Horror, Homosexuality, and Hidden Obssession

     I was watching the new episode of American Horror Story this morning, excited to see what they'd do with the show. I'd started last year with AHS, attracted by its super-creepy advertising and Halloween-timing (this is the time of year I return to Rocky Horror, as well). The show itself, for anyone who hasn't seen it, is golden. It's a little bit like Lost (or what I've heard about Lost, at least) in that you're always having to ask more questions - the difference is that the show was primarily about the supernatural and didn't really rely on explanations of the bizarre occurrences. You knew there were ghosts, and you knew that people were being terrorized, but beyond that, you're basically expected to just enjoy the ride. And what a ride it was.

     The second season was intriguing to me right off the bat , though at first, I was upset. Without spoiling things, I'll just say that the first season could stand alone, and I'm tired of shows going on and on with the same worn-out storylines and characters, continuing to wearing themselves thin for the sake of a new season of payroll checks. Would they do with this show as so many others had done to great creative works (The Office comes to mind)? Needless to say, I was relieved to see that the second season would be a new story, unrelated to its predecessor. Wow - bold move!

     But that's not why I'm here. Watching the second season, I immediately picked up on some of the things that made the first season so wonderful - there's something about the mix of blood and sex and FEAR that gets the American public aroused. But perhaps more importantly, the particular brand of sex in AHS is startling. They push the limits of network broadcasting television.  In a half-sexual example in this first episode, they said, "pussy" - now, I don't watch much TV, but this was the first time I could recall hearing that. They have gay men and gimp suits and sex-driven maids, basement-bound abortion clinics and mentally and physically retarded individuals. There is murder, and sex, and more murder. The second season has started off fairly strong - and these same themes show through almost immediately.

     So what's the deal here? I can't help but see the correlation between these narratives - American Horror Story seems to dwell in the taboo, the shocking and horrifying. They're one of the first non-reality shows I've known to achieve popular acclaim on public TV that prominently feature homosexuality. Of course, homosexuality isn't the only thing here - it's all sorts of "taboo sex." Sex in horrifying places, extramarital affairs, sex between people with a twenty years' age difference. Just that theme - taboo sex - would be relatively mild, having been covered in every way since Kinsey had the gall to (dubiously) adminster his infamous sexual survey. The combination, however, of taboo sex with primal fear, suspense, and gore brings the show to an entirely new level of interpretation. I don't mean to suggest that the show is trying to tell us something about these ideas, though I DO feel that its writers are using these themes in brilliant ways, playing off of society's own perspectives on the subjects invoked in order to elicit emotional responses to the content. What I really think is interesting is this last part - the way the writers are reading US, digging into OUR brains, and showing us our fears.
 

     There's something sexual about fear, isn't there? Waiting with baited breath, every muscle in your body tensing as you wait for that final orgasmic relief of knowledge - knowledge that you're safe, that everything is okay. And, if you're on the other end of the television, watching horror occur, consider the expectation - you know what's happening, you hope for an outcome, you cover your eyes, unable to stop yourself from peeking through stiffened fingers, knowing you shouldn't see, but lusting for that experience of that final conclusion where you see the murderer's goal accomplished, the final penetration of that knife through a victim's heart, the heartfelt scream that only true fear could produce. It's a very sensual experience, fear - so I guess, after all, it's no surprise that American Horror Story would combine sex and fear. And by including those so-called "taboo" sexual deviancies they love to display, I think the writers are keeping their audience, not yet used to confrontation by their own deviancy, peeking through their fingers, hungry to explore that place they shouldn't go.

     In conclusion, I'll leave you with this - the writers of American Horror Story know the darker secrets of their audience, and they're shining a light into our closets, trying to show us skeletons we might never have known we had.