Brilliant: wise and moving in so many ways...
(and me now haunted by that "sad, wide whine" of the unseen neighbor)

I'll admit I'm incredibly dense and didn't quite understand the literary symbolism and implications in this essay. Is this essay about comparing being gay to being like an old-time monster in a old-time monster movie?

Thank you for a spot-on description of the nuances of the Creature from the Black Lagoon's appeal to me. You nailed all the pathetic reasons he's(?) so lovable.

Neat essay. Spot on about the Creature. Don't worry, we won't send you to the cornfield.

Nobody ever talks about what a talented collagist Truman from The Truman Show is when he makes that frankenface of his girlfriend out of magazine parts.

I remember the Twilight Zone's episode, "Eye of the Beholder"!
That was "Ellie May Clampett", pretty girl actress, Donna Douglas,
as the repulsively "ugly" girl.
I remember young "Lost in Space" / Teft from "Bless the Beasts and Children" star Bill Mumy once portrayed a different type of "monster" in another TZ episode, too. Better stay out of the cornfield!!

So well said: excellent.

This is why I love monster movies but usually find no transcendent element in slashers. To say that "I love horror" is a weak description of my tastes. I identify with Godzilla, there is just no place for her, while Jason and Freddy are pretty much in control of their own scenes, so they are less interesting. Splice rocks my world and there's even a moment in Species that shows an understanding of this current which could have been more explicit but didn't need to be for those of us who know why we like the monsters:

Victim tied to the bed: "Let me go, I wouldn't hurt you."
SIL: "You would."

@2: A lot of straight people feel alienated too, but attending an older sister's slumber party and watching that must have been sweet, sweet hell for an invisible minority, though that's just an educated guess on my part. The age of Rebecca here is implied in the story: if she grew up when it seems that she grew up, there were no lesbians back then; how terrifying was that? She's lucky to be alive.

wow, thank you so much for writing that.

as someone who is not gay, or queer, but has alway felt so odd and creepy and just wrong, and has always loved monsters, thank you.

Re: Indighost, I did not know the author was gay until I read the bio at the end, so I personally did not read it this way -- I just read it as that, we all have "ugly" things about ourselves that we try to hide from people, and we feel like monsters, afraid we are going to get found out and no one will like us if they see how horrifying we really are.

I think most adults rarely understand that children actually, on one level or another, identify with the monsters in monster movies. At least in good monster movies.

I usually rooted for the monsters as much as I was terrified of them.The whole word was against the monster. And that's how kids so often feel. The world of adults is allied against them.