addressing the Jamie Clayton Hellraiser announcement backlash.

It was announced yesterday that actor Jamie Clayton, known for her roles in the L Word and Sense8, is to play Pinhead in the new Hellraiser film. The backlash to this announcement was immediate, with people flooding online horror groups with their distate at the news. It seemed that wherever I turned online I was met with negative comments regarding this casting choice. 

This right here is the reason I started Positively Horror. The way the negativity to this announcement spread, started to dwarf the voices of those welcoming, and excited by the announcement. My aim with Positively Horror is to make sure there is positivity in the community that I love, when the negativity is so loud, and seemingly impossible to avoid. 

The backlash to this announcement is some of the loudest and fastest spreading I've seen for quite some time so I felt compelled to jump on here to address it. 

I'll address the main complaints that I've come across so far;

Firstly,  people aren't happy that it is a woman in the role. I've even seen one complainant saying that it shouldn't be a woman because they arent threatening enough, if that isn't a perfect example of the deeply ingrained patriarchal, privileged worldview I don't know what is. Now, without even crediting Jamie Clayton for her acting abilities she has been shunned because she is a woman. I'd like to take a few quotes from the original source material 'The Hellbound Heart' novella which talks about the gender of the cenobites:

“He was having difficulty guessing the speakers gender with any certainty. It’s clothes, some of which were sewn both to and through its skin, hid its private parts and there was nothing in the dregs of its voice or in its willfully disfigured features that offered the least clue.”

“Only these sexless things with their corrugated flesh.”

“Not it he now saw, but she. The hood that it had worn had been discarded, as had the robes. The woman beneath was grey yet gleaming."

When the cenobites are described here, early on in 'The Hellbound Heart' they are shown to be genderless in their androgynous appearance and disfiguring body modifications, which would suggest that anyone of any gender should be able to play the part, not just a male actor because that's what you're comfortable with. 

The third quote describes one of the cenobites as revealing herself as female, which I'm sure would put the "women can't be threatening" argument to bed. So this first complaint falls flat immediately when referencing the source materail.

The second complaint is that if its not Doug Bradley its not Pinhead. Doug Bradley is phenomenal, I adore him and his portrayal as Pinhead, but guess what, if Jamie Clayton takes over the role, Doug Bradley's films don't cease to be. You can still revisit them as much as you like, and continue to appreciate him in the iconic role. Something I've begun to wonder over recent years, is why don't we as a community want to accept someone new filling a well loved role if it means we get to see more of a favourite character on screen? In the theatre world it is completely normal to have roles played by different people, and as a theatre patron you get to experience someone filling that role and giving their own interpretation. You may have favourite portrayals of Elphaba, but wouldn't be up in arms everytime you saw it on the west end with a different cast. It seems like a strong sense of entitlement to something that doesn't actually belong to you. 

The third complaint is one that thankfully I haven't seen too much of yet, but it is there, like a festering boil. The transphobic response to the role being given to a trans woman. Once again, putting aside Clayton's acting prowess just to complain that the studio is pandering to 'woke Culture'. As I've shown earlier in the post, any gender should be able to play the role, and anyone with a shred of awareness knows that REPRESENTATION.MATTERS! 

I'd like to wind down this rant by taking a quote from the man himself, Mr. Clive Barker regarding this new production,

“This is a Hellraiser on a scale that I simply didn’t expect. David and his team are steeped in the story’s mythology, but what excites me is their desire to honour the original even as they revolutionize it for a new generation.” As well as being a producer on this film, Clive Barker is the man that created Hellraiser, so if he is excited for it, surely we can be too. 

I am personally very excited for this and would like to congratulate Jamie Clayton on landing the iconic role!