Don Roy King | Gay Dracula / 1994 [TV (SLN) episode]

two bats at it

by Douglas Messerli

 

Don Roy King (director) Gay Dracula / 1994 [TV (SLN) episode]

 

Not only was John Travolta willing to perform in drag on the October 15, 1994 Saturday Night Live TV production, but he allowed himself to be the butt of a joke about his own denials about being gay.

     Everyone knows that Dracula just has to be gay, or at least bisexual, since he apparently needs the blood of whomever happens by. As I have established in my early 1930s discussions of Dracula on film, moreover, it was to human males that the cinema versions of the vampire first became attracted. Yet the Dracula (Travolta) whose manner and affected English, slightly lisping voice gives every evidence of being queer, is quite disturbed when finishing up dinner with his unexpected guests Kevin Nealon and Janeane Garofolo to overhear Kevin—and at the very moment that he about to sink his teeth into his male guest’s neck—describe him as a “fruit,” a man who is “definitely gay.” The very thought seems to take away the Count’s appetite for the manly flesh into who he was about to bite.

      He returns to the table, admitting that although he might have some strange attributes he is most definitely not gay. When Renfield shows up, admitting that he’s lived in the castle with the Count for over 20 years and that Dracula takes him with him when he travels and cuts his hair—Dracula quieting him at this point—he merely confirms his guest’s suspicions. Janeane even, in a most friendly manner, asks “How long have you two been together? …How long has he been your “companion?”

     “Are you implying that Renfield and I are lovers. Why that’s absurd. First of all, he’s my servant. And secondly we’re not gay. I admit I am a man of many secrets but humping a mental defective is not one of them!”

     Realizing that his new friends still do not quite believe him, Dracula calls Renfield in once more to have him confirm that they are not a couple. “But the thing is,” Renfield admits, “I am gay.”

    “What? Well I had no idea! I mean he lives at the other end of the castle. How should I have known?” I am a vampire, he insists. “I suck human blood.”

      Although a little put off by his admissions, they both assure him that his sexual preferences are his business, they completely respect it.

      To prove that he truly is vampire, he challenges them watch him out the window as he flies away as a bat.

      The two guests, standing at the window, are a bit stunned by what Kevin Nealon describes:

 

“Hey, here comes another bat. Another male bat. Oh, my God, they’re doing it.”

Janeane interrupts, “Are you sure that’s male.”

     “Yeah, yeah. Look at the marking on its wings. Boy, he’s really giving it to the Count.”

 

      The Count stumbles back into through the window, completely done in. “I know this looks bad, but I didn’t even know there were gay bats.”

       “Maybe it was Renfield,” suggests Kevin.

       “Renfield isn’t a vampire. He’s an idiot I hired out of pity.”

       Still unable to convince the couple, he grabs up some playing cards with naked women on them. “Why would I even have these if I were homosexual?”

       At that very moment Wolfman (Michael Myers) enters the castle, a highly effeminate gay man who is about to borrow the Count’s pastry brush. “Don’t mind me, I’m not even here.”

       Dracula points in Wolfman’s direction: “Now if you want gay, that is gay!”

       “But you two seem to know one another pretty well,” responds Kevin.

       He finally becomes so irritated that he sends them away—without, I remind you, drawing even a tincture of blood from either of their veins.

       When they leave, Wolfman saunters in. “Party’s over?”

       “Do you know Renfield’s gay?”

       “Dah!”

       “Well, did the two you ever….”

     

    “No, no. He’s not my type. Not that he didn’t try though. Oh, yeah. He’s been coming on to everyone. Especially since he learned how to turn himself into a bat!”

       This skit, if nothing else, should clearly demonstrate that Travolta’s fear of being described as a gay man are pretty much over.

 

Los Angeles, May 10, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024