queerness brings a new life to a text, upending things that are perceived as "common sense" and "normal"

oh how the turn tables (now even associating with Harry Potter is added attention to transphobia in the author)

this made me think of when a transatlantic cable got backlash because it was allegedly where Dobby was buried (it's so bad, aaaaaaa)

? it kind of feels like it's just a montage, not really actually examining the spread yet

another interesting thing is that a work can then be read as an interpretation of the article, like how after J.K. Rowling went on her tirade against the queer community (in particular trans individuals), people started to interpret her work in Harry Potter differently

this is an interesting predicament for a modern author, seeing and experiencing fan discourse

someone like Toby Fox is currently doing this with Deltarune, watching the utter chaos happen and incorporating things from it in newer chapters of the game

reminds me of how when companies try to get in on meme potential, it comes off as cringy and off-base because it's no longer an in-joke anymore

like Sonic flossing in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

i am slowly realizing that this academic piece is releasing the pandora's box of internet culture i know and embrace 😭

interesting language here. the meme (image, video, etc.) still exists, but the meme (spreadable object) dies out

fan interpretations and lenses and jokes and memes all play a pivotal role in how a work is consumed and viewed after release, a way to visually see the multitude of different opinions and perspectives people have toward a work

fascinating, there's a level of hesitancy the author has to the queer view, not treating it as something that was closely read but something that was, effectively, shoehorned in

interesting that the author uses the word "coupling" rather than the more fandom-language of "shipping", which it seems like is what is being described here

the gay Babadook view rose to even further prominence given political topics at the time tying in to the message, bolstering the view even further

existed in tandem with the Second Red Scare, a movement in the 1950s of witch hunt-esque attacks on people labeled "communist", include people with left-wing sympathies

the Lavender scare was a subclass of this, but for homosexual people, who were then linked to communism

wow i got this interpretation spot on in reading it, goodness

yeah, especially with the whole caged and rarely seen thing, this is definitely a problematic situation when viewed from a queer lens

in the lens that Babadook is an independent character, this seems excessively cruel, locked in a basement and not interacting with others nearly as often as the outside world

a crushing metaphor that could be used to describe closeted queerness, too different to be accepted by others and so "must" be contained

the Babadook is an external manifestation of Amelia's struggle in putting aside grief, in this view

again, similar to what the Mary Nardini Gang describes, the standard of white, heteronormative, capitalist values

why does only one interpretation get to have more legitimacy? both come from a place of fan interpretation

having a fan interpretation be recognized by a more official source dramatically increases interest in that interpretation, and by extension its staying power in the community

reminds me of the Grinch "leak" in Smash Ultimate, where an image of the "Everyone is Here" banner added characters like Shadow the Hedgehog and the Chorus Kids (Rhythm Heaven) as playable fighters, despite them not being playable

hoaxes/online images can look legitimate and can influence public opinion on a topic very strongly, regardless of if they're proven true or false, as shown with the Babadook tag image causing tons of media discourse and fanart and things

ties in with Amelia's grief distancing herself from everyone around her, Babadook as trying to find some way for her to connect with others

love this, as it seems like such a large leap when taking out of context, but with a less "tongue-in-cheek" lens it's actually pretty grounded

very nice how academia can come from blog sites too

see also the Haruhi problem and superpermutation's lower bound proven by an anonymous 4chan user

interesting correlation to the queer community, never being drowned out

it can (and has) been caged, but it can't disappear (like the creature)

now i'm even more intrigued, both into how Babadook acts in the movie and how it's translated into drag performance

again, love how fandoms create their own set of slang

ties to 'Ozploitation', with Australian horror essentially being synonymous with sexualized low-budget films

from the quote, seems like an overcategorization? that more subtlety/breaking of categories is needed for scholars to take Australian horror seriously

just like the breaking of class/categories the Mary Nardini Gang talks about

exploitation films made in Australia, which are often tied to the horror genre

why does this sound eerily familiar to the "test audiences" and "control groups" movies and companies use that can very often inhibit actual creativity and subtle decision-making

even in 2016, limited releases of original films were dominant

why is the movie industry so adamant about not letting actual new content having more media presence, i swear

interesting, another contrast, between academic insight and personal insight

it seems like the author wants to set the scene of fanworks/queer readings as more personal (less academic?) than scholarly research

interesting, so there is a distinct (and literal) disconnect between viewing the film from a queer vs nonqueer lens

