The Sandman’s Corinthian sex scene subverts a harmful gay trope – Digital Spy

The Sandman spoilers follow.

There’s a new dream boy on the block, and no, we don’t mean Morpheus, the literal embodiment of dreams. He’s cute in an endlessly emo sort of way, but we’re actually talking about The Corinthian, a suave nightmare turned serial killer.

Speaking to Pride.com, The Sandman star Boyd Holbrook explained his character’s appeal in more detail: “I felt like he was an outsider, something that I definitely can relate to. I’m sure many people can relate to a person that just wants to belong.”

Boyd’s right, but what he fails to mention is that The Corinthian’s also sexy in a charming will-he-won’t-he-murder-me kind of way.

Fans have predictably latched on to this like one of those little eye-teeth munching down on his victim’s eyeball. “He’s a hot, slutty serial killer,” said one Twitter user. “Normalise also wanting to have gay sex with the corinthian,” said another.

The internet’s gonna internet, that’s nothing new, but it’s this queer element that complicates things somewhat.

“It’s not really any sort of set demographic,” says Boyd when discussing who his character is drawn to. “He’s just so fascinated with humanity itself and all the different flavours and tastes that come along with that.” Yet it’s safe to say that The Corinthian has a type, and that type is men.

Much has been discussed before around this notion of lusting after sexy serial killers, although this is less of an issue when the killer in question is fictional. There’s no real-life victims to offend, after all.

However, The Corinthian’s portrayal here as a gay serial killer does flirt with some tricky tropes.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

For decades, Hollywood’s obsession with the “Sissy Villain” and the “Depraved Homosexual” have long equated evil with affected, feminine clichés. This suggestion that queerness is somehow disturbing and wrong has been intrinsic to everything from classic Hitchcock movies to some of your favourite Disney films.

Things are improving, but this harmful notion still lurks a bit, even now. And for some, it could be argued that The Corinthian’s obsession with men might play into that.

Each time we see The Corinthian murder someone in season one, it tends to be post-hookup or at least associated with gay sex in some way. Remember when he lured that serial killer wannabe in at the convention? He’s quite literally a maneater in ways that Nelly Furtado could only dream of.

It’s worth noting that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with portraying evil LGBTQ+ characters on screen. To avoid that entirely would be exclusionary in a very different kind of way. The problem is when this villainy is inextricably tied to the character’s sexuality, thereby implying that their queerness is somehow responsible for said evil.

That’s true of The Corinthian to some extent. His victims are carefully chosen by him for very specific reasons, and it’s obvious from the get-go that physical attraction plays a part in this. However, The Sandman deftly avoids feeding into offensive stereotypes around his character in a number of key ways.

In an old companion piece to the original Sandman comics, creator Neil Gaiman stated that The Corinthian was gay because he only took the eyes of boys. It wasn’t until later in Caitlin R Kiernan’s ‘The Dreaming’ that his sexuality was expanded beyond this somewhat limited definition.

But even with a new boyfriend, The Corinthian’s queerness wasn’t really portrayed much physically in the comics until this new adaptation finally came along and addressed his sexuality more directly.

Queer characters obviously don’t need to have sex to be considered queer, but it’s quite a step up to see The Corinthian go from a suppressed homosexual serial killer to someone who actually takes joy in relationships beyond just murder.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Case in point: Remember when The Corinthian visits Rose Walker’s apartment and encounters her gay flatmate instead?

Tons of flirting and decades of skewed representation all lead us to believe that he’s going to be a goner, that The Corinthian will have sex with him and then remove his eyes. Just your standard Grindr horror story, really. But no. The Corinthian doesn’t kill this man, even after he got what he wanted. And by the end of season one, we even get to see him enjoy a happy ending of his own, away from that sexy serial killer’s grasp.

Did The Sandman writers deliberately include this scene just to subvert all of our trope-fuelled expectations? Quite possibly. Or perhaps they just wanted to include some more characterisation for The Corinthian, inadvertently achieving that exact same goal. Either way, it’s reassuring that the writers went out of their way to surprise us and flesh out what it means to be a queer villain onscreen.

Historically, “Sissy Villains” and “Depraved Homosexuals” alike have been pretty one-note in their pursuit of depravity. The Corinthian is so much more than that though. He’s a literal nightmare who was built for killing, yet goes on to question aspects of his function and his place in the world, waking or otherwise.

And it’s that “outsider” status, which Boyd touched on earlier, that ingratiates this character to queer audiences even more. Well, that and his perfect skin.

It’s also important to note that The Corinthian isn’t the only queer character on this show, not by a long stretch. All too often, LGBTQ+ villains exist alone in a queer vacuum, surrounded only by straight characters in ways that emphasise how their identity is “wrong” somehow. But here, The Corinthian is joined by multiple queer characters across a wide spectrum of morality.

From Mason Alexander Park’s thrilling performance as Desire to the love story that plays out quietly in episode one, LGBTQ+ experiences are woven throughout The Sandman‘s first season. Some are a bit unnerving, of course, especially when it comes to that horny torture café, but equally, some are also moving, like the relationship between Johanna Constantine and her ex.

Queer people aren’t inherently predisposed towards evil, as Hollywood might have led you to believe, but we’re also not naturally better than anyone else either. Saying that, “Be gay, do crime” does hold a certain appeal. Yet ultimately, we’re just people, like any other community.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Speaking recently to The Queer Review, Neil Gaiman touched upon this while explaining why The Sandman has been so inclusive since day one:

“When I was writing it – and today – I had gay friends and I had trans friends. I wanted to see them represented in the comics that I was writing and it felt to me like if I wrote comics and left them out, then I wouldn’t be representing my world or the world that I was in, or the world I was perceiving accurately, bravely, or truly. And that’s the point of art. So for me, it was just a given.”

By reflecting this wide range of experiences across season one, it means that The Sandman can include monstrous queer characters without having to worry about this being the only representation for queer characters. That’s a far more nuanced, and modern, approach to LGBTQ+ storytelling, which is all the more impressive when you consider that The Sandman started out in 1989.

But what about The Corinthian’s journey moving forward? If Boyd Holbrook’s chat with us is to be believed, then that adorable little skull might not be the last we’ve seen of his character:

“Is he ever gone? Is anything ever gone? You know, as you were talking about the comic-books – the comic-books go on and on. He’s reincarnated later on as a different entity, as a good guy. So I think that’s something really fun to play with, to already know him as this dark entity, and to see what a lighter entity of The Corinthian would look like.”

Sounds like season two could take the internet’s new dream boy and make him a literal dream boy now moving forward, sans the murder. Which is kind of ideal, when you think about it… Weird teeth eyes be damned!

The Sandman is now available to stream on Netflix.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Favorite