetero-
ll sexual woman. Though her desire is aroused vis-à-vis another woman
(a monstrous occasion), and they are totally proximate, they identify
with rather than desire one another. ... What melds monster to woman
is not lesbian desire . . . [butl daughter emulating mother in the Oedipal
triangle with the absent male still at the apex.56
Case is correct to highlight the heterosexism of feminist theory; despite
t
her usc of a vampire trope in the remainder of the article, however, her
w«rrk is lirnitcd for classic horror spectatorship.
I
I
i /r, .\,1,,/ \ tr trttr,r,rrrr/ ( i,t.,,,tr Iirrttrrl ( rrr, trr,r
Irr rrtltllt'ssirrg tlirc vrrrnpirc ol loll<lorc, Crlsc ltote s thât "proxirr.rity
rs;r ('('lltrrrl orglrnizirrg llrinciplc-not only in thc look, but also in the
rrrist. t:rrscirrrc."iiT Whilc I d«l not take issue cither with Case's use of the
v;rrrrpirc rls â quccr icon or with her attempts to theorize "queerly," her
v;rlorizrrtion of proximity is troubling. Case fails to articulate how queer
p n x i nr i ty i s cliffcrcnt from Doane's, Modleski's, and Williams's bisexual
r
pr0xin'rity. ln her ârgument/ queer proximity is a departure only insofar
;rs it ir.rsists on same-sex desire. Case's use of proximity to transgress
orrtology and valorize sâme-sex desire creates a system in which sâme-
rrcss occr-rpics a complementary role to that held by sexual difference in
lirctrtlian psychoanalysis. Homosexual 7, then,'is the monstrous invert
to hctcrosexuality.58
Whereas some heterosexist theories of spectatorship privilege
thc importance of diffcrence and distance to spec,tatorial pleasures or
vrtlrlrize overidentification to articulate a nonsexual fcmalc bisexuality,
Itrrrncrsexisd-accounts valorize sâmeness for thc purposc of scxualizing
itlcntification, (i.e., rendering desire and identificati«rn alikc). All of thcsc
;tpproaches center on familiar binaries: malc/fcrnalc ancl hctcroscxual/
Irornosexuai. Thus Câse's focus on proxirnity ancl samcness cLlts out thc
play of differences in homosexual relationships. Like thcories that favor
ovcridentification, Case also eliminates the role of similarity in hetero-
scxuality and the potential play of sameness and difference in relation-
ships that fall outside the hetero/homo divide.
In Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argues
t lrat the conflation of homosexual desire with identification is an o1d one
in <lur culture:
. . posited on definitional
[T]he fact that "homosexuality," being
similarity, was the first modem piece of sexual definition that simply
took as nugatory the distinction between relations of identification and
relations of desire, meant that it posed a radical question to cross-gender
relations and, in turn/ to gender discourse in which a man's desire for a
woman could not guarantee his difference from her-in which it might
cven, rather, suggest his likeness to her.59
Accorcling to Sedgwick, one of the dangers of homosexuality is that its
:tssuntetl conflation of identificationwith desire throws into question the
t ()rrvcnti«rlrrrl scparatiOn of those responses in heterosexuality. But what
St'tlp,wick f:rils to articrrlatc is that the rcverse might also be true. The
:rssrrlrt'tl scp:rrrrtiorr of itle rrtificati<ln ancl clcsirc-thc belief that hetcro-
st'xrr;rl tlt'srt' is h;rsctl orr tlillt'rcrrcc :rls<l tr«ltrhlcs thc {octrs ()n sAmcncss
 ,,,1
i lilrril(r I lir', r ,r\fu r,r
in homosexual rapports. Thcrc is cvcry inclication thet botlt ltotttoscxttrtl
and heterosexual relations engâge processes of iclcntificatiou antl tlcsirc
,i
that rely on differences as well as similarities. Addressing that possibility,
:
,!
however, runs the risk of shifting the balance of politics, as wcll as of
I
desire. For if both homosexual and heterosexual desircs engâge progesscs
of similarity and difference, then the social and political separation of
those orientations may be forced in a more profound sense than pre-
l
viously acknowledged.
ll
jl
Masquerading Horrors
Theories of spectatorship that propose the performative dimensions of
1
viewing such as masquerade and transvestitism, provide a first step in
:1,
extricating film studies from favored binaries. By aligning viewing pro-
ii
cesses with performance/ with thc adoption of sex, gender, and, poten-
tially, other disguises (c.g., race), we can locate a starting point from
which to expand theories of classic horror spectatorship and allow for the
ii
simultaneity of similarity and diJference.(f
ii Spectatorship-as-clrag accomrnodates aspects of viewing previously
deemed mutually cxclusive. For example, drag suggests that proximity
to the image (usually aligned with female masochism or lesbianism) and
distance from the image (conventionally associated with male viewing)
ri
t,
are potential components of all spectatorship. Drag serves as a viablq
spectating paradigm in that female overidenti{ication can be explained
fl
as the internalization of dominant norrns/ and distance from the imagc
is explicable as the generation of schisms âmong the subject, his or hcr
social roles, and his or her relationship to characters. Drag acknowledges
the constructed aspects of role acqüsition, points out the space between
actor and costume/ and accounts for the lures of both conventional and
unconventional on- and off-screen performances.
When Esther Newton argues that drag "implies distance be-
tween the actor and the role or 'act,"' she describes a process similar to
Mary Ann Doane's arguments in "Film and the Masquerade."6l Noting
that conventional concepts of female identity formation rely on over-
identi{ication, Doane mobilizes masquerade to separate the womanfrom
the screen. According to her, a more liberating fcmale spectatorship
depends on distance. Relying on )oan Riviere's casc stucly, Doane offcrs
a paracligm aligned with performance.
I lr, \, f ,,f Ir, rvrrrr' rltrrl ( [r',rrr I l(,l,r,l ( tilr'It(l
Irr lrt'r 19.19 ilrt iclt' "Wolttltttlincss rts lt Mitstlucr:lrlc," I{ivicrc
tlt'st:r'ihcs thc trlrvlrils rrl a p:rticnt who pcrfonns fcrnininity in rcspotrsc
(o lrcr pnrlcssional succcss with mcn. Accrlrding to Riviere, thc patient's
rlispl:ry o{ l-rcr intcllcctual skills to men signifies her possession of powers
t'onvcrrtir»r:rlly tlccmcd masculine and male. (In psychoanalytic terms,
l{ivicrc phrascs this as the patient's "exhibition of herself in possession
ol tlrc fathcr's pcnis, having castrâted hirn."l62 In order to compensate
lor hcr rnalc attributes, womanliness is "assumed and worn as a mask,
lxrth to hidc the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals
cx1'rccted if she was found to posscos it."û In this schema, masculinity
is darngcrous to the woman who splays-it (she risks retribution from
nrcn) and to the men whom she encounters (they risk castration from
women).
Masquerade is a reaction-formation that provides protection and
tlisguises a female threat to men under the veneer of a socially prescribed
rolc. As aTnask, femininity generates distance bctwccn thc paticnt and
thc behavior she adopts. As a form of drag, thc wornan who pcrforms hcr
lcmininity is, through her performance, scparâtctl from thc convcntional
lcmale role.64 Doane utilizes thc clistancc bctwccn actor irncl rllc to
kxlsenfemale spectâtorship from ovcridcntification. Although, as I noted
carlier, privileging proximity or distance in any theory is problematic,
l)oane's work on masquerade remains important for its introduction of
ir pcrformative trope into spectatorship and for its focus on Riviere's
irrticle. However, whereas Doane relies on Riviere to analyze the hetero-
scxual womân's masquerading options, I pre{er to use the case study, and
thc concept of masqueradg to address â rânge of viewing positions.
