The Lobster Dance

I started listening to the Lore podcast by Aaron Mahnke about a year ago. I love spooky stories about folklore and superstition, and for the most part, the show delivers. There are episodes about haunted houses, vampires, werewolves, the Jersey Devil, changelings–pretty much any spooky thing you can think of.

CW: torture mention, medical horror, discussion of domestic violence.

My biggest criticism of the show is that Mahnke doesn’t always take it far enough with social commentary and that there are no content warnings. For the latter, I can usually guess from the description what the show might be about, but several episodes, including the one on Countess Bathory, which had really graphic descriptions of torture and sexual violence.

For the former, I know reviewing a series of events across cultures and time means you can’t always be an expert on everything, let alone motivations, but when it’s clearly misogyny, I feel you ought to say something. For example, in story of Bridget Cleary, a woman who was brutally murdered by her husband in 1895 under the pretense she was a changeling or a fairy (Episode 10 of the podcast, Episode 2 of the show), Mahnke glosses over the misogynistic elements of the crime. You see, being an outspoken, financially independent woman or AFAB person is fucking dangerous thanks to the ever-present danger of being murdered by a Masculinity-So-Fragile man, especially a husband or lover. So say that.

My partner and I tried to watch TV version and got about three episodes in before we had to stop. Both of us are generally okay with written and audio horror, but something about having to watch a woman barely survive an illness only to be beaten and LIT ON FIRE by her jealous husband as well as watching actors pretend to perform lobotomies was too much for us to handle.

I’d say we joke about all the ways we would have been murdered in the past for being who we are, but it’s not actually a joke. Being gender-nonconforming, being clever, being queer, being independent, having mental illness–it’s hard to imagine a past in which we don’t die of misogyny (read: mental institutions, witch trials) or preventable illness. (Which is why I love stories about Boston marriages and other queer AFAB folks beating the system somehow.)

Also, I know this is more a function of what filmed historical reenactments look like in the 2010s, but I also couldn’t help feeling like it was Drunk History with fairies and misogyny and no drunk historians. (I am sorry.)

So, while I’ll stick with the podcast, I think I’ll have to review the topics for the show before watching the TV show again. If you want Lore with more gore, have at it.