Babadook as an independent character versus a core aspect of Amelia

when was this shifted to be more inclusive? as my other comment states

once again, reading into the work through a queer lens leads to a different interpretation than reading it with a nonqueer lens

goodness, that's a lot of scholarly research on an Australian horror film

really shows how diverse and nuanced interpretations of the same work can be across different scholars

is this enough attention to the matter? how much attention is too much?

could be a metaphor for this line of questioning in queer visibility, how much is extreme/bad representation (ala Lesbian Space Princess, which i also need to watch but i've heard is bad)

this is a real creature that takes up space, goodness

i am going to have nightmares probably, gulp

?? interesting, so it seems like it is Samuel's pivot from anxious attachment to actual love for her mother that shifts Amelia to releasing her monster

a metaphor for their troubles, Samuel is only attached to his mother and Amelia only attached with her late husband, isolating them from real relationships and help from others

an intriguing contrast, Samuel wants his mother's attention but the book presents her as a monstrous force

curious how this dynamic plays out

broken family, Amelia with her grief inadvertently leads to emotional neglect, and Samuel developing an anxious attachment disorder as a result

what is the rate of single depressed mothers in Australia?

genuine question. is this a common occurrence that's trying to be accurately represented in the film? or is there some level of appropriation happening, where it's the director's view of what this character would be like?

??? how? car accident maybe? but then how is Amelia alive then? i need to watch the movie

interesting, as someone who has only a slight knowledge of horror tropes, how are they reworked in Babadook? does the setting have a role in this subversion?

if a marginalized community is able to break through to mass media, it can be a voice for the community (could be good, could be bad)

like Dreamwork's Forgotten Island trying to bring Filipino culture into the forefront but not getting high box-office numbers at the moment (i still need to watch it as a half-Filipino)

an aside, but i really love how internet culture and now video game culture is being taken more seriously in academia in recent years

obviously there's still a long way to go but i do appreciate treating these mediums as valuable sources of insight in unadulterated human behavior on these platforms

fascinating, would love to read Jenkins et al. 2013 on my own time

does this article have other examples of fandoms (particular online) impacting political things?

material surrounding a given work that its author may or may not have involvement in

akin to what we've been discussing, how our own interpretations and lives change how we read a text

subdividing further, from categories of gay iconography to categories of online gay iconography

with how it's using a definite article, is this what the villian/monster is called?

would make sense, given a lot of media is named after their villians (e.g. Godzilla, Donkey Kong arcade)

an aside, but I love how internet communities create portmanteaus and internal linguistic conventions for talking about things

like with 'brony' and that level of slang in the MLP fandom (i only know this word and have never ventured into this rabbit hole)

exact same wording as abstract, this seems pretty important to underline, but how exactly was it categorized and how do we know it was not just innocent, but 'seemingly' innocent?

rhyming nature of this header (seems like a quote)

perhaps a rallying cry for Babadook's queer status across the human internet?

an official position on the work by the producers perchance? or just a culmination of human internet mythos into a pride event not in relation to the actual developers of the movie? curious

interesting, there are some distinct associations

wonder if that is able to contrast with the Mary Nardini Gang's more breaking of boundaries approach

wide distribution across multiple social platforms as opposed to one centralized location

how both the movie was initially marketed and how its association spread throughout the human internet

being read as a queer piece but not being one, rather than having hidden queer themes (ala Wilde, Disney)

this'll be more in-depth close reading for sure

i wonder when the introduction of LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, and LGBTQIA+ was developed, because this feels like a very rapid development if just LGBT was still in common use in 2016

interesting, I wonder how the internal systems at Netflix function to make this categorical error possible (and a year after streaming release to boot)

i'm a little bit worried, i tend to not do well with the horror genre in general