In classic horror, masquerade provides a productive means of ex-
plaining the populariry and performativity of conventional male and female
rcsponses to the genre. The traditional reactions of the female spectator (e.g.,
scrcams and eye-covering) can be explained in pârt âs a function of masquer-
atlc. Although some women may be truly horrified by on-screen images, it
is likely that others experience more than terror. Here, Riüere's case study
is instructive. The patient uses herfemininityto mask threateningqualities:
hcr ercccssion tcl male roles, identiJication with masculin§ and men,
possiblc danger to men, and potential desire for women.65 Each of these
vlrirrblcs is fostered ât the textual level in many classic horror films and, in
tlrc contcxt of patriarchal culture, may well demand a form of spectatorial
rrritskirrg tl-rat tlisguiscs gcndcr-bencling.
'l'his is csllccially trLlc il'l tcrms of scxual clrientation, forWestern
pirtrirrrchy rrssr,ullcs tlr:rt tlislllrrys of fcrnininity ancl hctcroscxnatlity arc
 ii/r,rrr,i /. iir't r'tlrlr'tll
synonymous for women. Again, Rivierc's articlc proviclcs ;)lt âltcntrltivc
rl lesson. Although Riviere's patient is said to be hetcroscxrrâl (shc is
married| and though masquerade aids her in attaining malc scxual
interest, hints of homosexuality persist. In writing of research conducted
i
by S. Ferenczi (1916l, Riviere notes, "homosexual men exâggerate tlJeir
,i heterosexuality as a 'defence' against homosexuality." Riviere implies
thât heterosexuality is donned âs a mâsk, a gendered disguise (i.e., it
involves the conventional display of masculinity). Riviere continues, '/I
r!
shall attempt to show that women who wish for masculinity may put on
a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and the retribution feared from
,ii mert."66
Whereas Riviere shifts easily from male sexual orientation to
female gender behavior, her second comment literally follows the first,
il
;i
implying a rhetorical and logical connection between them. In other
words, if, as Riviere claims, homosexual men sometimes exaggerate their
I masculinity to pass as heterosexual, it follows that female exaggeration
ï of femininity may sometimes cover homosexuality. Although these
ârguments are not immutable (e.g., some homosexual men use mâscu-
iinity to confirm masculinity and not cover femininity, and certain
heterosexual women masquerade to disguise their interests in male
powers and not to mask lesbian desire), they are possible examples of the
l
masquerade.
Masquerade's mobility is reinforced by Riviere when she ad-
dresses male homosexuality a second time. Unlike her first example,
which privileges heterosexuâlity and masculinity as disguises, in her
second citation she elevates femininity and femaleness. In writing of a
homosexual man who was excited by his image in a mirror, with his hair
,il
parted and wearing a bow tie, she notes/ "These extraordinary 'fetishes'
il tumed out to represent a disguise of himself as his sister; the hair and
bow were taken from her. His conscious attitude wâs â desire to be a
I woman."67 Whereas masquerade promotes the illusion of heterosexual-
ity and masculinity in the first example, it simultaneously creates and
masks the impression of femaleness in the second.
It is but a small leap from the examples of masquerade in
Riviere's work to heterosexual men, for if some heterosexual women use
womanliness âs a masquerade of their accession to male-coded preroga-
ilii tives, it follows that some men may well use "manliness" to disguise
their investment in femininity. With that perspective in mind, let us tum
lÏ
to an exâmple from classic horror. At the beginning ol Dracula whe n thc
count tells his vampire-wives to leave his guest/ Renfield, alonc so that
1l
I lr, \, r ,,1 \ r, rr rrrr, ,rrr,/ ( i,1,,,,r( I ir,r,r,, ( urr'llrl
Irc r';rrr lr;rvt'lrirrr to lrirrrFcll, nrLrltiplc itlcntiliuations ltnrl rlcsircs trray bc
t'xpcrit'rrccrl lly lrctcroscxrrirl nralc spcctators. Yct thc invitittion to idcn-
trly with l(cnficltl irs a victim, Dracula as an attâcker, and both as
Irorrroscxu:rl objcct-choiccs rnay very well take form in a straight male
spcct:rt«rr's rcf rrsal to display signifiers of iear.68 In other words, a hetero-
rrrrrlc s1'rcctat<tr of l)racula rnay identify with and desire feminine and
rronhctcroscxual positions beneath a conventional and brave response.
'l'lrc sccn:rrio becomes more complex when we acknowledge that a gay
vicwcr mây rcspond in the sâme mânner (i.e., with bravery and a refusal
t«r clisplay fear). In both cases, identification with and desire for Dracula
;rnd Rcnfield rnay exist beneath socie 's expected and promoted specta-
torial response.
Writing about Doane's theorization of the masquerade, Teresa
rlc Lauretis inquires, "The question remains . . . whcther this distance
lbctween the rvl/oman and the image] can in fact be assumed by the straight
lcrnale spectâtor in relation to the image of woman <ln thc scrccn: how
would a spectâtor 'flaunt' her femininity, in thc clark of thc tnovie
tlrcater?"69 I would like to usc de Laurctis's qr.restion as a point of
tlcparture not only to provide a tentâtivc answcr btrt also t«r rcconfigure
rrrasquerade as a rnodel of spectatorship that aflows heteroscxuals, homo-
scxuals, and bisexuals to display similar bchavior.
First, to suggest how classic horror's heterosexual female
spcctators flaunt their femininity in a movie theater, I need only
rcinvoke conventional responses to horror described earlier: namely,
rr womân can scream bloody murder/ cower behind the shoulder of her
tlate, and alternately cover and uncover her eyes in a visual game of
rnasking and unmasking not unlike that which often occurs on-screen.
'fhus, female spectâtors who watch horror films are assumed to flaunt
thcir femininity all the time. However, there may also be a perform-
rrtivc dimension to their display of terror. Here, a marketing example
lront The Motion Picture Herald lends an important perspective.
l)r-rring each screening of Mark of the Vampire (MGM, 1935) in
llriclgcport, Connecticut, in 1935, a female viewer was planted in the
ilucticncc by the exhibitor.T0 At predetermined moments/ she began to
scrcilrn ancl fcigncd fainting. Ushers then removed her from the theater
;rrrtl whiskctl hcr away in an ambulance that waited ât the curb outside
thc thcirtcr ckrors. As thc Bridgeport ploy testifies, traditionally femi-
rrirrc rcsl'r«rnrics t() ir horror {ihn may be genuine for some female
sl)cLrtrlt()rs, htrt t hcy itrc also loaclcd ctrltural roles that arc intcnti«rnzrlly
t['ployt'rl irr t'xt't'ssivr',rrrtl thc:rtricrrl fortns. Thc l]ritlgcp«rrt casc is httt
 Ii/r(r,l1i I li( r('rl\lr'l,r
an extreme example of the masclrtcr:tclc thrtt s«rtlrc lcttt:tlc vit'wtrts ttt:ty
exhibit in similar spectatorial contexts.
