Actress Amy Madigan has bizarrely claimed her child-abducting, murderous witch character Aunt Gladys in Zach Cregger’s hit horror film Weapons is a gay icon.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter Madigan addressed the many memes that arose from her character, adding that “the gay community has really taken to Gladys.”
“That’s really great — especially in this framework of the demonization of anybody other than a cis person — for the trans community. I think they really appreciate Gladys’ drag and makeup and how confident she is. So that’s a really nice cherry on top of all this,” she said.
While it’s true drag queens embraced Gladys as a Halloween costume, it’s difficult to say if the broader LGBTQ community has actually claimed the character as some kind of icon or an expression of queerness, considering that she abducts children, possesses innocent people, and, at one point, even uses her demonic powers to murder a gay couple. A general search on X yielded only one meme while the more left-leaning BlueSky yielded only a few random comments with at least one account taking offense at the “icon” label.
“We are going to need to have a very long and personal conversation about who hurt you and how you identify people as icons,” one BlueSky user said.
Speaking with Out magazine, makeup department head Leo Satkovich said drag queens embraced Gladys as a “campy character.”
“It’s just something that is so out there and fun to recreate. So I’m not surprised, but I am definitely humbled,” he said.
“It’s been a really surreal moment to see the drag community really embrace Gladys. And seeing the Night of 1000 Gladyses pop-up at local gay bars and gay bars all over the world. I try to share every flyer that I see,” he said. “It’s definitely wild. I can’t believe she’s been embraced so much by our community, but it’s really cool.”
Makeup effects designer Jason Collins celebrated the community’s embrace of Gladys as a costume along with her campy aesthetics.
“Anytime you can have an impact on anybody watching something, let alone people that want to dress up as them or be them or know their motivations or see more to the story, that just means we’ve all done our job to the max that we could. And it’s really inspiring, seeing that sort of take off and people’s interpretation of what you’ve done,” said Collins.
Some social media users expressed discomfort with Gladys being characterized as some kind of queer icon, or at least THR’s framing of Madigan’s sentiment.
“People took to Gladys because Amy’s performance was deliciously over the top, but I can’t say I really see her as any sort of representation for any of the above demographics. She was evil. Speaking of representation, the gay couple in Weapons came to a grisly end by her hands,” said one user.
“The same evil narcissist monster Gladys that had a gay man beat his husband to death, attempt to kill a woman and then get himself killed, abused kids and forced people against their will to commit horrific acts of violence? Yeah, real inspiring, Amy. Absolute moron,” said another user.
“Gladys literally had a gay couple kill each other,” said another.
“Aunt Gladys was a mass murderer and we are celebrating her that?” said another.
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
