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It’s Grimm Up North: Domestic Obscenity, Assimilation Anxiety and Medical Salvation in BBC Three’s In the Flesh

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Abstract

In the Flesh is a darkly comic, cuttingly satirical and consciously ambivalent queer domestic horror drama set in a post-apocalyptic reimagining of our present. Proceeding from the view of the monsters, the series tracks the evolving relationship between the main protagonist Kieren, a queer Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) sufferer (a medically controlled and self-aware [or conscious?] zombie) and the communities and identities which form his world. Mastered by the State through the medical machine (the National Health Service), Kieren and his fellow PDS sufferers live through an accelerated reimaging of the history of queer sexuality in Britain, allowing the series to critically examine the affective construction and maintenance of identity, exploring how we locate, assimilate, reject and perform identities within a claustrophobic British and specifically northern obscenely domestic setting.

Amy C. Chambers’ work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [100618].

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term ‘queer’ is used throughout this chapter to denote both non-normative sexuality and the other more generally. This ambiguity is deliberate and reflects the slipperiness of the term and the text under scrutiny (see Halperin 1995 for discussion of the term ‘queer’).

  2. 2.

    H.G. Wells’ principles of scientific romances are: ‘to domesticate the impossible hypothesis’, ‘to look at mankind from a distance’, and to critique ‘life’ by making ‘stories reflect upon contemporary political and social discussions’ (Wells 1933: 240–245).

  3. 3.

    Lisa’s full name – Lisa Lancaster – is only shown in the end credits of the first episode. Her name, along with many of the elements of the pre-opening credit sequence, is northern. Her namesake is the northern city of Lancaster in the county of Lancashire.

  4. 4.

    If PDS sufferers eat or drink they violently projectile vomit. The meal sequences, and the underlying threat of vomiting, act as visual reminders of the use of emetics in aversion therapy.

  5. 5.

    This fear of the hidden other has its echoes in filmic renderings of HIV/AIDS narratives, even ostensibly sympathetic texts. The orange tinge to the cover-up mousse is visually reminiscent of the ‘Tahitian gold’ that Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) wears in Philadelphia (1993) to cover up the marks of his karposi sarcoma so he can pass for HIV-negative.

  6. 6.

    As advocated by the Wolfenden report, it was offered to men already within the prison system as well. (Dickinson 2015: 96)

  7. 7.

    When Turing was exposed as a homosexual he was forced to choose between prison and oestrogen injections, choosing the latter option, he suffered a lowered libido, gynaecomastis – the growth of breast tissue – and depression. He was found dead in 1953, most probably from suicide (Cook 2007: 166).

  8. 8.

    HIV was originally dubbed GRID (Gay-related immune deficiency), a label that is partially responsible for the framing of AIDS as a ‘gay plague’ (Dickinson 2015: 306).

  9. 9.

    Passing is simply and legally defined as a ‘deception that enables a person to adopt certain roles or identities’ from which they would otherwise be barred (Kennedy 2001: 1).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Amy C. Chambers

  2. Centre for the History of ScienceTechnology and Medicine (CHSTM), University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Hannah J. Elizabeth

Authors
  1. Amy C. Chambers
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  2. Hannah J. Elizabeth
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Correspondence to Amy C. Chambers .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Studies in Eastern European Cinema , Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom

    Ewa Mazierska

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Chambers, A.C., Elizabeth, H.J. (2017). It’s Grimm Up North: Domestic Obscenity, Assimilation Anxiety and Medical Salvation in BBC Three’s In the Flesh . In: Mazierska, E. (eds) Heading North. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52500-6_9

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