Ghost Stories Are Gay Stories
Or, what you need to know before the special.
I’ve been developing the concept for this essay for months, slowly collecting bits and pieces from far-flung resource materials. The release of the trailer for the special finally lit a fire under my ass to get this thing released to the world, and in a minute, I’m sure you’ll see why. Originally this was going to be a much, much, longer, multi-chaptered series. But instead I think I’m opting to just go for the big take home points so that you all can read it before the special is released. I reserve the right to come back later and write on these topics in more depth if the whim strikes.
Here’s what awaits you below the jumpcut. First, I’m going to introduce you to queer coding in Victorian horror and ghost stories. There’s a lot of it. There’s a shit ton of it, honestly. Next, I’m going to show you how queer coding in ghost and horror stories made the jump from novels to movies. After that I’m going to show you just how aware the showrunners are about the concept of the queer Victorian horror story (and honestly guys, the amount of stuff I found here, you will not believe), and lay out how they’ve already used this stuff in previous episodes. Lastly, I’m going to tie it all together by laying out how we can expect queer horror story tropes to show up in the upcoming Sherlock special, and what we should be watching for in terms of metaphor, narrative, and subtext. Because it will show up, I can guarantee you that. The material we’ve already seen so far, along with the utterly tantalizing hint word “ghosts”, just about confirms it. And as a fandom, I want us to be ready.
With that, let’s start at the beginning.