Pride Month 2020: Things should be better

Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ+ patients from discrimination. In case the decision wasn't already cruel enough, the move came on the  fourth anniversary of the massacre of a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. I suspect Trump had no idea of the significance of the date until he later saw it discussed on Fox News. But the people within his administrtion pulling his strings absolutely do know the significance, but that doesn't make the situation any less outrageous.

The pandemic has left me unplugged from my normal routines. It has also cancelled Pride Month activities across the world, and this is a community that understands better than any other about the consequences of a pandemic. By 1989 there were an estimated 100,000 AIDS cases in the United States. The World Health Organization estimated there were as many as 400,000 cases worldwide.

At least four actors appearing on Dark Shadows died from AIDS related illnesses.

A 2019 post on The CHS Facebook page has become a place for heated discussion this week, leading me to believe this is a problem people want to discuss. We're all a feeling isolated this summer. I've had more time than ever before to plan a formal dislogue ... but I've also felt disinclined to express myself on anything but the most selfish of topics. Silence seems prudent when anger and anxiety are fighting for the wheel. As a straight, white man my sullenness is an expensive luxury.

Worse, it makes me an accomplice.

If you want to help, please consider donating to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization  focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth. You can find them online at https://give.thetrevorproject.org/give/63307/#!/donation/checkout

Meanwhile, here's what The CHS did last year for Pride Month. It's all as relevant now as it was a year ago. I've included an abstract, the author's name and a link to their entire piece.

Our thoughts and feelings are valid

Brooke Perrin: "In addition to the backlash fans receive for celebrating the queerness of the talent involved in creating Dark Shadows, queer fans are also criticized by our straight counterparts for daring to see ourselves reflected in “their” characters. Although queer representation is making leaps and bounds today historically, the LGBTQ community have little to no representation in the media we consume." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month.html

Queer Shadows

Alice Collins: "Dark Shadows helped me get through a lot of my questioning and early coming out years (Unfortunate truth: You never stop coming out, you come out to each new person you meet.) It’s been my solace, my safe place to be scared because the outside world is even scarier." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month-queer-shadows.html

Witches and Role Models
Laramie Dean: "Originally, I considered writing about the in-the-closet nature of Barnabas Collins and his lycanthropic cousin Quentin, who must pretend to be their own ancestors so their hapless twentieth century relatives don’t discover their - gasp! - true natures, but that seems rather on the nose; and anyway, I want to write about Angelique.  Because she’s my favorite." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month-witches-and-role-models.html

Pride Month: Our thoughts and feelings are valid

By BROOKE PERRIN

Growing up in a town of less than 2,000 people in rural Montana, I never encountered anyone I knew to be gay. It was never discussed and thus did not exist. Even before I realized I was gay, I was an outcast in school. I had nothing in common with most kids my age. My classmates loved football and snowboarding, while I sat in the corner reading Macbeth. I wanted the lead in the school play, not to be head cheerleader. I spent most of my adolescence shroud in black hoping my creepy exterior would repel my fellow classmates. I wasn’t out of the closet by any stretch, even to myself, but was still routinely called “faggot” and singled out for not conforming to the crowd. As Alice Collins mentioned in her column, the arts tend to be common ground for LGBT kids. We often find they are safe havens for us as we struggle to survive high school and beyond. We are allowed to explore our true selves through embodying others on stage or channeling our emotions through art and music. In addition to falling in love with theatre, in high school I also became enamored with the horror genre. Since then I’ve realized a passion for horror is common amongst much of the queer community. As a young girl I cried with Frankenstein’s creature as he was shunned by society while he so hopelessly tried to belong. I was in awe of Carrie White as she burned the school gym to the ground and wrought vengeance on her cruel classmates. Watching these films was deeply cathartic for me. I discovered Dark Shadows in my early twenties, just as I was coming to terms with my sexuality. I felt a connection to Barnabas Collins, the reluctant vampire who wanted so desperately to be human. These feelings of being ostracized run throughout much of the horror genre and strike a chord with me and the LBGT community at large.

