Could there be more to David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) than meets the eye?
Have you already fallen in love with The Fly and want to find new ways to think about it?
Have you resisted watching The Fly because you assumed it was just a silly sci-fi movie? Or had friends turn their nose up at The Fly because they assumed you have to love sci-fi stories to love this one?
Have you ever found that new lenses can help you to unlock your understanding and appreciation of films, or even persuade you (or your loved ones) to give a film another chance?
Looking at Cronenberg’s hit film through a disability studies lens could unlock your appreciation of it
How does The Fly depict disability as at once a novel bodily form and a threat to the reproductive and social health of the young family at the film’s centre?
How does this figure into the film’s aesthetics of the grotesque and its melodramatic narrative?
Why is Cronenberg’s biggest commercial success worthy of reflection and serious consideration?
Inside his talk, ‘Does this look like a sick man?’, Dr. Angelo Muredda answer all of these questions and more.
He also considers how the film’s depiction of disability and illness fits within Cronenberg’s larger body of work and positions the film within a larger tradition of monster movies about disability and physical differences.
Here’s Angelo on what you can expect inside…
Want a deeper peek inside the talk?
Angelo’s talk was recorded as part of our Seventh Circle Symposium on gender, sexuality, and disability in horror. But you can now purchase access to the recording for the first time.
Here’s an excerpt from that recording:
Who is Angelo Muredda?
Dr. Angelo Muredda is a Toronto-based film critic, programmer, and educator. His writing has appeared in outlets such as Cinema Scope, the National Post, The Walrus, and Film Freak Central. He holds a PhD in English on representations of disability in Canadian literature and film from the University of Toronto, and teaches in the Department of English at Humber College. He has also joined us on the Seventh Row Podcast to discuss depictions of disability in The Sound of Metal, Blind, and Cronenberg’s latest film, The Shrouds.
Ready to watch ‘Does this look like a sick man?’
The cost is $25USD, but it’s on sale for $9 USD until May 17, 2025.
FAQs
I want to watch/rewatch The Fly (1986) first. Where can I find it?
The Fly is streaming on Hulu US, Crave+ Canada, and Disney + in the UK and Australia. Find it in your country here.
How do I watch Angelo’s talk?
When you purchase access, you’ll receive a log in to Seventh Row Space, where the video will be available to you to watch. It will have AI-generated captions and chapters, and an AI-generated transcript.
The Fly (1986): Stream it on
How long will I have access to the talk for?
You can watch and rewatch the talk as many times as you want until at least November 30, 2025. After that, we can’t promise that it will be online, but it might still be available.