Abstract
In The Devil’s Carnival (2012) and Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival (2015), director Darren Lynn Bousman and co-composers Terrance Zdunich and Saar Hendelman merge the musical genre with the gothic mode in order to reinvent Judeo-Christian myth(olog)ical spaces—Heaven and Hell—as allegories for the failings of contemporary sociopolitical systems in their treatment of women, sexual minorities and misfits of all kinds. The notion of ‘carnival’ becomes here a metaphor for social interaction and integration, functioning as a discourse through which to critique social ruptures, political control and ingrained fear. My investigation focuses more closely on the second instalment and analyses how it deploys gothic tropes to externalise the convoluted dispute between an official culture and its rejects. In so doing, it inquires where the distinctive appeal of the films resides, along with the meanings and affects that subcultural audiences invest in them.
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Filmography
Alleluia! The Devil’s Carnival, dir., Bousman Darren Lynn, 2015.
Blade Runner, dir., Scott Ridley, 1982.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Whedon Joss, 1996–2003.
Cabaret, dir., Fosse Bob, 1972.
Circus of Horrors, dir., Hayers Sidney, 1960.
Jesus Christ Superstar, dir., Jewison Norman, 1973.
Repo! The Genetic Opera, dir., Bousman Darren Lynn, 2008.
Saw, dir., Wan James et al., 2004–2017.
She Freak, dir., Mabe Byron, 1967.
Spy Kids, dir., Rodriguez Robert, 2001–2003, 2011.
The Devil’s Carnival, dir., Bousman Darren Lynn, 2012.
The Man Who Laughs, dir., Leni Paul, 1928.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, dir., Sharman Jim, 1975.
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Ramalho, J.R. (2020). Gender Politics in a High-Camp, Lowbrow Musical. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33136-8_44
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