Second, de Lauretis's query raises a clucstitln linkctl to lcsbirtrl
subjcctivity: how can lesbian spectators âccess the masclucraclc if thcy
are not as concemed with masquerading fo1 men, âs is Riviere's paticnti
There are a number of ways in which to respond. It can be argucd ihat
i lesbian spectators cannot mascluerade, because that process is put int«r
play for the benefit of men.7l Since, {or argument's sake, lesbianisrn
represents reiection o{ men as object-choices, lesbians would not need ttr
mascluerade. As a result, their access to the female image is nccessarily
more direct than that of the masquerading heterosexual woman and is
clestined to replicate bisexual overidentification. Or, conversely, lesbiatls
cânnot masquerade, precisely because they desire women, a lact that,
according to enduring stereotypical assumptions, links lesbianism to
masculinity. That is, lesbians cannot use womanliness as a masquerade,
because they exhibit signs of manliness instead.
Despite thc fact that lesbians' objects of desire arc not men (a
contestable definition of scxual orientation), living in a patriarchal cul-
ture requires that some lesbians either must or choose to masque-rade (or
"pass," to use ânother term) in order to access ccrtain po-.tt.72 Mrt-
querade is not only thc heterosexual woman's means of disguising
independence ancl a will-to-power beneath a mask of womanlincss/ or
hcr opportunity to view an image of a woman at a gteater distance; it also
lil
scrves as some lcsbians' and bisexual women's meâns of disguising their
cinematic ancl everyday desires behind the same mask.73
I
Asking how the heterosexual woman gazing at a female image
can flaunt her femininity in a darkened theater is only part of the point.
I
The more pressing question is how do women either consciously or
unconsciously access masquerade as a viewing position, i.e., how can
I their viewing responses be seen both as traditional and as gencrating a
distance from traditional social and sexual roles? What is likewise crucial
is analyzing texts that provide imputed positions in which female spec-
l tators âre invited to mâsquerâde, such as classic horror films.
The most telling question for some lesbians mây not be how do
female spectâtors masquerade, but what happens when a lesbian or
bisexual womân flaunts her femininity not only as a signifier of her
distance {rom the image, or âs a means of protecting herself from
patriarchal wrath, l-lut also as a disguise of her erotic investment in the
imagc (an investment that is not ecluivalent to overidentificatitln bccausc
it is r.rrotivatcd by sarnc-scx desire)? Thc lesbian or bisexual woman whtr
I
l/r, \,t,,1\r,rrrrrr',rr,/r i,r,,r, /1,)r,,, ( l,r,,r,l
ll;rrrrrts lrt'r lt'rrrirrirrity irr rtrsponst: t() thc sigltt «rl lrlr orr-scrccn w()nliln
('nt',;r1,,('sln nlirs(lucl-rrtlc'irr :rs pcrfrlrntativc rl lt'lllrlncr as thc hctcr«lscxtral
w()nriul tlt'scrihcil by l)orrr.rc. ln asstuning ar femininc: pctsition vis-à-vis
tlrt' lt'rn:rlc inr:rgc, rlr thc irnagc of her monstrous double, the lesbian or
lriscxrr;rl wonr:llr :lssLuncs a role that patriarchal culture and psychoanal-
ysis tlcenr im1'rossiblc: she surveys a female object of desire from a
pos i t ion ol. fcmininity. Whereas that variation of masquerade can by no
nl(j ;l ns ;rcc( )rtnt for a ll viewing positions, it poses a morc cxpansivc mcans
ol c«rnccptnalizing masquerade as the dual operation of distance (the
lcsbian flar-rnts femininity) and proximity (one wolnân desires ânother).
A scene from Tod Browning Mark of the Vampire(McM, 1935)
pr«rvides â câse in point about the potential variations of female mascluer-
rrtlc. The first attack/seduction scene in this varnpire tale occurs on â
tcrrace outside the heroine's horne. In a suggestive secluence, shots of the
v:rmpirc Luna walking toward the camera are intcrcut witl-r images of the
Ircroinc, henal who rises to meet the ficncl. Inscrts of a rlalc virrnpirc
Io<lking on are interspersed through«rut thc scclr.rcr-rcc. lrcna arrivcs at thc
tcrrace and sits dowl in a trancelikc statc, all thc whilc staring at thc
rtpproaching Luna. |ust before Luna bcncls <lvcr thc hcroinc, Ircr.rlr swoons.
One type of lesbian spectator watching this sccr.rc uray wcll
[lirunt her femininity by gasping at thc horrifying sight of thc monster's
:rdvances. But beneath that feminine vcnccr she may simultancously
lrarbor both a masculine-connoted identification with the aggrcssive
licnd and a hornosexual desire for the women engaged in an erotic
crnbrace. In fact, a heterosexual woman watching this scene may display
:rnd experience the same mâsquerading and illicit responses/ thereby
cxpanding the applicability of drag beyond the confines of lesbianisrn and
hisexuality, i.e., beyond the sexual orientations that spectators live out
when not in a movie theater. Here, we are reminded of Mayne's charac-
tcrization of cinema as a safe zone: a space in which a good dose of
s1-rcctatorial pleasure may be grounded in viewers' accession to identi{i-
cations and desires that contrast with their everyday identity.
Mascluerade provides a useful spectâtorial position for classic
horror. Not only does it allow for the simultaneity of multiple identifi-
crrtions erncl desires, it also accommodates an interplay between differ-
crrcc rrncl sin-rilarity (e.g., gay male masquerade may involve identification
witl-r rrncl/or against masculinity). As a genre that trades in patriarchal
rlictun'rs (womcn arc clften victimized by monstrous males) and that
tlisrrrpts thosc cxl.lcct:rtiol.rs (womcn arc alignecl with monstcrs, and
licrrtls l)()ssi('ss:trttbigtrotrs scxtral traits), ntastlncrzrtlc scrvcs:ls:ln appr()-

'1r{)
lilrrrrrrt f. Iir'tr'ttrfu ttt
pdate description of the genïe/s dual opcrati«lus tlf collvclltioll rlll(l
transgression.
As a disguise that connotes resistance to traditional bchavi«rr,
mâsquerâde accounts for many of classic horror's textuâl and cxtra-
textual operations. It is ân âpt response to'the images of a genrc t$at
consistently trâdes in ambiguous sexuâl identities and represents the
concept of disguise as a nârrâtive, visual, and marketing trope. Although
direct relationships do not always exist bctwccn images and viewers,
masquerade allows spectâtors to maintain the illusion o{ traditional
displays while disguising unconventional ones.
In terms of drag, masquerade and transvestitism are similar
processes: they both foreground the constructed quality of sex roles. Yet
borrr", like Mulvey, qoi&ly discards the usefulness of transvestitism.T4
She argues that whereas it is logical for a woman in a patriarchal culture
to want to pose as a man/ patriarchy cannot âccount for "why â woman
might flaunt her femininity, [and] produce herself âs an excess of femi-
ninity."Ts Although Doane is correct in assuming that patriarchy can
more easily incorporate female adoptions of male personae than female
personae, a degree of transgression inheres in any âctivity that fore-
grounds the manufactured quality of roles. Furthermore, by describing a
process in which identification runs counter to the subject's social
position, transvestitism allows us to systematically conceive of identifi-
cation-in-opposition.
For example, if a heterosexual womân identifies with a hetero-
sexual hero, she identifies against her own constructed identity on the
basis of sex (she is not a man) and sexual orientation (in her everyday life,
she is not lesbian). This notion is even more striking if we shift the terms
of the participants and position a heterosexual man identifying with a
heterosexual woman's point of view. Like the female spectâtor, the man
may identify against his own identity on the basis of sex and sexual
orientation. The pattern continues to shift if we posit a lesbian viewer
identifying with a heterosexual male. Although the lesbian may identify
against herself on the basis of biological sex, she identifies with the hero
through the operations of desire. As a mode of spectating, these examples
suggest that transvestitism not only depends on differences but alscr
accommodates simi larities.
