Interview with the Vampire: Fifty Years of Coming Out

Anne Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire in 1973, in five weeks, in a grief-fueled trance. It became one of the bestselling gothic novels of the twentieth century. It is also, from its very first pages, a queer love story. Not coded. Not subtext. Not something you have to squint at. So why did it take fifty years to see it that way on screen? This video follows Interview with the Vampire across three versions: the 1976 novel, the 1994 film with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and the 2022 AMC series. Not to argue that the queerness was suppressed (though parts of that story are true). But to ask a more interesting question: what does it mean that each version gave its audience exactly as much queerness as the cultural moment could hold? #interviewwiththevampire #thevampirelestat #iwtv #TheGayGaze #QueerAnalysis #VideoEssay #LouisAndLestat #AMC #QueerFilm #FilmAnalysis #lgbtq