The Cold War period in Australian history was an age of taboo and trans-gression. The transgressive individual became equated with the communist who threatened to destroy Australia from within and bring about the destruction of the planet through nuclear war.

The McCarthyist witch-hunt for communists in the US encompassed those "suspected of violating mainstream sex or gender roles". Transgression itself, and specifically sexual transgression, became linked with communism in popular perceptions and hence became conjoined with the threat of apocalypse. As taboos were emphasized more and more in 1950s America, the allure of transgression was heightened. The horror film expressed the interplay between taboo and transgression.

Bataille's understanding of taboo and transgression does not posit transgression as an act that undermines taboo.--transgression never represents a simple subversion of the dominant order. Transgression does not 'subvert' the taboo: it completes and reinforces it.