Child’s Play has become “symbol for LGBTQ rights” according to creator

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

In an interview with SYFY Wire – before their Twitter Watch Party of the first CHILD'S PLAY film last week – creator Dan Mancini (who wrote every CHILD'S PLAY film, save the recent remake…which is a whole weird legal thing…as well as the pilot of the announced CHUCKY TV series), shared some insights on the film. One was how an early death changed from script-to-screen, another was the story behind how the production got child actor Alex Vincent to cry for real on set, and finally there was this tidbit:

We plug [CHILD'S PLAY] in as a different metaphor depending on the era that we're in…[such as] a symbol for LGBTQ rights…We've sort of embraced, over the years, a kind of specific gay identity for the franchise. I think it's just being attentive to what is going on in the culture and what is going in the zeitgeist at any given time, and then using Chucky to get at those issues in an interesting, fun way.

This makes sense, if people have been following the series. For one, BRIDE OF CHUCKY had a prominent gay main character, who didn't fall into many of the oft-used stereotypes that were common when the film came out in the late '90s, which – while not necessarily revolutionary – was still pretty unique for the era. Furthermore, Chucky's child he had with his fellow psychotic doll girlfriend Tiffany (voiced by Jennifer Tilly) was explicitly non-binary in SEED OF CHUCKY, dealing with a surprisingly nuanced take on gender dysphoria (especially given the series and genre). Hell, they were even named GLEN/GLENDA as a not-so-subtle nod to the Ed Wood camp classic that was also about struggling with gender identity and norms! So, regardless of one's feelings about Mancini adding those elements in the first place, it's undeniable that they are there in the films themselves. 

Meanwhile, Mancini's upcoming CHUCKY TV series is set to premiere on SYFY later this year, and here's the synopsis:

After a vintage Chucky doll turns up at a suburban yard sale, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos as a series of horrifying murders begin to expose the town's hypocrisies and secrets.