In Karl Freunds The Mummv (Universal, L932\, for examplc,
identification with the heroine is reinforced by point-of-vicw structures
and narrative events. In the case that a male spectâtor idcntifics with
Hclcrr's tcrrified reactions at the film's conclusion, whcn thc ficrltl
.'('l
I lr, .\, I rrl \'r, rr'1111, rtttrl ( [trrtr , Lr,,{rr ( ttt( ,r.1
tlrrt':rtt'rrs to l<ill tlrc hcr«lirrc lrnrl trirnsfon.n hcr into his undcircl partncr,
tlrt'spcctrrtor hrrs et lcast two options available to him: eithcr hc can
rrr:rstltrcratlc lris acccssion to femininity behind a masculine display, or
Irc crrn shivcr in his seat. Though the second approach mây not be âs
crrlturally promoted as the first, the display of terror is not reserved for
wourcn. In fact, Clover âsserts that even though a masochistic viewing
p«rsition may be coded feminine, it is also available to male viewers.T6
Tlrc cxarnple from The Mummy suggests how transvestitism may be
itclopted as a viewing strâtegy: the man "wears" a spectatorial response
aligned with women.
In the context of classic ho,.or cinema, the drag components of
spectatorship (either as masquerade or as transvestitism) are not im-
plicitly progressive or conservative. Instead, spectâtorship-as-drag allows
for viewing pâttems that accommodate classic horror's textual machina-
tions. I have no doubt that viewing relations that take tl-rc {orm of drag
irrc trânsgressiy'e of conventional spcctator positi<lr-rs. I :rrn lcss ccrtain of
whether they have a progressive ideological irnpact outsiclc thc thcatcr
doors. But what remains clear is that the masclucraclc involvcs clistancc
from the image not only becausc womanlincss is performcd {by the
rnonster/ the heroine, and the spectator) but also lrecause thc sight of thc
monster (a figure who resembles a woman but is not one) generâtes â
schism between the performer and the sex role adopted.
In a sense, therefore, the threat that resides behind the mask of
womanliness is not confined to the danger of female appropriations of
masculinity and maleness. Masquerade does not indicate that behind a
feminine veneer lies a woman who is a man but that behind the mask
resides someone who is not a man and who is terrifying and powerful
precisely because she resembles a mân but does not possess her father's
penis-to use Riviere's terms. Conversely, the terrors offered by the
masquerade of manliness are that behind the mask resides a mân who is
not a womân but who is feminine nonetheless. Both of these options are
lnonstrous according to the terms of dominant culture, and one of the
vcnues in which they emerge as engaging spectatorial positions is in
rcsponsc to classic horror's images of monstrosity.
Spectatorship-as-drag, therefore, transposes classic horror's sex
:rncl gcr.rclcr zrmbiguities to the spectating domain. Part of horror's and
tlrag's tlraw frlr spcctators is opening a spâce for an âttrâction to figures
th:rt rcvcl in scx ancl gcnclcr fragmentation, and posit something more
t lt:rrr tlrt' convcntionrrl scx-rolc ancl gcnclcr options availablc to tncn and
w()nl('n rrr Attrt'rit::rrr p:rtrirtrchy. As:t l:ran.tcwrlrl< f<lr spcctat«trship, clrag

iill, rrrrt /. ij( r r',1\lr'lrr
i
suggests both that transgressive idcntifications ittlcl dcsircs lttrk bcrrcrttlt
il or àn th" turf ace of gender displays and that the lurc of convcntioll a I rr I I cs
does not counteract social expectations. That is, classic horrrlr's trans-
rl.
gressive spectatorial pleasures are intimately connected to the genre's
il
simultaneous support of conventional desires' ,/
Forming part of the genre's appeal is its designation of the
li
monster as repulsive and threatening to women, and the obstacle that
heroes and male spectators must overcome in order to assume their
1l
,tl
proper places within patriarchy. Yet âs the preceding arguments indicate,
lli
ànother part of the appeal resides in the on- and of{-screen malleability
that classic horror celebrates, that is, the invitation to identify with and
desire against everyday modes of behavior and to play with the masks
il
that Western culture asks us to tïeat as core identities' Amidst signifiers
ri
rü of {ear and desire and of loathing and longing classic horror celebrates
i malleable spectâtorial positions, the dissolution of conventional sex and
ge.rder c.tegories, the fragility of the heterosexual couple and the family,
and the precariousness of Westem patriarchal institutions and values'
ii
Convention may win out in the end, and often the strâight couple parades
away, but the bulk of these films invite viewers to witness an altemative
{l world: one in which they can oscillate between sadism and masochism,
experience the transgressive pleasures of drag, and still wear their street
I paternal and maternal realms, as well as the genre's fondness for gender-bending.
clothes.
1[
Many thanks to Carol |. Clover, Kate Davy, Anne Friedberg, Alison
:
McKee, and Linda Williams for their insights during the development of
this article.
ir
i'i
NOTES
,ll
l. Stcven Cohan antl Ina Rae Hark, eds., Screening the Male: Exploilng Masculinit'
in Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1 993)'
Ii ies
2. fames B. Twitchell, Drcadful Pleasurcs: An Anatomy of Modern Horror (New
York: Ox{ord University Press, 1985), and Carol }. Clover, Men, Women and Chain Saws:
Gender inthe Modem Hotror Film (Pdnceton, N.f.: Princeton University Press, 1992)'
3. Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in Amefican Silent Film
lI (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1991)'
4. |udith Mayne, Cinema and Spectatotshrp (London: Routledge, 1993), p' 8a'
5. Rhona f. Berenstein, "Irightening Women: An Introduction to Classic l{orror's
Marketing Strategies, " F r amework 5:2 1 3 ll992l' pp. 42-45'
tü
6. Marioric Carber, Vested lnterests: Cross-/)ressing and Cuhurul Anxicty {Ncw
York: Ilotrtlcclge, 1992), P. 10.
1',|
I
,(, (
Iirr','\,1 rr/ \ t, tt'tttri,tttrl I Ilrrlr lluttrrt ( tttr'lttrl
/, llrrtl.,1r..i?,.
l{. l,rrrrrrr
i
Mrrlvcy, Visuul uxl ()ther l'leusures (Bltxrmington and lndianapolis:
Irrtlirrrrir I Irrivr'rsity l'rcss, I 9tl9).
(). llogcr l)arloun, "Fctishism in the Horror Film," in Phantasy andthe Cinema,
ctl. f ;rrrrcs l)rrrr:rld (Lou«lon: British Film Institute, 19891, pp.3942.
10. (laylyn Studlar, "Masochism and the Peryerse Pleasures of the Cinema," in
Movir:s and Methods: Volume /I, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London:
tlnivcrsity of Califomia Press, 1985), p. 6ll.
I l.
Gilles Deletze, Masochism: An Interpretation of Coldness and Cruelty, tr. fean
McNe il (New York: Ceorge Braziller,l97ll, pp. 55-56-
12. Studlar, "Masochism and the Peryerse Pleasures of the Cinema ," p. 615.
13. Gaylyn Studlar, In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternbery, Diefiich, and the
Masochistic Aesthetic(Utbana and Chicago' 'rniversity of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 12-13.
