The Babadook is a gay icon because of a Netflix clerical error

This exploration of how The Babadook became a gay icon was originally published in 2017. It has been updated and republished throughout for Pride Month.

The 2014 horror movie The Babadook follows a monster, simply called the Babadook, who terrorizes a single mother and her son in their new home. The film brought writer-director Jennifer Kent another wave of success and acclaim, but it had a different, weirder effect on the culture, as an apparent administrative error turned its central monster into a defining figure in queer online culture.

Why is The Babadook a gay icon?

Like many good memes, it all started with an innocent Tumblr post. Tumblr user Taco-bell-rey uploaded a screenshot The Babadook listed as one of the available movies in Netflix’s LGBTQ section. It was reblogged thousands of times. The caption to that message — a one-line sentence about what this could possibly mean — confirmed the fate of the Babadook.

“So proud that Netflix recognizes the Babadook as a gay representation.”

The post quickly gained attention in the Tumblr community, but as the post made its way to Twitter, it started to gain even more steam. Buzzfeed’s Ryan Broderick, co-host of the Internet Explorer podcast, tweeted about how it was his favorite trend on Tumblr. By his post, the Babadook Debate ensued, with writers suggesting that the Babadook is gay because the film deals with themes of isolation, depression, and the inability to be themselves.

As another Tumblr-to-Twitter story from the same era — a request from Tumblr to star Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o in their own heist movie, based on a photo taken of the couple at Paris Fashion Week, got Nyongo, Rihanna, Issa Rae, and Ava DuVernay all agree to make that movie together — The Babadook meme quickly found a whole new audience.

The trend of people discovering and celebrating the Babadook’s new-found sexuality lasted for months, but it wasn’t until June 1 that those who weren’t paying attention to Tumblr or certain sections of Twitter finally caught on. What followed was a number of Twitter users joining in on the prank and stretching it as far as they could go.

Part of why June became the time to celebrate the chosen sexuality of the Babadook is because the month is dedicated to Pride, an ongoing celebration of the gay community. The Babadook meme was just big enough – and oddly enough – that the joke immediately caught on with people.

However, it does not stop there. When Taco-bell-rey posted the photo, the result was an ongoing debate over whether or not the Babadook were gay. A debate, it should be noted, that continues today.

The arguments for the strangeness of The Babadook

While the original Tumblr post was meant to be funny, many writers and professors have pointed it out The Babadook’s underlying themes could be seen as resonating with the gay community.

Dean Eastwood, founder of the men’s magazine HISKIND, wrote about the similarities between the disturbing history of the Babadook and what many men go through when dealing with accepting their own sexuality and eventually coming out. In a piece on the Babadook meme, he wrote:

The Babadook ultimately tells an LGBT story about being cast into the shadows, manifesting identities in closets and, to live up to modern stereotypes, wearing all black. Ultimately, the creature’s monstrous identity and traits are suppressed when *spoiler alert* he emerges from his shadow and shares his truth with those he loves. Sounds familiar? Despite the meme merely poking fun at the internet’s reaction to almost everything LGBT-related, no matter how trivial or serious, there are arguably parallels between the Babadook – a lonely, confused and misunderstood creature often depicted as a monster – and the LGBT community. At a time when coming out is still difficult and the idea of ​​repressed identities and mental health issues are still battles within the community, the short skeleton of the Babadook story – like many a ‘tortured soul’ storyline – can serve as a considered a bit too close to home for a community where more than half of its LGBT students have experienced direct bullying and where gay men are three times more likely to become depressed than straight men.

Eastwood isn’t the only person to focus on the similarities as takeaways from the movie. San Diego Comic Con queer horror panel organizer Michael Varrati, Mic said that according to the modern definition of the term, the Babadook is a perfect example of a gay icon.

“This creature is trying to get out and be seen. By the standards of internet culture, it’s a gay hero,” Varrati said. “The Babadook just wants to step out of the dark into the light.”

The Babadook isn’t the first “monster” to be considered a gay icon, either. When A Nightmare at 2 Elm Street: Freddy’s Revenge was released in 1985, people quickly pointed out that the main character of the film, Jesse Walsh, was a teenager struggling with his sexuality. Some of those fears found a physical presence in Freddy Krueger, the franchise’s iconic villain.

One particular scene has Jesse watching his male gym teacher get attacked by Krueger in a way that played on the fears both Jesse and society had at the time. As director Tyler Jensen describes in the documentary Scream, queen! My nightmare on Elm Street, this was during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, at a time when mainstream society viewed queerness as a public threat.

the Babadook, which director Jennifer Kent specifically said is about grief and coping with depression brought on by personal loss, which resonated with fans in a similar way.

What does all this mean?

The Babadook was not intended as a film about the struggles faced by the LGBTQ community, as far as we know. But the fact that people can resonate with the story and theme of the movie’s mysterious monster isn’t a bad thing. The best thing about cinema is that it is subjective and viewers see different aspects of their own lives reflected in the story.

It started out as a meme – a meme that is still very much alive in 2023. But the fact that it resonates a little deeper with people is pretty good.

The Babadook streams for free with ads on TubiAnd Pluto TVand is available at canoe And shiver. It is available for rental or purchase Vudu, Amazon, and other digital platforms. It is not currently streaming on US Netflix, either under the horror category or under the LBGTQ category.