If I ask you to think about the Saw films, I’m guessing your mind doesn’t immediately spring to romance, let alone queer romance. However, if you were to take a safari-like tour of the Saw fandom, you’d be surprised to see that a fanbase built around a mid-2000s ‘torture porn’ gorefest of a movie franchise is distinctly queer in nature.
It is bizarre how a franchise that is devoid of any canonically queer characters could birth a fandom that is so queer. Although Saw has been around since 2004, thanks to the release of Saw X in 2023, the franchise amassed a new, largely Gen-Z fandom, most of whom identify as queer in one way or another. Due to this, the fandom’s orientation shifted, and it has become an online safe space for young queer fans.
But why is it that this franchise has a fandom that is so queer when the source media itself is a stereotypically macho-masculine horror series?
Reading Between the Lines and Finding Romance in Violence
There are no canonically queer characters in Saw, period. However, homoerotic subtext soaks throughout the franchise like blood into a hardwood floor. Right from the first movie, there is queer subtext, which set the tone for the nine movies that followed. Even if what is shown on the screen isn’t explicitly queer, the interactions between certain characters are nearly impossible to interpret as anything but queer. As the movies are ripe with characters and relationships that are readily interpreted as queer, it makes sense that the fandom would be a largely queer space.
We can’t talk about Saw being a queer fandom without discussing the two men who made it queer through their desperate, bloody embrace: Lawrence Gordon and Adam Faulkner-Stanheight.
Star-Crossed, Blood-Soaked Lovers Paved the Way for Saw’s Queer Legacy
Lawrence, a middle-aged doctor, and Adam, a young freelance photographer, are an unlikely pair. Yet, the bond they develop while trapped in a bathroom, chained to opposite walls, fits the classic enemies-to-lovers romance trope. These two couldn’t be any more different, however, because of their current predicament, they are forced to work together if they want to escape. As time passes, they stop hurling petty insults and warm up to each other, forming far too intense a relationship to be considered platonic.
By the end of the film, these two men, who juxtapose one another in appearance and personality, cling to each other, sobbing and covered in blood. Lawrence comforts a crying Adam softly, promising to get help, as he has sawed his foot off to escape his bindings. As he drags himself towards the exit, Adam begs him not to leave, reaching out to grasp his wrist, calling his name between sobs.
There is something romantic about Lawrence and Adam’s final embrace, albeit in a twisted way. It acts as the cherry on top of the questionably queer relationship they develop throughout the film, confirming (in many fans’ eyes) that they cared for each other more than fellow prisoners stuck in an unknown dingy bathroom should. Their relationship was christened ‘chainshipping’ and became the most popular pairing in the Saw franchise. It even inspired Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw, a theatre production focusing entirely on Lawrence and Adam’s relationship.
Chainshipping Set the Standard for Queer Subtext in Saw
Lawrence and Adam were just the start. In Saw III, the way Amanda Young, a recovered drug addict, interacts with Lynn Denlon, a surgeon, has a flirtatious and sapphic undertone. Amanda leans in too close to Lynn, taunts her, and seems to want to touch her as much as she can. As she instructs Lynn on how to survive the trap she has been put in (a collar made out of explosives), she whispers in her ear, almost cheek to cheek, gripping a fistful of the surgeon’s hair. Clearly, this manner of delivering instructions evokes a sexual undertone and establishes a warped semi-romantic relationship between the two women.
By the fourth and fifth installments of Saw, we get more queer subtext playing out between Detective Mark Hoffman and Special Agent Peter Strahm. Yes, they may appear to hate each other, but they cannot let the other go even when they know it’d be better to steer clear. The looks they exchange, which are supposed to be looks of contempt, seem suspiciously teasing, and the way Hoffman smirks at and agitates Strahm at various points across the two films oozes with sexual frustration.
Their final scene together is tragically romantic; Hoffman is secure within a glass coffin, which lowers into the floor as the room’s walls begin to close in. He starts panicking, a look of regret and fear on his face, as he knows that Strahm is about to meet his fate. Strahm desperately tries to pry or shoot the glass box open, wincing as he aims his gun at his supposed enemy, intending to climb in there with Hoffman, allowing them to both escape. Fans take Hoffman’s look of panic and Strahm’s desperation to get into the coffin with Hoffman as proof that they didn’t really hate each other and actually harboured romantic feelings for one another.
Saw has Become an Unlikely Queer Refuge
Although Adam and Lawrence, Amanda and Lynn, and Hoffman and Strahm are the three major implicitly queer relationships in the franchise, there are many more fans have picked up on.
With this in mind, the Saw fandom has every reason to be as queer as it is: The source material is full of queer subtext, which invites queer interpretation, in turn attracting queer individuals to this media and into the fandom. Fanworks (fanfiction, fanart, edits, and even cosplay shoots) transform the queer subtext into explicit queer representation. The majority of Saw fanworks focuses on these queer couples, so much so that the online fandom presence is dominated by queer representation, which makes queer individuals feel welcome, accepted, appreciated, and supported. Queerness is celebrated in the fandom; it is championed while hate speech is challenged and silenced.
The celebration of queerness and queer expression in general is frequently denied, silenced, or hidden away out of fear due to the current state of discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ rights. Young queer people are aware of their vulnerability, aware that adults could send them death threats, condemning them for their identity if they express their queerness online. They see the news, they read the discourse online. They know that this world is not safe for them. To find a space where queer expression is protected, supported, and encouraged is akin to finding shelter amid a storm. Even if that shelter happens to be a fandom dedicated to an arguably terrible mid-2000s ‘torture porn’ gorefest of a movie franchise, it is still a much welcomed, and very much needed, queer safe space where their identity is accepted rather than censured.
