Abstract
William March’s 1954 novel The Bad Seed, which was adapted into Maxwell Anderson’s 1954 play and Mervyn LeRoy’s 1956 film, features ruthless child psychopath Rhoda Penmark. Hailed in the contemporary media as a masterful exploration of the human psyche’s dark currents, Rhoda has since been appropriated as an icon of queer, camp humor. Indeed, queer humor metamorphoses her into the camp figure of the bitch—no matter the divergence between Rhoda’s youth and this stock figure’s experience. Rhoda thus illustrates the limitations of how cruel girl characters are received in modern culture, in that their psychological complexity can be overwritten by the humorous codes of bitchiness—a marginalization that limits female agency while liberating her queer potential.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Alpert, Hollis. “SR Goes to the Movies.” Saturday Review, 22 September 1956, p. 31.
Anderson, Maxwell. Bad Seed: The Dramatization of William March’s Novel. Dramatist’s Play Service, 1955.
“The Awful Young.” Newsweek, 17 September 1956, p. 118.
The Bad Seed. 1956. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, performances by Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, and Eileen Heckart, Warner Home Video, 2005.
“Books: Sweet Child.” Time, 12 April 1954, p. 117.
Denham, Reginald. “Fruit of a Bad Seed.” Theatre Arts, December 1955, pp. 33+.
Dyer, Richard. “It’s Being So Camp as Keeps Us Going.” Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject, edited by Fabio Cleto, University of Michigan Press, 1999, pp. 110–116.
Gannett, Lewis. “‘Monster’ in Our ‘Age of Violence.’” New York Herald Tribune, 8 April 1954, n.p.
Gurel, Perin. “A Natural Little Girl: Reproduction and Naturalism in The Bad Seed as Novel, Play, and Film.” Adaptation, vol. 3, no. 2, 2010, pp. 132–154.
Hare, Robert. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us. Guilford Press, 1993.
Hartung, Philip. “Films.” Catholic World, September 1956, pp. 463–466.
Hatch, Robert. “Films.” The Nation, 20 October 1956, pp. 333–334.
Isherwood, Christopher. The World in the Evening. 1954. University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
Jackson, Chuck. “Little, Violent, White: The Bad Seed and the Matter of Children.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 28, no. 2, 2000, pp. 64–72.
John Waters: This Filthy World. Directed by Jeff Garlin, performance by John Waters, MPI Media Group, 2007.
King, Thomas, and Moe Meyer. “In Defense of Gay/Performance.” An Archaeology of Posing: Essays on Camp, Drag, and Sexuality, Macater Press, 2010, pp. 151–181.
Krutch, Joseph Wood. “The Playwright: Psychology and Science Are Fine, But ….” Theatre Arts, April 1955, pp. 26+.
Lennard, Dominic. Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors: The Child Villains of Horror Film. State University of New York Press, 2014.
“A Lethal Little Lass: Bad Seed as Movie Is Shocking Chiller.” Life, 17 September 1956, pp. 141–142.
March, William. The Bad Seed. 1954. Introduction by Elaine Showalter, Ecco Press, 1997.
McCarten, John. “The Current Cinema: Lethal Lass.” New Yorker, 22 September 1956, pp. 159–160.
“The New Pictures.” Time, 17 September 1956, pp. 100–104.
Norris, Frank. Literary Criticism of Frank Norris, edited by Donald Pizer, University of Texas Press, 1964.
Owen, Alice. “New Films from Books: The Bad Seed.” Library Journal, 2 September 1956, p. 1890.
Paul, William. Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy. Columbia University Press, 1994.
Pink Flamingos. Directed by John Waters, performances by Divine, David Lochary, and Mary Vivian Pearce, Dreamland, 1972.
Pugh, Tison. Precious Perversions: Humor, Homosexuality, and the Southern Literary Canon. Louisiana State University Press, 2016.
Robertson, Pamela. Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna. Duke University Press, 1996.
Sherwood, Robert. “White Desert to Bad Seed: A Note on the Long and Memorable Career of Maxwell Anderson.” Theatre Arts, March 1955, pp. 28+.
Simmonds, Roy S. The Two Worlds of William March. University of Alabama Press, 1984.
Simmons, J. “The Production Code under New Management: Geoffrey Shurlock, The Bad Seed, and Tea and Sympathy.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 22, no. 1, 1994, pp. 2–10.
Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. Delta, 1966.
Tallant, Robert. “Poor Pilgrim, Poor Stranger.” Saturday Review, 17 July 1954, pp. 9+.
Walsh, Moira. “Films: The Bad Seed.” America, 22 September 1958, p. 604.
Waters, John. Director’s Cut. Scalo, 1997.
———. Change of Life. Harry Abrams, 2004.
———. Shock Value: A Tasteful Book about Bad Taste. Thunder’s Mouth, 2005.
Wickenden, Dan. “Not Easily to Be Forgotten: The Bad Seed.” Herald Tribune Book Review, 11 April 1954, p. 4.
Woodward, Steven. “She’s Murder: Pretty Poisons and Bad Seeds.” Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood, edited by Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance, Wayne State University Press, 2002, pp. 303–321.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pugh, T. (2018). Camping the Killer Child: The Queer Humor of William March’s The Bad Seed on Page, Stage, and Screen. In: Flegel, M., Parkes, C. (eds) Cruel Children in Popular Texts and Cultures. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72275-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72275-7_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-72274-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72275-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)