A VERY Unexpected Queer Reading of the “Critters” Franchise (GREMPOSTING: FINALE!)

 

(WARNING: the following article acts as a supplemental read and conclusive thoughts to my thorough Twitter thread on the subject of the “Critters” film series, which was itself spurred by a nostalgic look back at the “Gremlins” film series. Read that for context.)

The point of re-evaluation, of finding new meanings and interpretations within a text, aligns with the idea that Art, much like the world itself, is not a monolithic entity. Culture, language, society change over time, priorities shift and so does the way in which we interact with fiction. Art reflects its cultural environment and the environment reflects the image of human experience back to Art.

That is the reason why a lot of fictional material does not *age well* when appraised under the lens of contemporary standards: the dominant culture of their times didn't have (refused to have) the necessary understanding or critical tools to scrutinize itself as it was occurring. Those tools could only be attained through the privilege of hindsight and, again, with progress. Mind you, this notion is not to be taken as a form of justification for wilful ignorance. We all have the ability to learn from history, after all. We should ALL learn from history, that is.

The opposite is also true as a work of fiction could stand to gain a whole new perspective when viewed by a modern eye. This is where re-evaluation comes into play: discovering a potentially new framework for older fiction thanks to the knowledge currently available as the world, the culture, the language evolve with us and vice versa. Our background informs the manner in which we correlate to an Object D'art but, at the same time, we still have to work with what the original text provides.

Now that we're all on the same page, allow me to proceed with my inevitable queer reading of the "Critters" franchise (1984-1994). Specifically, this is about the character of Charlie and his experiences with Identity, Found Family and Othering. 

 

In the first film, Charlie is presented as the village fool. He's seen by members of his own community as nothing more than a nuisance, an inconvenience, a drunken fool too weird and broken to be cared about. He used to think he had a place in this world but that changed when he started "hearing alien voices in his head." Aside from that one kid who likes him, Charlie does not have an identity or a family to call his own, only crippling loneliness and alcoholism. Then, he found his people.

Ug and Lee, the shape-shifting bounty hunters that came down to Earth to “Kill the Krites!” took him in as one of their own, treated him as their equal, taught him their bounty hunting ways and helped him understand his own self-worth. Charlie gained love, support and a better grasp of who he was as a person, what he was meant to be. On that note, what better way to explore the very idea of self-identity than with the ability to literally change one's appearance at will? Ug quickly took the visage of one Jonathan Steele, Rock Star, which became his signature presentation. Meanwhile, Lee (pronouns: he/she) never settled on a body or gender, opting to try as many new forms as possible. He was yet to find an identity that fit, as Ug beautifully phrased it in the second film. I do believe there's an allegory here.

Sadly, Lee's own journey of self-discovery was cut short by a Critters' ambush. The pain and trauma of losing his partner was such that Ug literally lost his identity, reverting back to the faceless shape that was his initial form. A whole part of himself went missing and, in a way, he would never recover it. He became unable to lead in the fight against the Krites which forced Charlie, who was still grappling with self-doubt, to step up in order to save his old community, the people that alienated him - pun intended.

At the end of the second film, both Charlie and Ug would go their separate ways, the latter returning to a life of space bounty hunting and the former finding external validation from his home town as well the confidence to be himself. The two will reunite in the fourth film, deep in space, in the year of 2053, and under very different circumstances. By this point, Charlie had become the best version of himself but, irritatingly, he's still has to prove himself to all the strangers who would dismiss him as weird upon first impressions. Ug, on the other hand, had sold his soul to an evil alien corporation. That sucks.

It isn't explicitly stated how Capitalism managed to expunge the metaphorical gay punk out of him and, in a way, there is no real need to know. It could be surmised that the grief of losing Lee eventually left him hollow which made it easier for Big Corpo to turn him into a profit-driven tool for the Military-Industrial Complex, replacing sadness with laser-focused sociopathy. He's so far gone that he barely even recognized his old friend and was willing to murder innocent bystanders in order to achieve his potentially genocidal goals. It's a lot.

Remember that, due to a load of sci-fi bollocks, it's been 50 years since Charlie and Ug saw each other in person. That's enough time for anyone to change, often for the worse, especially after experiencing a trauma without any healthy means to cope with it or a support net. To take a direct quote from the film itself: “Things change... And people too.”
The final confrontation of the final “Critters” film (for the next 25 years, at least) isn't between the titular furry death maws and the umpteenth group of human dolts, it's between Charlie and Ug. Charlie is forced to kill his former partner in order to save a teenager's life in what is, undoubtedly, the most solemn and bitter sweet scene in the entire series. That is how the story ends: with a once broken man who found himself thanks to the help of his chosen family forced to put down a member of said family who became broken to the point he refused to be helped.

Now, I'm not going to stand on my figurative soapbox and claim “Critters” was some kind of underrated cinematic masterpiece. It very much wasn't. At its best, you'd get an entertaining B-grade, horror comedy flick. At its worst, it's just boring. The entire Charlie/Ug narrative was a lot less cohesive than I made it sound. On a semi-related note, it's really gross that the visual representation for Charlie being accepted by his old community came in the form of a golden star bestowed upon him by the former sheriff. Still, it all managed to come together in spite of its flaws – and the entire existence of “Critters 3.”
This was a story about a person finding his place in the world, a family and losing said family due to events outside of anyone's control. It's about Identity, Self-Expression and being a cool rebel but also about how it all could be taken away by a random tragedy and the inescapable oppression of Capitalism, which has taken over Space itself. It's about finding and loving yourself, and others, in a world that alienates you for the crime of being different or an inconvenience. It emphatically reads as a queer narrative, one that smoothly crosses over Disability as well. I read Charlie has a queer neuro-atypical person and I think he's neat. 

Thank you for coming to my Gremposting. I'm done writing about this Godforsaken franchise. Have a nice gay-I mean, day.