That Gay Thread

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Here’s Why The Babadook Is Considered A Gay Icon
Gayety

What makes a queer icon? Why are the likes of Judy Garland, Lady Gaga, and Cher revered by the LGBTQ community? According to Nylon, those who achieve such status are often people who display “extraordinary resilience under scrutiny”. They also deviate from the status quo, push the boundaries of gender and sex, and speak truth to power. Gay icons are, for the most part, underdogs whom all queer people can relate to on some level. So what’s up with the Babadook being a gay icon?

It’s befuddling to see a fictional monster such as the Babadook, a shadowy figure with menacing white eyes and a maniacal grin, crowned an icon by members of the LGBTQ community. At least the chronically online ones, that is.

Here, we take a deep dive into the origins of the gay Babadook lore. We will explore how the Babadook became the LGBTQ icon that he is today.

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So, how did a monstrous manifestation of a widow’s grief turn into a beloved queer icon? Like many memes on the internet, the “Babadook is gay” meme started as an innocuous joke on Tumblr. A user named ianstagram was one of the first to joke about the Babadook’s orientation. They said, “Whenever someone says the Babadook isn’t openly gay it’s like?? Did you even watch the movie???”

Like with most jokes on Tumblr, other users continued building on the joke. And expanding the lore by pointing to “evidence” that the Babadook is gay. “I mean he created a pop-up book of himself for the drama of it all,” said one user. Seemingly (but also definitely jokingly) frustrated by commenters shutting down his theory, ianstagram responds by saying, “It may be ‘just a movie’ to you but to the LGBT community the Babadook is a symbol of our journey.”