QUEER AGONIES
some people smarter than me made me consider a queer/trans/disabled reading of Frankenstein (2025)
“When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?”
Frankenstein (1831 edition; emphasis mine)
Do we renounce monsterhood? Do we wear it on our shoulders as protective mantle?
In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature relates closely to Paradise Lost’s Satan, thrown down from Heaven by his creator, disfigured by the Fall. Satan is by some interpretations a Romantic hero; he, like Prometheus (invoked in both Shelleys’ work), had angered powers higher than he, and the punishment handed down to him was a violent disembodiment. Like del Toro’s Creature, Satan and Prometheus are immortal — the gods in these stories cannot imagine a greater debasement than to live in eternity as disfigured, permanently marked. Percy Shelley argues that Zeus is a tyrant. It’s less clear what Milton considers God, but He sure acts tyrannical. What about Victor? And — more importantly — what of the Creature? Is he fallen? And even if he is — is it debasement?
“Disfigurement” is a charged word for trans and disabled peoples. There is a cruel acidity behind it that implies “punishment,” that implies “monstrous.” At the end of Shelley’s 1831 edition of Frankenstein, the Creature resigns himself to die in a funeral pyre, self-imposed punishment, to erase with a violence that wretched “blot upon the earth.” But in del Toro’s adaptation, the Creature cannot be killed by fire, the gift that Prometheus brought to all humankind. (In some versions of mythos, Prometheus even created us; in others, fire was a metaphor for, or came alongside, the arts, sciences, learning, technological advancement. What we might call “civilization.” Or, at least, the highest achievements of humanity.)
When you bring the torch closer to my body, is it to destroy me? Or to illuminate me so as to see me more clearly? And even if I am set on fire, will I die? And am I not more than capable of bestowing gifts upon humankind, even if I die, before I die?
“I am obscene to you, but to myself, I simply am.”
Frankenstein (2025; emphasis mine)
Further reading: “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” by Susan Stryker (an essay that I feel that I am always orbiting around, in conversation with)