As I delved deeper into the Dark Shadows fandom, I learned many of the actors who appeared on the show were queer. Unfortunately they lived in a more conservative and closeted time, when identifying as gay was still considered radical. It was also dangerous and could mean the end of an actor’s professional career. We will never know for sure how Jonathan Frid, Louis Edmonds, or Joel Crothers would have chosen to identify in today’s more accepting society, but what we do know is they too were misunderstood outcasts in a straight world. Although I’ve moved on from the conservative rural life and found love and acceptance identifying as a lesbian, I have also learned the heteronormative community I grew up in still exists in every sphere, including the internet. A small but vocal portion of the Dark Shadows fandom cling to their conservative ideologies that love may only exist between a man and a woman. If youbreathe a word suggesting the beloved Jonathan Frid may have been romantically involved with men they will be on you like blood on fangs. These fans time and again sing the refrain they “don’t care what adults do in the bedroom as long as they don’t have to hear about it.” Initially this makes many queer fans such as myself reluctant or even fearful to share their views online. Gratefully we have many spaces, including CHS, where queer fans can feel safe from bigotry.

In addition to the backlash fans receive for celebrating the queerness of the talent involved in creating Dark Shadows, queer fans are also criticized by our straight counterparts for daring to see ourselves reflected in “their” characters. Although queer representation is making leaps and bounds today historically, the LGBTQ community have little to no representation in the media we consume. To find ourselves represented we have to read between the lines. Recently I saw a comment accusing queer fans of “appropriating Dark Shadows to push their agenda.” For instance one of my favorite plot lines on Dark Shadows is 1970 Parallel Time. This timeline more or less mirrors the plot of the classic gothic novel Rebecca. The main reason I love this story is that it brings my two favorite characters together. Julia takes on the Mrs. Danvers role while Angelique serves as the mysterious deceased wife Rebecca. Danvers has become a lesbian icon in popular culture due to her homoerotic devotion to the dead mistress of Manderley. What makes the storyline on Dark Shadows even more fun than the novel is here Rebecca rises from the grave and the two women are allowed to plot and scheme against the master of the house’s new bride. The knowing and flirtatious glances Hoffman and Alexis exchange when she ‘“arrives from abroad” betray something deeper than the mere professional relationship between a mistress and her maid.  Will some of the Dark Shadows fandom take issue with my interpretation of their relationship as sexual? Absolutely. Does this make my interpretation any less valid? Not for a second.

Dark Shadows has attracted a large queer fanbase over the five decades since it first aired. I truly believe on an instinctual level the LGBT community recognizes art that has been touched by our kind. Is this what draws us to the early horror films of James Whale or to Dark Shadows? I like to think so. What I love most during pride month is our visibility amongst thefandom. It brings me great joy to be reminded we are many and outnumber the bigots we often encounter on Facebook and elsewhere. I am so grateful for the wonderful people I have met and the queer friends I’ve made through the Dark Shadows community. Let us always remember we are many and our thoughts and feelings are valid. I know the many queers who have contributed to Dark Shadows over the years are looking down on us today, proud of the legacy we have created together. Happy Pride! 

Pride Month: Witches and Role Models

Angelique Collins, Witch and Role Model:  
Thoughts on the Nature of Power and Pride

by LARAMIE DEAN

She’s staring sadly down at the little statue she’s cradling, the one he gave her, handsome hubby, standing behind her, Sky Rumson stupid soap opera name; it’s his tie, in fact, that she’s even now coiling around the statue’s neck.  “Nicholas didn’t tell you very much about me, did he,” she says.

Of course he didn’t; this is Dark Shadows.  Everyone’s got some kind of deep dark secret, things their friends and family don’t know about them because reasons.