14. Linda Williams, "When the Won, . Looks,'r *t Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist
f ilm Criticism, eds. Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp, and Linda Williams (Freder-
ick, Md.: American Film Institute Monograph Series, University Publicâtions of America,
leu4), p. 88.
15. ln The Old Dark House ll932l, fames Whale's humorous Ioray into horror-
rnystery narratives, the patemal and maternal realms are also c«:nflated, ancl thc latter
is represented in an indlrect way. Although composed primarily of mcn, thc farnily that
lives in the house possesses the surname Femm. Signifying the cffctc componcnts of
the clan that dwells in the "old dark house," the surname als<l throws into qLrcstion
the masculine and, ultimately, paternal status of thc Fcmrn p:rtriarch, a tO2-ycar-old
father who spends the course of the film lockcd in â room in the uppcr reachcs of the
house. When we finally meet Sir Roderick, the Fcmm father, there is somcthing
rnysterious and disturbing about him. Laying barc that disturbing component requircs
a bit of research and, eventually, situates us within classic horror's conflation o{ the
Although the credits note that the role was played by )ohn Dudgeon, Hollywood has
no record of that actor. Instead, as fames Curtis reveals in his biography of Whale, the
part of Sir Roderick was played by Elspeth Dudgeon, a character âctress known by the
,Jirector llames WhalelMetuchen, N.).: Scarecrow Press, 1982], p.971. "'limmy couldn't
find a male actor who looked old enough to suit him,' said David Lewis [ltrhale's
longtime loverl. 'So he finally used an old stage actress he knew called Elspeth Dudgeon.
She looked a thousand"' {Lewis quoted in Curtis, p. 97). Although the maternal is not
clirectly represented within the film, the patriarch oÎ The Old D ark House can be read
as a disguised mother figure in that Sir Roderick was played by a woman.
16. Dadoun, "Fetishism in the Horror Ellm," pp. 39-62.
17. BarbaraCreed,"HorrorandtheMonstrous-Feminine:ÀnlmaginaryAbjection,"
Screen2T:7 (1986), p. 59.
18. Clover, Men, Women and Chain Saws, p.222.
19. In writing of the cycle o{ stalker films that appeared between 1978 and 1981,
Vera Dika makes the following claim regarding audience composition: The audience .
. . is overwhemingly young: these R-rated films . . . were {requented by adolescents
bctween the ages of twelve and seventeen, and these films of excessive violence against
womcn found an audience that was 55 percent female" {"The Stalker Film, 1978-81,"
in Antaricon Horrors, ed. Cregory Waller [Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
I'rcss, l9ll7l, p. tt7). Although the demographics of slasher films may have changed
tlirrir.rg tht' I:rtt, l9ll0s;rrrd though video rentals havc altered studios'abilities to chart
;rtrtlicnt't' corrrposit iorr, l)ik;r's fintlings frlrce us to look beyond malc forms of masoch-
isrrr to ;tt t orrrrl lor lrorror sl)cctat()rship.
 ,,(,1
,,t, ,

i(,lr,n,I / li( rr'rl\lr'l'r llr, .\,t,,1 \'t,tÿltt|rittri ( /rtrrtr ilr,l,rrl ( r,rr',r{l

20. Lawrcncc Kuhic, "'['hc l)rrvc t«r l]ccotnc ll«rtlr Scxts"' ttt \t'rttir'ls tt'ttl N(tt'tt
S.
Innltlvr', lrrrl rnonslrorrs; lrct':rt;sc sltc is torrsciotts ol hcr wc:tkrtcss slrc tlcstroys wlrat is
(Ncw Yorl<: lllt('rrrirtil)rrirl w(';rk. Worrr;trr lllrrntlcrs, cirstriltcs, dishottors, tlcstnlys. In contrast to tnalc sitdisnr
sis: Se ected Papers rtf L. S. Kubie, cd' Herbcrt f ' Schlcsingcr w()nr;rr's srrtlisnr is chronic, lasting, antl unappeasablc" (Allcndy quotcd in Tama Starr,
University Press, 1978), P. 202. 'l'ltr " Ntlttrul lrt[criority" <tf Women: Outrageous Pronouncernents by Misguided Males
21. Hansen, Babel and Babylon, p' 277'
lNt'w York :rrrtl London: Poseidon Press, 19911p. 83).
22. MiriamHansen, "Pleasure, A^mbivalence, Identification: Valentino anrl
Fenralt'
p' 19' I ,l l. Frcucl's tcndency to rely on a heterosexual modei to account for identification
Spectatorship, " Cinemalownal25:4 iSummer 1986), :rntl tlcsirc and his manulacture of the sex o[ the parent in the {emale fantasies are not
Beaten" has been a favorite resource in {ilm stutlics' In hcr
23. " AChild Is Being
runlikc his interprctive mâneuvers in other areas. In his analysis of his patient irr "Thc
Freud's article
introduction to The Desiti to Desire, for example, Mary Ann Doane u,ses l'sychogcnesis of a Case of Homosexuality in â Woman" ( 1920), for examplc, he is at pains
Howevet, Doane privileges masochism' and sexual
to address {emale spectatorship.
to rcplacc the lesbian's female obiect-choice with opposite-sex desire. As Iudith Rool
position lThe Desire t'o Desire: Thc
;i.;r;;. is evacuateà from theiemale spectatorial :lsscrts, "tThe pâtient's] shift in object-choice from male to female is accompanied by her
'Wo*on', of the and Indianapolis: Indiana University Prcss'
Film 1940s [Bloomington ilssurnption of a masculine attitude toward tt
rbiect. In both cases hcr object-choices
tSli], p l9). In her work on Vàlentino, Mi'i'- Hansen also appeals to "A Child
Is Being
Unlike Doane, however' Hansen maintains clcarly stand in for inaccessible males, pres ting a lesbian gloss for an underlying
s.ra";' to explain female viewing relations'
and gender lrcterosexual desire" ("Freud Reads Lesbians: The Male Homosexual lmpcrative," Arizonu
that satlism an<l masochism osc;ilâte, the fantasies illustrate shifting sex
to Hansen' thc Quarterly 46:l [Spring 19901, p. 221. By deeming his patient's femalc object-choicc a
identities, and female spectatorship and pleasure are entwined' According hcterosexual cover and claiming that in order to effect that cover a womân rnust adopt a
{inds textual correspondence in Valen-
prrrirt -"", of males in female beàting iantasies- rnasculine position, Freud ensures that opposite-sex desire is pâramount. h-r a similar vcin,
women view the hero's oft-whipped physique iHansen' Pleasure'
iino'. fil n., in which
his transformation of the nonsexed adult into thc fathcr in the girls'fantasics confirms
the importance
Ambivalence, Identification,' p. 19). David N' Rodowich also addresses the Oedipal scenario, bestows primacy on heteroscxuality, and lirnits thc girls' play of
of Differcnce' Rodowick
of the fantasies to film specütà.ship in his book The Difficulty identifications and desires. fhat the males'fantasies excccd thc hctcroscxrurl nrotleI (they
(D' N' Rodowick' The Difficulty of
takes note of the fantasizing girlsiautoeroticism too are unconsciously beaten by their fathers, accorcling trl Frctrtl) provitlcs rncn with arl
York: noutl"eJge, 1991], p' 77)' Freud's article has recently been applied
ii11ur"n""[New cxtra degree of fluidity, rendering their sexualities lcss casily containablc tll:rn wonrcn's.
