The Black Phone is too Complex for Twitter Discourse
Since when did "camp" inherently mean "queer"?
Horror duo Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill debuted their latest film The Black Phone in late June of this year. The film is based on Joe Hill’s short story of the same name, and follows siblings Finney (Mason Thames) and Gwen Blake (Madeleine McGraw) as they find themselves in the middle of a serial killer's twisted plans. Said killer, The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) has been kidnapping (and presumably, killing) young boys in the area for the last couple of months, and evading police all the while.
Like most things, Twitter (and critics alike) immediately praised Ethan Hawke’s performance as the film's alluring masked villain. But many people zeroed in on Hawke’s flamboyant performance, leading them to then call the film homophobic. Because, if nothing else, a (possibly) gay man kidnapping young boys immediately means the film is doing gay people a disservice. It’s a dull and short-sighted conclusion to come to, especially when it hasn’t been confirmed by Derrickson or Cargill. Although anti-LGBT+ practices have come back full force in 2022, The Black Phone does not by any means aid right-wing conservative rhetoric.
While we don’t know for sure if The Grabber is gay, there’s no doubt that Ethan Hawke’s performance has an air of camp to it. The performance is a riot to watch, but does camp automatically mean queer? But, if The Grabber isn’t gay, then why the hell am I writing about this movie for a newsletter called Queer Atmospheres? Because, dear reader, I believe there is indeed an air of queerness to the film: it’s just not strictly found in Ethan Hawke’s performance.
After a fantastic title sequence emulating Derrickson and Cargill’s previous horror film Sinister, The Black Phone quickly begins to set up its main character, Finney, as the perfect victim. While his sister is the firecracker of the family, Finney is shy and quiet. His interactions with his bullies see them calling him gay slurs, and while that was a common enough insult to throw around in the 80’s, it seems to impact Finney more than anything else. Now, before he’s kidnapped, Finney is seen eyeing one of his female classmates, and she’s seen eyeing him back. It’s the perfect display of young, shy love, but Finney’s relationship with another one of his classmates can be argued to be even more impactful.
We’re first introduced to Finney’s classmate Robin (Miguel Cazarez Mora) when he’s beating one of the school's bullies to a pulp. Along with Finney’s sister Gwen, Robin seems to be the only person in this town who's brave enough to stand up for themselves. Later, Finney runs into the school bathroom to try and evade the classmates who’ve been harassing him, hiding in a bathroom stall instead of facing his foes. Then, Robin walks in, and boldly tells the others to scram before he kicks their asses. Robin serves as Finney’s “knight in shining armor,” though the armor is swapped out for teenaged fists and a pretty sick bandana. He’s everything Finney is not, brash and willing to fight, even telling Finney that he has to “learn to stick up for [himself.]” But, during the film's climax, after Robin and Finney have both been kidnapped (and in Robin’s case, killed) by The Grabber, he serves again as Finney’s teacher and savior.
The titular black phone that’s found in The Grabber’s bunker calls Finney multiple times throughout the film, aiding him in putting together a master plan to escape his prison. Every so often, the phone rings, and when Finney picks up, a voice of one of The Grabber’s other victims comes through. From giving him a combination lock number to telling him to dig a Grabber-sized hole in the dirt-floor, each victim that Finney speaks to gives him a hint or clue that will eventually allow him to escape. The final victim to call Finney is Robin, and he gives him perhaps the best advice of all. They speak with Finney offering his emotional condolences and Robin telling Finney what he told him in the school bathroom days before: Someday, Finney’s going to have to stick up for himself.
In a fantastic little montage, Robin’s voice (and his disembodied overlaid spirit) coaches Finney on how to defend himself against The Grabber, reciting move after move until Finney believes himself that he can escape. Robin not only gives Finney a boost of confidence, but he uses the last moment he’ll share with him to save his life. The other victims of The Grabber, including a boy named Bruce who Finney interacts with at the beginning of the film, appear briefly, whereas Derrickson and Cargill focus on Robin and his bond with Finney.
In a world where anti-gay and anti-trans legislation has seen a boom again, The Black Phone’s place in the cinematic canon may feel to some like it’s walking a tight rope between offensive and “representation.” Ethan Hawke’s performance is fantastic, but the admission that some people believe him to be a John Wayne Gacy inspiration is jarring. Although the short story was inspired by Gacy - with the story’s villain being a clown, where in the film he’s a magician - The Grabber is quite different. In a review for Slate, writers Paul M. Renfro and Danielle Wiggins state that “The Grabber is heavily coded in this moment as not just a kidnapper and murderer but also a sexual predator, presumably fueled by pedophilic desire,” which is not only wrong, but extremely worrying. If the Grabber is anything, he’s a man who was abused and is in turn, kidnapping boys to recreate his trauma, but killing them to gain some sort of reclamation over his past.
The fact that The Grabber speaks with a soft voice and Ethan Hawke camps his performance up to a 10 may hint that the character is gay, sure. But, does it really? For /Film, critic BJ Colangelo writes “claiming Hawke's flamboyant performance is gayface is an extremely reductive way at assessing queerness, and an even more limiting approach to gender performance,” which is truer than anything else I’ve read about the film. The film’s queer undertones may not even reside in Hawke’s portrayal of The Grabber, despite what the film may or may not want us to believe. The true queer undertones in The Black Phone, are embedded into the relationship between two boys: one who can’t find his place in the world and another who helps him find it. Every look shared between Finney and Robin threw me back to an adolescence filled with want and pining, feelings that I wasn’t allowed to speak of unless I wanted to face ridicule.
It may be accidental, but I have more faith in Derrickson and Cargill as writers to fully believe that. I mean, would the writer’s have Finney refer to himself as “Finn,” at the end of the film, a nickname which Robin gave him, if they weren’t trying to say something here? Sure, it may be to symbolize that his time with The Grabber changed him, or maybe, like Hawke has been said to have evoked the gayface method, I’ve got gaybrain. The discourse surrounding The Black Phone, as is the discourse surrounding most films, says more about the people who are reacting to it, than it does about the film itself. While I can somewhat sympathize with people who found the film to be offensive, I’m quite ready to add it to the “queer coming of age,” canon myself.