Spooky Special: "Trans-fixing Media” with Cáel Keegan

We’re so done with scary trans villains and monsters – or are we? Cáel Keegan explains why we might be able to learn lessons about trans liberation from Buffalo Bill and why The Silence of the Lambs, upon its release, was actually protested for homophobia. Cáel speaks about transfixing and spellbinding media, from The Matrix to Buffy to video games. Dark Willow makes an appearance. Not to be missed.

References:

Keegan, Cáel M. Lana and Lilly Wachowski. University of Illinois Press, 2018.

Keegan, Cáel M. "Emptying the future: Queer melodramatics and negative utopia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 1.1 (2016): 9-22.

Keegan, Cáel M. "Getting disciplined: What’s trans* about queer studies now?." Journal of homosexuality 67.3 (2020): 384-397.

Keegan, Cáel M., Laura Horak, and Eliza Steinbock. "Cinematic/trans*/bodies now (and then, and to come)." Somatechnics 8.1 (2018): 1-13.

Orange is the New Black

The Matrix

The Silence of the Lambs

Hannibal Lecter

Jodie Foster

Homonormativity

Mads Mikkelsen

Anthony Hopkins

Will Graham

Buffalo Bill

Dark Willow

Soldier’s Girl

Hil Malatino

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism

Judith Butler’s Panicked Mimesis

McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory

Work in Progress

Abby McEnany

Theo Germaine

They/Them

Edie Fake’s Gaylord Phoenix


Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. Why is Cáel so interested in mass media? What can we learn from widely received stories – even, or especially when, they’re problematic?
2. Cáel explains how we can take care of difficult texts or even diffuse them like bombs. What does this mean? Did either concept resonate with you?
3. What is cisgender realism and which theorist is Cáel building on with this concept?
4. What is your favourite scary queer text and why is it Carmilla?