Michellc A'
ao'iia.rrarr". In her book or, *à-.,t and-the Gothic In the Name of Love' 32. Studlar, In the Realm of Pleasure, p. 47.
positions deployed in "A Child Is Being Beatcn" to âccount
U"r.Jr.rrlyr.s the subject
33. Garber, Vested lnterests, p. 49.
i"iir," n"iâi,v of the fémaË reader's reiationship to literary heroinesCornell lln the Name of
Gothic N'Y', and London: University 34. )udith Butler, "Imitation and Gender lnsuhordinatirn," in InsidL:l()ut: Lcsltiau
Love:Women, Masochism, and the [Ithaca,
Theoiles, Gay Theoûes, ed. Diana Fuss (New York: Routlcdgc, 19911, p.22.
Press, 19921, PP.7-8 and40-72). 35. Ibid., p. 21.
ia. SiËÀ""a Freud, "A Child Is Being Beaten," in Collected Papets' vol' II' tr' )oan 36. Although drag is defined âs â gây male practice, the definition highlights thc
Riviere (New York: Basic Books, l959l,p' 179' constructed components of this type of performance. lVhen Esther Newton askccl a fe rnalc
25. Ibid., P. 179. impersonator in the 1960s whether there are any heterosexual impersonators, he rc-
26. Althctugh Freud's article on the beating fantasies has been generously analyzed sponded /'Irr practice there may be a few, but in theory there can't be any" lMother Camp:
by {iim theorists, most hâve âccepted his claim that the sex o{ the
adult doing the beating
Freud is not averse Female Impersonators in AmericalBnglewood, N.f.: Prentice-Hall, 19721,p.6). According
is the father. In my opinion, this assumption is open to debate' First' to this performer's logic, the very act of transgressing gender roles and gender expectations
rt" the second phase' as we will see'
il making bold .lairÀ thrt the resuli of his analysis;
exceeds heterosexuality; the latter is that which is transgressed and, thereforc, cannot
is never consciously ârticulâted by the patient, yet it {orms- the. nucleus
of Freud's
that the adult is the father, he never once quotes theoretically be that which does the transgressing.
int..pr.,"tiorr. S.corrd, *hen Freud argues
37. Ibid., p. 103.
i.-ît. puti"rrt; instead, after noting that it laterbecomes clear that the adult is the father' 38. Ibid., p.57.
"h.
"This first phase of the È-eating-phantasy is there{ore-completely.represented 39. In writing o{ the drag striptease, Newton takes note of a process that applies to
"rr.rà,
Lyit"ptrr..,'Myfatierisbeatingthechid'"(ibid',p'179)'Theiirststageis"completely
figuration of the classic horror: "The trick in stripping is to look and move as much like a 'rcal' stripper as
,épr.rËnt.a" ty Freud's phra.e ,.rà, perhaps, by his, and not his patients', possible and create the same erotic effects on the audience, to sustain the illusion of
phase' in which they
faiher. fn fact, when Freud later rew,ites the female patients' thkd
rl
asserts/ "The person beating is never the father' but 'reality' down to the bra and g-string, and then, as a climax, to 'pull' (slip of{) the bra,
,r. *rt"ftirrg ihe father beat boys, he
\ ray into revealing a perfectly flat chest" (ibid., p. 45. One of the ways in which this is different
u
is either lefiuniletermined lusi as in the first phase, or tums in a characteristic from horror is that whereas the striptease moves toward a final moment o{ revelation-
teacher" (ibid', p' 180)' Freud indicates that an
, ôi"*"arrire of the {ather, such as a
when the bra is removed-horror often traces multiple "stripping" scenes. Whereas the
i.t".rr"rtiorr, his act of naming the adult a father, occurs in the first and third
phases'
equated with the Iather monstrous Mr. Hyde transforms back into the romantic young doctor only twicc in Dr.
È*r"rfy when the adult becom-es " cleaÿ and unambiguously"
but all clues point to Freud himself âs the oriSin of and repository Iekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931), Jekyll becomes Hyde at regular intervals. The
[À"i"" unspecilied rcpetition of transformations is a constânt reminder of the presence of the hero's dual
for that claim. roles, as wcll as those roles'interdependence. In otherwords, horror's striptease alternates
27. Freud, "A Child Is Being Beatery" p' 179' bctwccrr rcvc:rling the "flat chest" and the "padded bra."
i
28. Ibid., pP. 179J0. 40. lhrtlt'r, "lrnitntion and Cendcr Insubordination," p.24.
29. Ibid., p. 180. 41. 'f 'ani;t Mrxllcski, 'l'he Wotnan Who Knaw Tr»o Mut'.h: Hitùtc.t>t:l< (tt1(l I;tntitti.\l
in
30. Thc power of female sadism was articulated in the 1930s by Dr' R' Allcndy '/'/rr'orr,(Nt w Yorl< ;rrrrl Lontlort: Mcthrrcn, l9tl,ltl, p. 5.
o{ womân seem not only prcdatory alltl
"setlism and Wtrmcn" (1933): "The tâctics
 rl'l'

liltrrtr,t I lir'rr'ttrh ttt llr, .\,1,,1 \ r, rlrrrr',ilr,1 t l,r',,r,,lrr,,r,l ( l,rrnt.r

42. Ib\d., p.42.

5l Altlrorrl',lr rrrurc rcttrrlly crrlirrlictl wt(h cxl)illt(linli sPcctittorshiI bcyotttl it pirrrr
rlrl',rrr rrl st'xrrrrltlrllt rt'rrt r', rlc U,rrrrrctis rcviscs Mtrlvcy's motlcl inAlit:c l)oesn '1. [)e Larrrctis
43. Robert f . Corber, "Reconstructing Hotnoscxuitlity: Ilitchcocl< ltlttl tlte llottto
oI lt'ts ir llrr r:r rlign l t l);l t is nr t rrc cour plcx than Mulvcy's but iust as ther)rctically constraincd.
erotics of Spectatorial Pleasure," Discoutse 13:2 (Spring'Sunrtncr 199 I ), p. tt l.
Slrt' ;r rgrrcs lor tl.rc scxccl t4rcrations of narrative cincma's ccrnstructions of story movement
44. l.Laplanche and J.-8. Pontalis, The Language of Psychts-Antrlysis, tr. t)rxraltl
;rrr(l sl)ircc. [)c Laurctis rcphrases Mulvcy's schema as a double identification: women
Nicholson-Smith (New York and London: W. W. Norton , 19731, p. 329.
irlcrrt ily witlr activcrnalc andpassivefemale narrativepositionslAliceDoesn't: Feminism,
45. Lee Edelman and Paul Willeman have made similar ârgùments for tlrc inrplrrt-
Sr'rrriolir:s, Oinama [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984], p. 1a3). ln Alice
ance of homosexuality. In his description o{ the primal scene from the casc stucly o{ thc
l)(,(,\n'1, clc Lauretis overlooks {orms of spectatorship that defy a heterosexual joumey
Wol[ Man, Edelman notes, "the primal scene as Freud unpacks it prcsupposcs thc
towarcl Oeclipus.
imaginary priority of a sort of proto-homosexuality, ând it designâtes male heteroscxual-
ity, by contrâst, as a later narcissistic compromise that only pain{ully and with difficulty 52. Mary Ann Doane, "Film and thc Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectâtor,"
Scrcen,23:3 4 (Fall 1982), p. 80.
