Despite behind-the-scenes drama, Capote gives a delicious performance in this gay director’s whodunit
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we’re revisitingthe 1976 whodunit Murder By Death in the wake of its “cameo” on Feud: Capote Vs.
The Swans.Whodunits have always been part of the queer canon. It’s a genre not necessarily known for portraying queer relationships or dynamics explicitly, but rather one that speaks directly to the interests and themes that resonate with us.
Whether it’s devouring Agatha Christie novels, staying up late to marathon episodes of Murder, She Wrote, or memorizing every single line of Clue, this is a genre that’s long appealed to our community.Subscribe to our daily newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.And while the history of the whodunit is quite expansive, its framework is rather limited—and that’s the fun of it—with thousands of variations that use the same handful of narrative tropes and characters: a detective, a group of suspects, a secluded location, and scattered clues to put together.
Change just one of those elements and suddenly you have a completely different story; the opportunities are endless! (A board game was literally created with this in mind.)And, in turn, that interchangeable template has been applied to a wide range of tones and subgenres.
