‘He came to **** the dead back to life’: ambiguous (de)pathologization in Bruce LaBruce’s L.A. Zombie

ABSTRACT

A visionary, if controversial, queer director, Bruce LaBruce is known for his ambiguous films. L.A. Zombie, LaBruce’s second feature-length pornographic zombie film, serves as one such example. The purpose of this article is to investigate the source of this ambiguity. In particular, the article will highlight L.A. Zombie’s ability to depathologize gay men and gay sex whilst simultaneously further pathologizing them. In concluding the article, the implications of this ambiguity will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Bruce LaBruce
• L.A. Zombie
• pornography
• gay sex
• (de)pathologization
• horror

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Note that while not illegal in all jurisdictions, necrophilia is typically considered an immoral and punishable offence. For example, individuals who have engaged in necrophilic sex have been charged with crimes such as sexual assault in places where no explicit necrophilia laws exist (see Troyer 2008).

2 Prior to their reinvention in 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, zombies were commonly presented as corpses that had been reincarnated through the use of, typically Haitian, magic. Early zombie movies include White Zombie (Halperin, dir. 1932).

3 This is also supported by the fact that the zombie, by its very nature, exists in a liminal space somewhere between the living and the dead.