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26. Dream House as Noir
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in In the Dream House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Queer Visibility
Christianity and Shame
Abuse, Trauma, and Healing
Storytelling, Responsibility, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
In the present, Machado thinks about how queer villains—like the “scheming gay butler” from Downton Abbey or Disney’s “sinister drag queens” like Ursula—should make her feel offended, but often she’s just left admiring them for how they’ve survived in a world that hates them.
Machado’s thinking demonstrates that stereotypes, even if they’re destructive, can often be true—and can become more relevant given someone’s individual experience. In this case, Machado’s experience makes her more sympathetic to these villainous characters.
Themes
Machado lays out the plot of Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake, in which a young man called Franck witnesses an older man, Michel, drowning his boyfriend. Franck then begins a relationship with Michel and lies to a detective about the death in order to protect Michel and strengthen their relationship.
By choosing to discuss a film that revolves around danger and secrecy, Machado hints to the reader that the story of her own relationship might also depend on secrecy.
Themes
Machado says the disproportionate number of queer villains is unfair, and artists should be careful about who they choose to portray as evil. Queer villains, like Michel, are more interesting when they’re surrounded by other queer characters. When many different queer characters appear, they are allowed to have various traits and not merely represent ideas of good and evil. Queer people don’t deserve respect or fair treatment because they’re altogether pure, but because they are as complex as any other human beings.
Machado uses her role as a writer to advocate for broad queer representation. It’s clear she takes her role as a storyteller very seriously and that she believes in the power of storytelling and pop culture to affect people’s perceptions of minority groups, particularly the queer community. At the same time, truth and reality are more important to her—and bring with them more freedom—than blindly championing only the best qualities of a given minority group.
Themes
