How Wreck is breaking new ground for LGBT representation in horror

Thanks to Wreck, LGBT characters are finally front and centre in horror. Writer Ryan J. Brown spoke to BBC Three about why this representation was important to him.

BBC Three’s new comedy-drama Wreck is changing the way the LGBT community is represented in horror.

Ladhood’s Oscar Kennedy stars as Jamie, who boards the cruise ship from which his sister went missing after a chase with a knife-wielding psycho in a duck costume. He’s investigating what happened to her. The more questions he asks, the more horrifying the answers.

Being in a horror series is not ideal for any character, but LGBT characters fare particularly badly in the genre. Traditionally, they’re either characters who die early, or they are the killer themselves.

With Wreck, writer and creator Ryan J. Brown wanted to change this. That is why Jamie is gay and his sidekick Vivian (played by Thaddea Graham) is a lesbian.

Both get romances, and neither becomes a mass-murderer because of their sexual identity. In fact, these identities are the only thing they are sure about in the show's uncertain world.

For Ryan, having gay and lesbian characters front and centre was fundamental. He tells BBC Three: “It was there from the beginning. It's what I want to do in all of my work.”

The Wreck writer could see queer themes buried in the horror genre, and wanted to bring these themes to the surface. “As a gay man and horror fan, I think horror has always been queer,” he says. “But it's always coded, and subtext. I thought, 'let's do away with the subtext.' Let's have explicit representation."

For Ryan, horror was coded queer “since the very beginning, since Mary Shelley.” A 2019 biography of the Frankenstein author by Fiona Sampson included letters that may hint at lesbian relationships Shelley had, and subsequent LGBT creatives have found much inspiration in the work. Most famously, The Rocky Horror Picture Show turned Victor Frankenstein into Dr. Frank N Furter, whose monster is a hunk in hotpants.

Darren Elliott-Smith, senior lecturer in film and gender at the University of Stirling, monsters have often been used to represent sexual and gender difference. "To straight white males, anything different poses a threat, and needs to be projected outwards as an other," he says. “The monster is a blank slate to do that.”

This draws many LGBT viewers to horror. For Darren growing up “I realised I was gay in a time when I was told I shouldn't be open about it. I was often cast as disgusting and against the norm. So anything that depicted something abnormal I moved towards.”

Those who find liberation in horror often obsess over certain figures. Characters like The Babadook, Interview with the Vampire’s Lestat and Ripley from the Alien franchise have been celebrated by LGBT horror fans for years on social media and on Pride placards despite their sexualities never being confirmed on screen.

Darren identified with Carrie: “When I saw it as a student, I thought, ‘I wish I’d seen that when I was a kid.’ It spoke to me about feeling different, feeling attacked. The idea of being bullied, then suddenly being empowered was really transformative.”

With Wreck, Ryan wanted to give the gift of LGBT characters who were explicitly confirmed to be so to non-straight horror fans. One of Jamie’s first lines on the BBC Three show is about his experience in Sheffield's gay scene, while Vivienne rebuffs a man by stating she’s into girls.

For Vivian actor Thaddea Graham, this was the most appealing things about the script. “It felt really special to see representation of all kinds of sexualities joined together...It’s at the forefront and it’s not performative.”

Wreck is not the only horror project from the last decade with gay and lesbian characters. American Horror Story and The Walking Dead feature characters from across the LGBT spectrum, as do recent movies Scream, Freaky and The Craft: Legacy.

Why is horror finally embracing LGBT audiences? “My cynical students say it's queer-baiting,” Darren says. “Studios are seeing audiences and seeing money.

“On the other hand, it's a recognition of the community. It's a good thing to see queer characters, no matter what happens to them. It's good to see representation, because I remember a time when there was none.”

Though recent projects often see their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters survive the killing (something virtually unheard of in mainstream horror a few years ago), these characters are rarely the lead. Ryan wanted to change this when creating Wreck: “We’re getting more representation, but it seems to be lots of sidekicks and supporting characters." That is why in Wreck, we get what Ryan called “a Batman and Robin that are both very gay” – a LGBT lead and sidekick.

Similar characters are starting to appear in American movies and TV. The new version of Chucky has a gay lead character, and 2022 saw the release of They/Them, a slasher set in a gay conversion camp. The trend continues with the TV adaptation of video game The Last of Us, which has a lesbian co-lead character, while a new TV version of Interview with the Vampire promises to be more frank about its gayness than the 1994 movie.

Wreck, however, is the first UK horror series to tackle LGBT representation in this way, and differs in approach to the US shows. In most of the American works, characters’ sexualities are the central issue.

Wreck, in contrast, tries to reflect the reality of most real-life LGBT people, whose sexuality is just one element of their life. “Having two gay leads in the show that isn't about them being gay, or about their sexual identity in any way, we don't see that,” Ryan says.

That is not to say Wreck dismisses their identities. As the writer puts it: “Growing up gay has equipped them to be the perfect heroes. But the story doesn't need to be about their trauma.”

Wreck is streaming now on BBC iPlayer.

Originally published 10 October 2022.