I'm the only one who understands "Seed of Chucky"
Defending a masterpiece.
“They’re executing Martha Stewart this morning.”
The fifth installment in the Child's Play franchise, Seed of Chucky, was released on November 12th, 2004. Written and directed by franchise creator Don Mancini, Seed is a horror comedy focusing on Chucky the killer doll, his wife Tiffany, and their child, a young genderfluid doll originally named Shitface who was renamed by their parents to Glen/Glenda. Seed is written to parody the family drama, with Glen/Glenda's sensitivity getting in the way of their parents' serial killing lifestyle as said parents try to build a better life for themselves and their child, but also takes a stab at making fun of Hollywood, with a subplot featuring Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly trying to sleep with rapper/director Redman to get the role of the Virgin Mary.
This film is one of my favorites in the Child's Play franchise but it's not a common favorite by any means: Seed of Chucky received largely negative reviews, with its current Rotten Tomatoes score sitting at a lowly 34% (Rotten Tomatoes, n.d.), and is often cited as the worst of the franchise. It's failure ensured it was the last Child's Play movie to have a theatrical release- the next two installments were direct to DVD. Reviewers often point out that Seed's plots don't seem to connect: critic Kim Newman stated that the film's horror plot was a "worn out succession of gory, meaningless, hard-to-enjoy deaths", with too much runtime devoted to puppets arguing, and that its comedy was only saved by Jennifer Tilly's commitment to self deprecation (Newman, n.d.). Roger Ebert was of a similar opinion, saying that "'Seed of Chucky' is actually two movies, one wretched, the other funny. The funny one involves the Jennifer Tilly scenes," (Ebert, 2004).
Despite this response, the film itself is well acted, smartly written, and- as even the most negative critics have to admit- it's goddamn funny. Not only that, the criticism when it comes to Seed's cohesion is total bullshit. There is a connecting thread between the film's plots- of which there are three, not two- that went completely unnoticed by mainstream audiences. Seed of Chucky is an artifact worth revisiting as a comic goldmine and a seriously ambitious parody with a whopper of a central joke- one that can only be fully recognized when the film's queer themes are reckoned with.
Before we look at Seed, a definition of queer analysis must be established. Queer analysis is an analytical framework which examines where certain media artifacts fall in trying to conform to heteronormativity- a set of societal expectations revolving around the commendation of male/female coupling- and the way that artifacts and agents within them (characters, the author) interact with the various performances associated with heteronormative lifestyles (Ott & Mack, 2020). This form of analysis focuses heavily on this idea of performance, specifically performance as a tool to reinforce identity.
The word “queer” here is more used to represent a deviance from the cultural norm that it’s used to allude to gayness- the two concepts are closely related, since queer analysis focuses on the limits of heteronormativity, but they’re not synonymous. There are texts about gayness or gay characters that exhibit heteronormative ideas; there are texts featuring heterosexual relationships or nuclear families which fall out of line with those same ideas.
A brief overview of the Child’s Play franchise must be provided as well. The franchise follows Chucky, a killer doll, as he terrorizes various victims over the years in an attempt to transfer his soul into a human body. Chucky is actually human himself, his full name being Charles Lee Ray- Ray was a notorious serial killer who, in the opening minutes of the first film, transferred his soul into a doll using voodoo magic as he died of a gunshot wound (Holland, 1988).
Voodoo magic is often used as an excuse within the franchise to pull off Chucky’s repeated resurrections, as the doll is routinely killed/destroyed at the end of each film (the little fucker’s shit at living longer than a week, with empty years in between), and to just generally act as a McGuffin. Chucky’s primary motivation- as theorized by his actor, Brad Dourif- is a fear of oblivion, meaning that he is terrified of what comes after death (Rosenthal, 2017). This is a theory supported by the films- despite having died many times, Chucky makes out-of-the-blue atheist proclamations in multiple entries, leading audiences to believe that his time between films is spent in eternal nothingness. As a result, Chucky’s primary goal for the first five entries of the Child’s Play franchise is to return to a human body via supernatural possession, avoiding the heightened risks of death or destruction that come with being a tiny doll-bodied-killer.
