Queer as Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters

In his entertaining debut, historian Coward surveys centuries of folklore, arguing that these tales, with their focus on transformation, deviance, nonconformity, and otherness, have always been fundamentally queer, which is why creatures like fairies, mermaids, and unicorns have come to serve a significant symbolic role for the LGBTQ movement. Coward ranges freely through time and space, discussing not only familiar folktales but myths, legends, historical accounts, and even current popular culture. Indeed, the short essays are at their best when describing how queer images and associations make their way into pop culture most readily through fairy tale and myth, like how Disney animators modeled The Little Mermaid’s Ursula on the drag queen Divine, or how Marvel’s X-Men franchise has evolved into an allegory for queerness. Other standout entries point to the queer histories of popular fairy tales, like how the role of Peter Pan is traditionally played by a male impersonator. Taken together, the essays offer a welcome rebuke to those who would prefer to brand queerness as a subversive interloper only now being injected into traditional tales. However, the book’s broad scope and wanderlust nature also risks shallowness, and some inclusions—a description of Jack the Ripper, a biography of Alan Turing, a chapter on pirates—strain the definition of folklore nearly beyond recognition. Still, Coward’s passionate and idiosyncratic tour of folk literature holds plenty of charm. (Nov.)