represses its identification with the so-called 'passive'position in that sccne." {Lce
Edelman, "seeing Things: Representatioq the Scene of Surveillance, and the Spectacle of
53. In a rccent article on Sheila Mclaughlin's She Must Be Seeing Things ll987l, de
Laurctis makes the following claim: "The notions of masquerade, transvestitism, and
Gay Male Sex," in Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theoûes, p. 101). Willeman's
cross-drcssing have been recurcnt fig.ures of feminist discowse in the 1980s and in the
valorization of homosexuality âppeârs in his discussion of fetishistic scopophilia. He notes
thcorization of female spectatorship i articular" {"Film and the Visible," ittHow Do I Look!
that Mulvey's definition of thât process ignores its autoerotic origin: "Mulvey doesn't
allow sufficient room for the {âct that in patriarchy the direct object of scopophilic desire Quaer Film and Video, eds. Bad Obieuc-Choices [Seattle: Bay Press, 1991], p. 244). Focusing
on Case's contribution to the ficld in "Towards â Butch-Femme Acsthetic," de Lauretis
can also be male. If scopophilic pleasure relates primârily to the observation of one's sexual
rcjects the heterosexist theorizations of masqueradc and transvestitism that have appeared
like . . . then the two looks distinguished by Mulvey are in fact varieties of one single
thus far in feminist film studies {Sue-Ellen Case, "Towards a Butch-Femme Aesthetic,"
mechanism: the repression of homosexuality" (Paul Willeman, "Voyeurism, the Look and
Discourse I l: I [1988-89.] pp. 55-73]. De t auretis privilellcs lcsbian subiectivity in butch and
Dwoskin," in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen
femme roles as modes of ideological resistânce and political tliscoursc. As my argurncnts in
[New York: Columbia University Press, 1986], pp.212-131. the forthcoming sections indicate, not only do I think it impruclcnt to align thc trânsgrcssivc
46. Ellis Hanson, "Undead," inlnside/Out: LesbianTheories, GayTheories,p.328.
spectatorial positions of drag solely with a homosexual subicct, but so ttxr do I contcnd that
47. Whereas psychoanalysis can conceive of these identifications and desires by
rewriting homosexual object-choices as displaced heterosexual ones-a lesbian may desire |oan Riviere's original article on masqucrade opcns sp.rccs in which to thcorizc a range of
subiectivities not limited to heterosexuality or homoscxuality.
another woman insofar as that desire disguises her desire for men-subiects are locked
vÿithin the confines of sexual di{ference ând heterosexuality. 54. Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much, p. 5l .

48. A note o{ thanks is due to Anne Friedberg, who, in listening to my quâlms 55. Williams, "When the Woman Looks," p. 88.
about the conventional theorizations o{ a one-to-one correspondcnce between viewers
56. Sue-Ellen Case, "Tracking thc Vâmpire," Differences 3:2 ll992l, p. ll.
and their on-screen counterpârts/ offered the notion of "identifying against oneself" as
57. Ibid., p. 13.
a meâns of better conceptualizing spectâtorship. Although the concept has not been
58. In a recent piece on the "homo/hetero" binary, Diana Fuss asks, "What gets left
addressed in any detâil in existing theories of spectatorship, it appears in its embryonic
out of the inside/outside, heterosexual/homosexual opposition, an opposition which
form in Mayne's new work Cinema and Spectatorsàip (sce her fourth chapter, "Para- could at least plausibly be said to secure its seemingly inviolable dialectical structure only
by assimilating and internalizing other sexualities (bisexuality, trânsvestitism, transsex-
doxes of Spectatorship"| and in Friedberg's book on the ilâneuse, Window Shopping.
ualism . . .) to its own rigid polar logic? " (Diana Fuss, "Inside/Out," itlnside/Out: Lesbian
As Friedberg writes, "[T]heories of spectatorship which imply â one-to-one correspon-
Theofies, Gay Theories, p. 2) \{hereas Fuss notes that the danger of the homo is that s/he
dence between the spectâtor position and gcnder, race, or sexual identity . . . do not
consider the pleasures of escaping this physically-bound subiectivity. Isn't cinema "codifies the very real possibility and ever-present threat oI a collapse of boundaries, an
effacing of limits, " she also notes thât it is unclear to what extent the homo confirms the
spectâtorship pleasurable precisely because new identities can be 'worn' and dis-
pdmâcy of the hctero, instead of disturbing it {ibid., p. 6). Part of what limits the poruers
carded?" lWindow Shopping [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
of the homo in our culture is that s/he is confined to the homo/hetero binary and is,
19931, pp. 184-185). Clover also introduces ân identificâtion-in-opposition motif,
therefore, oftcn locked within a model that depends on a struggle between the two terms
although she confines her analysis to biological sex and gender: "No onc who has read
in order to maintain the primacy of the second.
'Red Riding Hood' to a small boy or attended a viewing of, say, Deliverance. . . or, more
recently, Alien ard Aliens .. . can doubt the phenomenon of cross-gender identifica- 59- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwiclç Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
tion" (Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws, p.461. University of California Prcss, 1990), pp. 159-60.
49. Clues to this component of spectâtorship can be found in a number o{ historical 60. Although my focus is on drag's impact on spectatorship in terms o{ biological
sex, gender, and sexual orientation, the notions of identifying against oneself and perform-
âccounts of movie going. For example, Gârth Jowett notes that the cinema provided early
ing identity also inflect the relationships between spectâtorship and race and ethnicity,
twentieth-century immigrants with "extra relief " amidst a difficult lifc of labor lFilm: The
cspecially in classic horror cinema. For the genre is replete with monsters who, from the
DemocraticArt[Boston:Little,Brown, lgT6l,p.Sgl.Accordingtobothlov/ettandRussell
pcrspcctivc o{ yÿhite America, are racial and ethnic: Others. For example, the {iend in The
Merritt, the fantasy elements of the movies were an escape from the drab and dilficult
Mrtntnty. is an Egyptian Arab; the eponymous monster itThe Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
conditions of the American immigrant's everyday reality (Russell Merrit, "Nickelodeon
(l)itrarrrorrrrt, 1929) is Chinese; and the over-grown apc in King l(ong (RKO, 19.33) is
Thcatcrs 1905-1914: Building an Audience for the Movies," in The Amerit',an Film
19851, p. 8U]. tcxtr.lirlly t orrll;rlt tl with African nativcs. While thcsc films may, in the end, ask vicwcrs
lndustty, ed. Tino Balio [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
50. Mrrlvcy, Visuul and ()ther Pleasures, p. 33. to tlisrrvow tlrcrr rtlt'rrlilicrrtion with ancl clcsirc for mor.rstcrs, many horrrr nârrâtivcs
 liltr»rrt f. li( t{'tt\l('t,l
cnc()rlrilge sl)cctet()rs tolxrrrtl with fiends through nttrst «r[ thc [ilrns. ltlctttilicrttiott ;ttttl
clesirc nray tekc, thcrclorc, cr()ss-racial or cross-ethnic fonn (c.g., a whitc vicwcr tttity
iclcnti{y with ancl clcsirc l)r. Fu Manchu, or a black viewer rnây idcntify witl-r and clcsirc
the mummy). As in thc casc oithevampiric stâtusof thegaygaze, the relationship bctwccn
viewers of color and monsters may include recognition of shared social status. Although
on the one hând this confirms the marginalization of viewers and monsters alike, the {agt
that monstcrs are oltenobiects of fascination that attempt to disrupt American institu-
tions of power (e.g., the law, the family, and medicine) also lends an unconventional
elemcnt to those identiiications and desires. Unfortunately, the performative dimensions
of viewing, from the perspectives o{ race and ethnicity, mây be harder to pinpoint than
gender (i.e., screaming is m«.rre readable as feminine than as a sign of â particulâr race or
ethnic group). Although race may be more resistant to the types of performance cues and
analyses outlined in the lollowing pages, further research needs to be done in this area.