The franchise before Seed is relatively straightforward: in the first three films, Chucky acts as a distant antagonist to a young child. The fourth film, Bride of Chucky, marks a complete 180 in Chucky’s portrayal, seeing him act as the protagonist and a romantic lead to his bride, Tiffany Valentine Ray (also a doll- in the film, Chucky kills her after an argument and transfers her soul into a doll) (Yu, 1998). Seed of Chucky continues the Bride’s protagonist turn.
Seed of Chucky’s primary plot follows Glen/Glenda, Chucky and Tiffany’s child and an orphan- they were a sort of coffin birth, born directly after Chucky and Tiffany died at the end of Bride of Chucky (Yu, 1998). Having spent their formative years in England acting as a puppet for a crude and abusive ventriloquist, they run away to Hollywood after seeing lifeless Chucky and Tiffany puppets doing an interview on TV for an in-universe horror film, “Chucky Goes Psycho”- a film based on the urban legend about the dolls. Glen/Glenda eventually transfers their parents’ souls into these puppets but is horrified to find that they’re sadistic and gleeful killers- Glen/Glenda’s a sensitive child and views their parents’ lifestyles as an addiction. Chucky and Tiffany, meanwhile, note that Glen/Glenda doesn’t have any genitals and appears confused with their gender identity- this gives them a sounding board to express their thoughts on gender and gender expression.
Author’s note: these little freaks are going to HOLLYWOOD!
Expression, as we’ve come to view it, is often regarded as some form of inner identity escaping outwards, like air from an open balloon. It’s the idea that certain forms of behavior come from an inner feeling. However, philosopher Judith Butler posits that gender expression actually acts in reverse, theorizing that gender is actually societally reinforced. Instead of being an inner feeling going out, gender is actually learned and performed: the inner identity is built upon this outward performance (Butler, 1990). Glen/Glenda’s ideas about their parents become intertwined with Chucky and Tiffany’s gender performance- a performance that, for them, is tied to murder.
Tiffany believes Glen/Glenda to be a girl, names them Glenda, and, after finding that Glen/Glenda is hurt over her relationship to murder, attempts to give up killing on their behalf. She’s highly maternal, she tries (and fails) at being gentle, and she pleads with Chucky in situations where she could easily claim the upper hand. In this film, Tiffany pushes her femininity to its natural extreme, eventually (mostly) giving up her murderous lifestyle for her child and fully embodying a traditionally feminine role as a doting mother in the last minutes of Seed. She parodies the ideal woman.
Chucky, on the other hand, believes Glen/Glenda to be a boy, names them Glen, and nudges them in a more violent direction, taking them on a secret boys trip where they kill two people. To Chucky, murder is a past time and a stress reliever- he kills in the way some hunt and he makes it clear that this is something he believes men do. This is his idea of masculinity: he tries to be the “man of the house” but sprinkles the role with violence, masturbating to gore to support his family and trying to kill his wife and child out of a sense of family-man-possessiveness. Like it or not, Chucky’s parodying the ideal man and, through his and Tiffany’s relationships to Glen/Glenda, Seed of Chucky successfully parodies the idea of gender as a whole by pushing gender roles to their natural extreme.
The secondary plot of Seed of Chucky follows a recently revived Chucky and Tiffany attempting to turn themselves into a human family- their ultimate goal is to impregnate Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly and, after the child is born, have Tiffany possess Tilly, Chucky possess Redman, and Glen/Glenda possess the child. Ultimately, this plot is about a family trying to better their circumstances on behalf of their child and, as stated by Don Mancini, it parodies the family drama by creating a nuclear family situation which is ultimately untenable (Mandatory, 2013).
In her essay “Thinking Sex”, Gayle S. Rubin devises a guide to a hierarchy that exists in many Western cultures- one that places “marital, reproductive heterosexuals” at the top and, in descending order, lists unmarried monogamous heterosexuals, other heterosexuals, solitary sex, long-term same sex relationships, promiscuous dykes and gay men, and so on.
Chucky and Tiffany are a married and reproductive heterosexual couple: according to Rubin’s hierarchy, they are at the top of the “erotic pyramid” (Rubin, 2011). However, their serial killer lifestyles pervert their standing (in the same way they pervert their expressions of gender) and sully that top rung.
