Did the Grinch grow up with a lesbian couple? A Christmas classic through the eyes of queer readers
Inspired by Dr. Seuss' book, the film shows the Grinch's childhood in a flashback passage. A small, lonely Grinch arrives in Whoville via a fantastic contraption called a pumbersella and accidentally gets caught in a tree outside the home of two women - Clair Nelly Who (Mindy Sterling) and Rose Who (Rachel Winfree). It is they who take him in, provide him with a home and raise him as their own.
The film never explicitly names their relationship. All we know is that they live together, share a household and care for a child together - albeit a green, hairy and somewhat grumpy one. For a part of the audience, for many years they were "two sisters". But for many queer viewers, they were a lesbian couple from the start.
Keys in a Bowl and a queer reading of a Christmas scene
The very setting of their household also commands attention. When we peek into the house, there is a festive atmosphere and a low-key party gathering in progress. In one scene, a bowl of keys is seen into which the guests throw their bundles. This motif has quite clear connotations in pop culture and beyond - it is often associated with swingers parties, where participants draw keys and with them their partners for the night.
The film does not elaborate on this symbolism, but it is details like this that have long fed alternative interpretations of the scene and reinforced queer readings of the story.
"It never occurred to me," says actress Mindy Sterling
The debate was reignited in 2022, when actress Mindy Sterling appeared on the podcast You Might Know Her From. The hosts asked her directly if her character could have been part of a Sapphic relationship. Sterling admitted that she never thought about it while filming and assumed the two women were sisters herself.
However, she also admitted that the film does not define their relationship in any way. "If people look at it differently and no one ever corrected it or changed it, then it's possible that it was," the actress said, adding that she actually likes that interpretation.
"Old Maids" and the motif of cohabitation without men
Another clue is offered by the way the two women are perceived in Whoville. Later in the film, they are referred to as "spinster" women who live together and have never married. The motif of two women sharing a household without men has a long tradition in cultural history and has often served as a proxy language for relationships that could not be named overtly.
Today, the Internet likes to summarize this motif with the ironic statement that "they were just roommates."
Open interpretation and the power of queer representation
The essayist Naveen Farrani , in his 2020 text The Grinch Was Raised by Lesbians, draws attention precisely to the combination of all these elements - the co-parenting, the hints of an unconventional party, and the absence of any male partner. Yet the film neither explicitly confirms nor refutes any of these interpretations.
It is this openness that keeps readers returning to the queer theme even years later. At the time of the film's creation, the explicit portrayal of same-sex couples in mainstream family productions was still rather exceptional. All the more important were the hints and ambiguities in which a part of the audience could - at least between the lines - find themselves.