61. Newton, Mother Camp, p.lO9.
62. loa:r Riviere, "Womanliness as a Masquerade," inFormations of Phantasy,
Victor Burgin, fames Donald, and Cora Kaplan {London: Methuen, 19861, p.37.
63. Ibid., p. 38.
64. Therc may beyet another layer to the patient's masquerade in fuviere's article.
A number of critics have speculated that the patient is none other thân the analyst )oan
Riviere. If this claim is true, then not only does the patient's masquerade disguise her
accession to male-associatedbehavior, but it also disguises a tenuous distinctionbetween
the roles o{ analyst and analysand.
65. The assertion that fuviere's masquerade allows for multiple identifications and
orientations is ân important one, especially since Doane does not address masquerade
from that perspective. Both Roof and de Lauretis complain of the heterosexism of Doane's
model. According to de Lâuretis, Doane's masquerade is intended to "find a position in
heterosexuality from which the woman (spectatorf can see and signify her desire in her
distance from the image" {"Ii1m and the Visible," p. 248). Roof notes, "While masquerade
could destabilize the essentiâl genderment of viewing alignments if it shook up the certâin
heterosexual premises o{ desire-if, for example, it were admitted thât no one's desire is
strictly for the opposite sex-Doane's version oI masquerade repeâts the gender essential-
ism it tries to avoid" lA Lure of Knowledge: Lesbian Sexuality and Theory [New York:
Colurnbia University Press, 1991], p. 49). Although Doane's discussion of masquerade
may bc heterosexist, the case study on which Doane's work is based does allow for
mobility.
66. Riviere, "Womanliness as â Mâsquerade," p. 35.
67. Ibid., p. 40.
68. Of the extensive writings orr horror literature and film, only Christopher Craft's
article "Kiss Me with Those Red Lips" provides a sustâined analysis of the homosexual
colnponents of Bram Stoker's original work ("'Kiss Me with Those Red Lips': Gender and
Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dr acula," ReprcsentationsB [Fall 19841, pp. 107-33]. Although
some filrn critics briefÿ note thât Lambert Hillyer's sequel to Browning's Dracula-
Drocula's Daug.hter (Universal, 1936)-suggests lesbianism, the depiction of male homo-
sexuality, according tocritical reviews, is absent from the classic vampire movies. Literary
critic Elaine Showalter is one oI the few scholars to âssert the endurance of homosexual
connotations in film adaptations from the 1930s: "\[hile most film versions ol Dracu]a
havc been heterosexual, nevertheless, homosexuality is strongly represented in the films,
coded into the script and images in indirect ways" (Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy:
Oender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle [New York: Penguin, 1990], pp. 182-83).
69. dc Lauretis, "Film and the Visible," p. 248.
70. Motion Picturu Herald, 29 lune 1935, n. pag.
lir' \,1,'l\rrr\llrr,,Irr/r l,r',,r, ilrrrri,, ( [r,rr,r
/l ( ttltr.,lt;tvr'.rt1'.tr,'.lllt,tl lltcttt;tstlttct:trlt'ts.tlt'trt;tl« l)(rlonu;ur(( r'tr.tclttllot llrl
lrrrrtlllrrlrrrcrr Sltplrlrrllt.rtlr,lort.x;rrrrplt,ttotes,"'llrt'rrrrrsrlrrrrlltlcistlrcworrr;lr'sllrrrrli,
Irlrs, lrrrtrs;rlsocxrtttly/oltlrcirr;rrr,:rnl:rlcl)resLn(;rti«rtt,aslrcworrltl lravclrcr."(stcphcrr
llr';rllr, "forrrr llivicrqrrntl thc Masrlucradc," inFrtrntationso[ Fantasy, p.50). Dc Laurctis,
wlro nott's tlrc hctcroscxism of Doanc's vcrsion of masclueradc/ argues, "It is not einly
rrrst rilrt'tl witlrin a rnalc-defined and male-dominant heterosexual order, but n:rore inexo-
r;rbly, in thc ctrrrcnt struggle for women's 'equal access'to pleasure in heterosexuality,
tlrc url.stlucratlc of femininity is bound to reproduce that order by addressing itself-its
wrrrl<, its cffccts, its pleâ-to heterosexual men" ("Film and the Visible," pp.2a9-501.
Whilr: tlc Lauretis is correct to point to â heterosexual limit-point for heterosexually
rlcployccl versions of the masquerade within a broader cultural context, it is unclear to
what dcgree the same rules apply in cinematic spectâtorship. If one of the pleasures of
vicwing is identifying against one's identity, then the ideological effects de Lauretis speaks
of may be that much more complex and, perhaps, that much less applicable to viewing.
72. When I question the concept tha
sbians' objects of desire are not men, I mcan
eds.
to suggest two vâriations on that statement. *rirst, there arc some lesbians who define their
identity as a political or personal choice independent o{ and sometimes in spite of their
scxual desire {or men. Second, a desire for men may be considered a component of some
lcsbian desires. As Butler notes of one femme's object of dcsirc, "shc likcs her boys to be
girls, rneaning that /beinga girl' contextualizes ancl rcsignifics 'masculinity' in a butch
identity. As a result that 'masculinity,' if it can bc callcd that, is always br«rught into re licf
against a culturally intelligible 'female body"' lGender T'utubla lNcw York and Lonckrn:
Routledge, 19901 p. 123). By liking her boys to be girls, thc fcr.nmc's boys arc unlikc othcr
boys. But, to a degree, a desirc for boys who are girls brings a dcsirc frrr rrralcs into play.
73. By using the lerrr, masquerade to clcscrihe thc fcrnininc hchavior of sornc
lcsbians and bisexual women, I do not mean to suggest that thcir fcrnininc gcntlcr tlisplays
are always consciously mobilized or do not seem normal to thosc who expcricncc thcm.
Rather, I want to propose that in the example of a femme lesbian, espccially a fcmmc
whose objects of desire are other femmes, the performative quality ol scx-role bchavior
and object-choices is heightened, and masquerade functions as â means of disguising
desires and identifications that run contrâry to patriarchal culture. Other concepts thât
masquerade accommodates are that femininity may be donned as a mask for varyinpi
reâsons and that the desires and identi{ications disguised behind the masquerade of
womanliness âre potentiâlly unstable. As a spectatorial response, masquerade may also
be the means bywhich some straight female spectators disguise their desire for on-screen
women.
74. In writing of female spectatorship and Valentino, Hansen critiques Mulvey's and
Doane's rather simple marginalizations of the transvestite. "The very figure of the
transvestite, " notes Hansen, "suggests that the difference of female spectatorship involves
more than the opposition of activity and passivity, that it has to be conceptualized in
terms o{ a greâter degree o{ mobility and heterogeneity, including a sense o{ thcatricality
and selectiüty"("Pleasure, Ambivalence, ldentificatiory" p. 8).
75. Doane, "Film and the Masquerade," p. 81.
76. Clover, Men, Women and Chain Saws," p.6O.