‘The Babadook’ Headed Back to Theaters for LGBT Fundraiser Screenings

Jennifer Kent’s monster took internet by storm as unexpected gay icon this month

“The Babadook” is creeping beyond internet-icon status and heading back to movie screens after its titular monster became the star of June’s monthlong gay pride celebration.

Los Angeles art house Arena Cinelounge will host five days of screenings, with a portion of proceeds going to “LBTQ awareness,” from June 23-27, the boutique theater announced on Sunday.

The theater will also host a panel discussion titled “Babashook: From Monster to Cultural Icon,” and invited fans for Babadook cosplay and karaoke at a local bar.

Representatives for the movie’s American distributor IFC Films did not immediately return a query about additional screenings around the country.

Jennifer Kent’s widely praised 2014 horror indie followed a long-fingered, jagged-toothed apparition in a top hat who terrorizes a single mom and her troubled young son.

In the recesses of social media last year, the gay community adopted the monster as an allegory for coming out (the monster is locked in the family basement to allow traditional family life to continue).

There’s also evidence that Netflix might have mistakenly categorized the movie as an LGBT title, which caused rampant and amazing memes welcoming the character into the queer fold.

At pride celebrations across the country, Babadooks popped up on rally signs and t-shirts and even vogued in the streets with LGBTQ masses.

“People who lived with a lot of their love and their passion in the closet, or who felt demonized in the broader culture, it’s very easy to find points of identification with monsters,” Karen Tongson, an associate professor in gender studies at USC, told the LA Times of the monster’s plausible connection to the community.

Check out the Arena Cinelounge program here.

 

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