From Queer Abject to Queer Shame: Navigating the Spectrum of Queer Affect through Reparative Reading to Canonise 'The Banshees of Inisherin' (2022) as a Body Horror

The Banshees of Inisherin released in 2022 is a modern day allegory set in the rural Ireland of 1923, rendering the ramification of violence and the cycle of hatred that sparks from quotidian pettiness. Conceptualised in a closed community of mundane survival, the cinematic plot functions like a classic tragi-comedy of existential dread, featuring two companions (read lovers) Colm and Padraic who abruptly drift apart for no apparent reason. This paper attempts to investigate the homosexual relationship between the two men through the prism of queer affect to explore the oscillating impact of the anti-relational (self-annihilating) death drive of the Sinthomosexual and the potential of gay shame as reparative affect. The paper draws its argumentative base from the theoretical paradigms of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Types of Reading) and Lee Edelman's Anti-relational queer theory (with focus on the potential of positive relationality as an alternate model of queer sociality). The queer reading also highlights the challenges and complexities of portraying homosexuality onscreen. It equally addresses the sub-generic possibilities of 'The Banshees of Inisherin' by classifying it as a biological horror aligned with the standard tropes of corporeal assault, desecration and agential violence.