A Wolf’s Queer Invitation: David Kaplan’s Little Red Riding Hood and Queer Possibility

The concept of queer invitation is explored in this reading of David Kaplan’s short film Little Red Riding Hood (1997). I propose that queer reading is activated by the acceptance of the queer invitation initiated primarily by the wolf figure in the film. This invitation to queer reading demands the suspension of the culturally dominant versions and interpretations of the tale by the Grimms and Perrault and activates gay cultural knowledges of celebrity intertexts in their stead. The suspension of “what everybody knows” about the tale and the wolf figure in particular opens space for a repositioning of the wolf-man through the representation of the wolf but also through the relationships between the cinematic visual, verbal, and musical channels and extratextual references to Vaslav Nijinsky and Quentin Crisp. Although offering a queer reading, I do not attempt to offer a template for queer reading of fairy tales; rather, I suggest that situated and specialized cultural knowledges are integral to queer reading and are therefore not available to, or accepted by, all audience members at all times.