Hyde, and even the Phantom, were born in the literature of the late 19th and early 20th century, a time when society was changing and reckoning with transgressive forces, including sexual ones. Many members of the classic pantheon of horror characters, like Dracula, Frankenstein, Mr. Queerness in horror has a long, storied tradition and it exists for an extremely simple reason: For most of the 20th century, queer people were seen as monstrous, so we saw ourselves within Hollywood’s monsters. And the other day I realized one reason this story of an outcast who just wants to be with the person he loves resonated so strongly with me then and now: There’s a deep undercurrent of queer longing in the Phantom’s story.
And yes, I know that the Phantom is a creep and toxic and all that stuff, but I still think the show is romantic and beautiful and the music is perfect. I still think about Phantom all the time and love it dearly. That movie is bad and I don’t acknowledge its existence, and the height of my love for Phantom peaked long before they cast people that couldn’t sing in the film version of a musical with the word “Opera” in the title. Now, I want to be clear before we get into this that I’m talking about the stage show, not the movie that was made in 2004. There was no piece of entertainment that meant more to me as a teen than Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera.
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