Reimagining Futures: Queer Spatiality and Futurity in Monster

Abstract

This paper critically examines Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film Monster through the analytical framework of queer spatiality and queer futurity. Monster follows the story of Minato and Yori, who form a deep emotional bond with each other as they navigate the challenges of childhood, identity, and social exclusion. Drawing on Judith Halberstam’s idea of queer space, the paper explores how ordinary spaces are transformed into sites of queer intimacy and resistance. The study challenges the normative configuration of spaces and examines how queer individuals carve out moments of safety and belonging even in marginal and abandoned spaces. These reclaimed spaces serve not only as a temporary refuge from the surveillance and discipline of heteronormative society, but it also serves as an alternative way of being in the world. The paper also uses José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of queer futurity to explore how the film creates space for imagining queer possibilities. Rather than seeing queerness as something tragic, the film offers a vision of hope and resistance that gestures towards queer liberation. The study employs qualitative narrative analysis, focusing on how queerness and its complexities are presented through plot structure, and character development.