RSVP here: https://www.queer-art.org/rsvp-to-the-thing.
Streaming links here: https://www.queer-art.org/streaming-links-for-qaf-summer-2020.
THE THING
1982. 109 minutes. Directed by John Carpenter.
In horror legend John Carpenter’s gory 1982 masterpiece, scientists in Antarctica unearth a frozen alien parasite with shape-shifting abilities. When “the thing” begins imitating the appearance of the scientists, suspicion and paranoia turn everyone against each other in a gruesome hunt to stop it from escaping. Acclaimed non-binary artist Nayland Blake first watched the film in 1983, initially interpreting it as an AIDS analogy, then later as a metaphor for fears of homosexuality. “The body eruptions, mutating orifices, and emotional standoffs between the male characters speak to straight fears of queerness as a disease in itself,” Nayland writes. “THE THING told a horror story at the beginning of the decade that the rest of the world would catch up to over the ensuing years.”
Nayland Blake on THE THING
“Shot in 1981 and released in 82, THE THING was rejected by critics, and flopped with most audiences. I didn’t see it until at least a year later on home video when I was living in San Francisco, and when I did I was immediately struck by what seemed to be the inescapable AIDS analogy in the film’s depiction of an alien invader who could turn your own body against you. In the years since I’ve come to realize that the film’s dread and paranoia are steeped more in the notion of homosexuality itself than on the specific nature of HIV, and that the body eruptions, mutating orafices, and emotional standoffs between the male characters speak to straight fears of queerness as a disease in itself. THE THING told a horror story at the beginning of the decade that the rest of the world would catch up to over the ensuing years.”
Nayland Blake is an artist. They were born in 1960 in New York City and live there now, after taking a fourteen year sojourn in California. Since 2002, they have been employed as the chair at the ICP/Bard MFA program. For ten years, they shared their home with Lehigh, a very self possessed Boston Terrier. In 2005 they paid off their student loans.