Uncanny, abject, mutant monster: From Frankenstein to Genderpunk

Abstract

This article starts with the key figure of Frankenstein’s monster and traces it from its tragic Gothic origins to its use in transphobic scholarship and on to its reclamation both by queer scholars and a growing trend in queer culture towards claiming monsters and monstrosity as their own. Gothic and psychoanalytic understandings of monstrosity, the uncanny and the abject are explored in relationship to queer theory about performativity, failure and ‘anarchitectural’ identity formation. The social media phenomenon ‘the Babadook is Gay’ and the figure of the mutant in popular culture bridge to the new Gothic and the formulation of the ‘genderpunk gayme’ as an aesthetic and political form with a commitment to queer acceptance and intersectional solidarity.