He’s coming for her with a poker, by the way, and the poker is on fire.  Fire is anathema to her; she’s a witch, which is why she’s treating the statuette like a voodoo doll. In a moment it will be. He coos, says he wants to look at her one more time before he begins jabbing at her with the flaming stick.  At which point she - Angelique, that is, Bouchard Collins Collins DuVal DuBois Rumson, currently - viciously twists hubby’s tie around the neck of the doll, with instant results:  he gasps, beginning to choke.  “Put the poker in the fire, Sky,” she orders him, “or I’ll make it worse!” Her voice cracks a little at the end, or maybe it just goes up a register.  She’s terrified and she’s furious; she’s been living like Samantha Stephens, her television cousin-counterpart from Bewitched, for a few months now, and it’s been wearing thin.  She’s Angelique All-those-last names, after all, and she’s got mad skills.  She’s demonstrating them right now as she chokes the hell out of poor dumb blood-lusty Sky, her latest husband, and the second to try (unsuccessfully) to kill her.  Later in the episode, she’ll revert even further to type and zap two other characters with a love whammy. 

I’m spending so much time describing my favorite episode of Dark Shadows (#955, if you’re curious) because I’ve been pontificating on the nature of power the last few days, since Wallace graciously asked me to write this article, as The Collinsport Historical Society is celebrating Pride Month.  I’m a gay farmboy from eastern Montana who spent most of his life obsessed with monsters, which is why Dark Shadows appeals: it’s got a little bit of something for every monster kid out there, and since I was super into Universal and Hammer at a tender age, it was a natural fit. As I explored more and more the world of Collinsport, Maine, with its myriad monsters and multiple timebands, I enjoyed the monsters, yes, and the monster tropes (werewolf attacks and vampire bites and stakings and séances and lots of screaming); however, the older I grew, the more I began to appreciate the story elements, the characters, and the soapy nature of it all.

Episode #955 has all of that.

Originally, I considered writing about the in-the-closet nature of Barnabas Collins and his lycanthropic cousin Quentin, who must pretend to be their own ancestors so their hapless twentieth century relatives don’t discover their - gasp! - true natures, but that seems rather on the nose; and anyway, I want to write about Angelique.  Because she’s my favorite.

Here’s why.

Sometimes queer people feel powerless.

A lot of the time, queer people feel powerless.

And Angelique had powers.  And sass.  And amazing hairstyles and a plethora of outfits, a killer wardrobe (literally) that made her blue-gray-green eyes just pop.

So I wanted to be her.  Not be like her.  I wanted to be her.

(I still do.)

Even though I was aware of the original series, Dark Shadows became more accessible to me, as I suspect it did to many people raised in the 80s and 90s, because of the 1991 so-called revival, the NBC nighttime version that Dan Curtis swore up and down he’d use to “get it right this time.”  I watched and rewatched every episode, taped them, recorded their audiotracks by holding a tape recorder up to the speaker of our television so I could listen to them on car trips and before bed.  I loved the Old Barnabas episodes (which, to this day, I remain extremely disturbed by, but for different #metoo related reasons), but it was the 1790 flashback that captured me whole.  Because of Angelique.

Because of the witch.

The one with the powers.

She bewitched Jeremiah and Josette; she stood on the rooftop and swore obeisance to unseen, shrieking primal powers if they would help her kill Jeremiah Collins, then she brought him back from the dead like it was nothing!  She twisted Ben Loomis’ arm via spooky straw doll so he’d do her bidding; “I like when a man treats me with respect,” she chortled.

With respect.

I was twelve at the time, and to say that the queerness of me was something that my classmates and the other residents of the teeny tiny farming community to which I’d been consigned had a hard time dealing with is a ridiculous understatement.  I teach high school students; I know that everyone has felt the cruel lash of adolescence.  But for GLBTQ kids, especially those from rural places, and especially especially for those who are unable to “pass” (as cousins from England?), being a teenager is a special kind of hell.

Well, Angelique was acquainted with hell.  And, honestly, it usually seemed like more of an inconvenience, something she was able to bounce back from.

And then, after the passing of the revival, and as I was able to access the show via the SciFi Channel, the more I became invested in the original series and Lara Parker’s portrayal of the passionate and vengeful sorceress from Martinique, and the more I came to identify with and, yes, to envy Angelique.

She was powerful.

She had no patience.



She did not have time for your crap, and she’d show you, either by choking you into submission or turning you into a cat or killing every person you’d ever met.