Chucky and Tiffany do perform well as two married parents- and, as with gender, performance is needed to reinforce those relationships. As stated in the opening to the article “Rituals in Committed Romantic Relationships: The Creation and Validation of an Instrument”, romantic (and other) relationships are maintained by rituals- something which is necessary to their longevity and growth (Pearson et al., 2010). These are rituals Chucky and Tiffany perform well: they try to listen to their child, they support each other in order to properly coparent, they actively work towards improving the family’s social standing. However, the way these rituals are performed makes it clear said rituals are being mocked by the text: Chucky and Tiffany try to listen to their child… when their child tells them to stop killing. They support each other… when they fall off the wagon and begin killing again. Their idea of improving the family’s social standing is becoming human via supernatural possession and impregnating a Hollywood actress with doll semen- hence the Chucky masturbation scene (which also sullies their standing: Chucky, with encouragement from his wife, performs a solitary sex act) (you’ll notice I mentioned this scene twice: I find it very funny). With this familial relationship, and with Chucky and Tiffany’s ultimate goal being the forced possession of various celebrities, Seed of Chucky successfully parodies the idea of the nuclear family and marital reproductive heterosexual relationships being a moral standard.
The tertiary plot of Seed of Chucky revolves around a fictionalized version of Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly- one that’s washed up and desperate- attempting to sleep her way into a starring role: she wants to play the Virgin Mary in a biblical epic directed by a fictionalized Redman. She fails in her mission, having been knocked out (with one of her awards) and knocked up (with a turkey baster) by Tiffany on the night of her planned seduction, and is instead forced to carry Chucky’s child. This plot pokes fun at gender stereotypes- Tilly, having planned to seduce a man while also being the victim of a virgin impregnation, is positioned as both a madonna and a whore- while parodying a very old and culturally conservative story. Grouped with Glen/Glenda’s plot and Chucky and Tiffany’s plots, Tilly’s plot is the backbone for the film’s central joke.
By being in the wrong place at the right time, Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly finds herself becoming a real-life Virgin Mary. Redman- who claims to have gotten a vasectomy the moment he got to Hollywood, meaning he couldn’t have impregnated Tilly in the first place- is positioned as the story’s Joseph. Glen/Glenda, a benevolent child that’s otherworldly in nature who eventually does possess Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly’s spawn, is the story’s Jesus. Chucky and Tiffany, by impregnating Oscar-nominated actress Jennifer Tilly without her knowledge and forcing her to carry out that pregnancy, act as the story’s God and archangel Gabriel, respectively.
With Seed of Chucky, writer and director Don Mancini successfully brings three different stories together in order to parody the story of Jesus. Seed of Chucky’s central joke is that it’s parodying, among many other things, the biblical epic by positioning the franchise’s depraved characters as religious figures. It makes a joke of the holy story’s characters: God is reduced to a middle aged serial killer, the Virgin Mary is a would-be slut, and Jesus is a deeply anxious genderfluid child. When viewed through a queer analytical lens, the different components making up Seed of Chucky come together as a sort of anti-biblical epic. Why did this joke fly over audiences’ heads?
To find an answer, one must understand the idea of camp. Camp, as defined by Susan Sontag in her seminal work “Notes on Camp”, is a way of viewing the world “not in terms of beauty, but in terms of degree of artifice” (Sontag, 1966). Additionally, a hallmark of camp and campy works is that the humor is often remarkably mean-spirited but the story demands that you give the characters sympathy. It’s considered a hallmark of queer or “trashy” cinema and, though its meaning’s been diluted due to overuse in recent years, it’s a concept very important to Seed.
One must also understand the fourth persona- but first, let’s get to know the first three: rhetorician Edwin Black, in his 1970 article “The Second Persona”, defined the first persona as an impression of the author projected by the text. Basically, it’s an impression of the author’s life, values, and priorities that can be gained through a familiarity with their work. The second persona is a work’s target audience (Black, 1970). The third persona is an unwanted audience, an audience drawn to a work but an audience that the work ultimately excludes.
The fourth persona, then, as proposed by professor Charles E. Morris III in his 2002 article “The Fourth Persona: J Edgar Hoover’s Sex Crime Panic” , is a second projection of the author- one that divides audiences. Plainly stated, the fourth persona stands against the other three because audiences who cannot relate to its projection will never notice the projection’s presence. Audiences are thus divided into what Morris calls clairvoyants and dupes (Morris, 2002). The fourth persona phenomenon consistently applies to works with queer subtext or works otherwise enmeshed in queer culture- there’s a consistent consensus among straight, mainstream audiences that they don’t “get it”.
