Father Damien and Queer Subtext in THE EXORCIST

Reading this piece on The Exorcist’s 50th anniversary and it undersells the movie’s ‘gay stuff’ by quite some distance.

Queer coding and subtext is one of my special interests, and the best horror is always working on multiple levels, so I resurrected something I wrote nearly a decade gone now (Christ) and the more I see the more I think stands up.

Enjoy!

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I saw The Exorcist for the first time [I know I know. Visceral horror has not always been my thing.] last night, and afterwards I was chatting about it with three other friends who had seen it before and with me (one dude, two girls, all film nerds, two horror buffs, all varying degrees of queer) and I mentioned that obviously Father Damien Karras was queer and … All of them said ‘wait what?’

So I googled it, expecting a wide selection of reviews and thinkpieces talking about this, and came up nearly emptyhanded. A few people asking, a couple people noting he was possibly/supposedly gay in the book (mostly based on one scene, it seems), not much else for or against.

It seemed quite obvious to me when watching; at least, as obvious as 60s subtext could be.

A talented boxer who quit at his peak to pursue the Priesthood, with no reason given. There was no concussion or blowing out a knee, no failure to clinch a big fight, not even a statement about feeling a strong calling from God. Just running away from something, towards religion and/or celibacy. This, of course, was often the solution the church gave to those 'struggling with those desires.’ I know bring the youngest or only son of a devout mother also put pressure on men to join the priesthood, but that doesn’t seem to be any or at least the main motivation here.

Damien has a very strong relationship with his fellow priest Father Dyer. They drank together, they are obviously close, Damien mentions to Dyer his doubts and crises of faith, and when the get drunk Dyer takes off Damien’s shoes - an intimate act, and an act in the bible which intimates sex, as when Ruth 'uncovered Boaz’s feet’. Dyer seems incredibly heartbroken when giving Damien last rites, and the acting absolutely reads to me as someone mourning a man he loved and not just a fellow priest. Chris offered Dyer Damien’s pendant - a Hollywood actress knows many things when she sees them, including gay men. In the original version, Dyer keeps the pendant.

Damien is having a crisis of faith. This is of course partially caused by feelings of having abandoned his mother and possibly also his sport, but also could include him having feelings (for men in general) which have only intensified (for Father Dyer specifically) as he progressed in the order.

Speaking of Damien feeling he failed his mother, let’s not forget part of the subtext for queer men fifty years ago was 'mommy issues.’

The imagery of Damien being horrified at other women in the sanitarium is striking as well, though of course part of it was shrugging off their instability, he as a priest of all people is supposed to be compassionate and not so visibly repulsed. He did also shrink from the homeless man in the subway, and one of the women took his priest collar from around his neck, so it’s likely this is just a function and visual representation of him shrinking from certain matters of priesthood, thus not a strong point of support. But it is interesting, and an image can be more than one thing.

The demon uses gay slurs towards Damien, at one point saying “Shove it up your ass you faggot”. In some versions this was changed to “Shut your face you faggot,” keeping seemingly the more offensive of the two things, but the one which would have been geared specifically to unnerve Damien.

In the age this film was made, both members of gay couples - even if there has only been longing and not consummation - are not allowed to survive the film, *especially* when that film is horror. Dyer is left bereft and celibate, while Damien is killed (let’s ignore the sequels at this point, or preferably every point).

What’s really interesting is Damien manages to fulfil the trope of 'killing the queer character,’ but he also sacrifices himself and dies a somewhat heroic, Christ-figure death, literally taking on the Devil and dying in the process to allow the Innocent to live.

Damien is struggling with many demons in the film, literal and figurative, but it’s clear one of them is the stigma society places on his sexuality.

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