As I think back on those times, the hours in the locker room hoping that the other boys wouldn’t notice me, or, if they did, they wouldn’t call me names or piss on me this time, they now seem impossibly remote.  Quaint, almost.  “Hey, Laramie, if you were on a bus full of homos, would you get off?”  Dark Shadows was an escape, as it has been for so many for so many years.  The SciFi Channel was showing the Leviathan episodes around that time, and as I watched I realized how much I wanted more Angelique, more Angelique, more Angelique!  I loved her fancy outfits, her miniskirts and her leopard print coat, I loved her hair styles, the ringlets and the long falls, but I especially loved how she reclaimed her powers after husband number tres tried to set her on fire.

“I am what I was,” she intoned, “and what I shall always be.  I call upon the Powers of Darkness to help me once again …”

I get goosebumps thinking about it now.

Angelique was losing her humanity, or thought she was, in order to restore her powers.  An even trade.  But I knew what Barnabas and Quentin refused to acknowledge:  she was human, even with her powers, she did suffer, she had all kinds of feelings, and yes, she did horrible things, but I could get behind that because I could imagine doing horrible things to those who crossed me, and I didn’t have patience either (I still don’t); I could easily imagine strangling a doll until those assholes at my school treated me with, yes, some respect.  Angelique was just as human as the other monsters on Dark Shadows, which is something that the 1991 series and the Tim Burton remake failed to understand.  Lara Parker has written at some length about how she played Angelique as the heroine, who suffered and cried, until Jonathan Frid told her that she was “the heavy” and to “think vicious” at which point she really began to relish the role.  But it was this dichotomy that gave the character depth, that prevented her from being just another one note jealous psychopath, a la Alex from Fatal Attraction (although, don’t get me wrong; Angelique is plenty jealous, and plenty psychopathic, even at the best of times, but she’s hardly one note).  And it was this depth that attracted me to her.

Angelique could take whatever the world threw at her, and she’d throw it back thrice as hard.

She was a witch, and she was powerful.

After I came out of the closet and claimed my queer identity, which sounds super mythic and epic, and you’d be absolutely right to think that it was, I continued to hold Angelique up as a role model.  Not the obsessing over some dude who done her wrong part (though I’ve done that myself, plenty of times), but the part where she demands respect.  Angelique isn’t going to throw herself off a cliff; she isn’t going to descend, gibbering, into madness once the mask of humanity is stripped away and the monster she thought she knew shows itself for what it truly is; Angelique is a monster too, and she’s strong.

Angelique is strong.

I admire that.

“I am what I was, and what I shall always be.”

She can’t pretend to be human because she isn’t.

She can’t pretend to be anything other than what she is because, ultimately, she’s too strong and too smart for that.

Angelique is smart.

I admire that too.

“I call upon the powers of darkness to help me once again …”

Angelique is a witch.

Angelique is powerful.

And she made me feel powerful too.

Now, when they come for me with torches, I know what to do.

I know what to do.

Pride Month: Queer Shadows

By ALICE COLLINS

It can be very hard to talk about the queerness of Dark Shadows, especially that of the actors involved. It was a different era, full of fear, and few rights. So many went to their grave without saying anything about their personal truth because of the society they were raised and grew up in, it was even scarier coming out then compared to now. Even still now, it’s not great, we’ve still got a long way to go for human rights. It’s important that people know that Dark Shadows is a part of LGBTQIA+ history. By not acknowledging that, it’s as good as erasing the actors who brought many wonderful and not so wonderful characters to life. If you don’t listen to the previous lessons that history has taught, you’re doomed to repeat it. No one should live in fear of their career being ruined, or be ostracised just because of how they’ve been born.