Herein lies the key to Seed of Chucky’s critical failure. The Child’s Play franchise is notable for being driven by a single creative vision- Don Mancini wrote all seven entries in the film franchise, directed three of those entries, and currently showruns the television series. Mancini is a gay man who has stated that queer themes and subplots are intentionally infused into the franchise and he believes that, in making Seed, the “sin [he] committed was… making a comedy where people wanted a horror movie” (Mandatory, 2013). In actuality, the film’s failure could more strongly be attributed to this fourth persona divide.
(Before I get to the end here, I’d like to clearly state that I’m not saying that only gay people understand Seed of Chucky.)
(I’m also not saying that all gay people who’ve seen Seed of Chucky like Seed of Chucky. I’m a woman who saw Jennifer’s Body (woman movie) and I hated it! I still hate it! However, I have the cultural understanding required to “get” the story and recognize its value to others.)
(I’m also not saying that all gay or gay-aligned people have x-gay vision that makes them watch Seed of Chucky and go “well, that was obviously about Jesus,” but a lot of us do come away knowing it’s about something. Really, what I’m saying here is that selling the wrong product to the wrong consumers will often yield poor results- it’s like selling a toaster to a man obsessed with microwaves. Obviously, he microwaves all his toasts and doesn’t need your fucking toaster, you Luddite. It’s about cultural understanding and the feeling of being an outsider in such a pressing way that you get what a movie about doll semen is trying to say because maybe you’ve been there too. This is a film where the loads of semen match the loads of compassion present: it’s something I hold dear and, gay or not, hopefully your IQ’s been bumped up a few points and you can now see the bigger picture. Psh. “Two plots,” come on.)
(I hope you’ll excuse my massive fourth wall break. Consider this an avant-garde take on the “rebuttal” paragraph in the traditional argumentative essay format.)
Seed of Chucky, through its theatricality, its heavy-handed parody, and the story’s insistence that you laugh at its characters while simultaneously offering them deep sympathy, weaves a tale about a miraculous child that audiences need to have a high understanding of and identification with camp and queer culture to “get”. When isolated from the queer themes and jokes, Seed of Chucky can appear dissonant- a child struggling with his gender, a serial killer couple trying to conceive, and a woman trying to sleep her way into the role of the Virgin Mary sound like a schlocky This is Us episode with slight splashes of blood and depravity. Only when the queer themes and references are addressed does its central joke- the reason any of these plots are necessary in the first place- come into view.
However, Seed wasn’t marketed as a queer horror-comedy – it was an entry for a mainstream horror franchise and was treated as such, meaning the mainstream audiences who flocked to the film were left dumbfounded by what they saw. While the film isn’t anywhere near perfect, it was never given a fair chance: the audience which assigned it value is an audience that the movie wasn’t really made for. Seed of Chucky was, despite being a well-written horror-comedy, a failure due to a fourth persona divide- one that led to the film’s central joke flying over the heads of mainstream audiences. It deserves to get its due.
Next week we’ll have fiction.
References
Black, E. (1970). The second persona. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 56:2, 109-119, DOI: 10.1080/00335637009382992
Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
Ebert, R. (2004, November 11). Seed of Chucky movie review & film summary (2004). Roger Ebert. https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/seed-chucky-review/
Gilroy, G. (Producer), Kirshner, D. (Producer), & Yu, R. (Director). (1998). Bride of Chucky [motion picture]. United States: Universal Pictures.
Kirshner, D. (Producer) & Holland, T. (Director). (1988). Child’s Play [motion picture]. United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Kirshner, D. (Producer), Sienega, C. (Producer), & Mancini, D. (Director). (2004). Seed of Chucky). United States: Rogue Pictures.
Mandatory. (2013, October 12). The Chucky Files- Don Mancini on SEED OF CHUCKY (2004) . YouTube.
Morris, C. E. (2002). Pink Herring & the fourth persona: J. Edgar Hoover’s sex crime panic. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88(2), 228-244. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630209384372
Newman, K. (n.d.). Seed of Chucky Review. Empire. https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/seed-chucky-review/
Ott, B. L., & Mack, R. L. (2020). Critical media studies: An introduction (3rd ed.). WILEY Blackwell.