I’ve been in the Dark Shadows fandom for a good 22 years now. One thing I’ve noticed is the preponderance of LGBTQIA+ fans. I’ve been to meetups where we outweigh the straight people, however on the internet it’s a different story. The straight fans seem to have a bigger voice regarding the series. I’ve seen flame wars started because people brought up Jonathan Frid being a gay man. How does this affect your life in any way? Did you not see the show? All that camp, the melodrama, lest we forget the HUGE metaphor of being in the vampire closet, and then there’s even an entire bit lifted from The Picture of Dorian Gray BY OSCAR WILDE. The show is very queer in and of itself standing on its own without me needing to talk about it. All the signs are there, all the subtext. Even though the 60s were considered a pretty progressive time, gay rights were still in their infancy. Being out could destroy your career, even today it’ll hurt it, but not as much as it did then. Unfortunately LGBTQIA+ rights are a case of you don’t ever win, the generation after you will do just a little bit better than the last. A good comparison is the saying, “Two steps forward, one step back.” It’s still progress, but it’s slower than what could be. So those of the cast who were gay tended to keep it hidden from the public. There was no reason to risk it. When you have to stay in the closet, it’s nerve-wracking, yet easier to stay in than to come out and face the public scorn. So many of the actors stayed in throughout their entire lives. One of the very few to mention it explicitly was Louis Edmonds in his biography. We’ve also lost a few Dark Shadows actors during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Even though Jonathan Frid never explicitly mentioned it throughout his life, he was known to frequent a few gay bars in New York and was even photographed with Louis Edmonds at a beach well known to be a place for homosexual men to meet up. He may not have said it out loud, but his actions speak volumes.

I’ve heard Dark Shadows described as the perfect show for theater kids and it’s so true. The sets falling down around the actors, having it accidentally set on fire, and all the general mayhem that comes with a one-take show really speaks to those with a love of live theater. The show must go on as they say. The actors kept going no matter what, consummate professionals. You know where a lot of queer kids hide? The theater. I was a theater kid. I didn’t do too much acting, but I did a lot of set building and sound work. The entire theater department was some form of the L, the G, the B, the T, the Q, the I, the A, or some other permutation that’s not in the acronym. It’s like everyone instinctively knew that was the place to go for safety, or at least some modicum of acceptance. It seems the actors of Dark Shadows took this to heart. Just look at the list of those over the years that have had stories come out about them or have actively said that they were some form of LGBTQIA+: Jonathan Frid (allegedly had some of his partners were hired on the show), Louis Edmonds (classic dandy!), Don Briscoe, Humbert Allen Astredo (allegedly bisexual), Christopher Bernau (one of the first openly gay soap stars), Joel Crothers, Anthony George, Gene Lindsey, Keith Prentice, Craig Slocum, Brian Sturdivant. I’m sure there’s many more I’m missing. It gets to a point where you have to wonder, who on Dark Shadows wasn’t gay?

Maybe their combined gay energy plus all the trappings of theater and camp drew me to it? My first plot arc with the series was Quentin’s Haunting of Collinwood. However, I didn’t connect with it on the level of a little queer kid until I found a place that rented out Dark Shadows tapes. It was then that I was introduced to the Barnabas Unchained storyline. I felt oddly drawn to it immediately. I had this feeling of understanding at Barnabas’s predicament. The only Barnabas I’d seen before this point was cured, human Barnabas. He was just the guy hanging out with Julia Hoffman. Watching him struggle with his vampirism as I struggled with my sexuality, hiding it from his family as I did, and trying to find love in all the wrong ways which I SO DID, spoke to me on a deep level. I related to it. I had this great secret. I can guarantee you it spoke to many others on that same level. You have that knowledge that if you reveal yourself you will experience a level of ostracization from society. It would change how people would perceive you before they meet you. It could even reveal their possible fear of you, and many who have the weirdly unfounded fear of you turning others. Vampires are the best beasties to use as a vehicle for queerness.

Dark Shadows helped me get through a lot of my questioning and early coming out years (Unfortunate truth: You never stop coming out, you come out to each new person you meet.) It’s been my solace, my safe place to be scared because the outside world is even scarier. It helped prepare me for what was coming, what society would do to an outsider. The use of metaphor was loud and clear. I was used to being an outsider already being a sci-fi and horror fan, but my innate queerness made it even more complicated. Dark Shadows softened that blow a bit. I appreciate those LGBTQIA+ actors and crew that helped bring this show to life by injecting just a bit of themselves into this show.

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Alice is first and foremost a horror fanatic but overall a fan of the "lesser" genres. Please give her your trash, your b-movies, your low budet/nobudget weird/kung fu/sci-fi/fantasty stuff. She's also a writer, musician, Your Horror Tran, and an all around general weirdo.