AIDS: Keeping New Queer Cinema Alive “Queer Cinema is Back” – headlines the front page of the 2005 issue of the Advocate, signifying to a new flood of movies making way into theatres. Five years prior to this news release B. Ruby Rich, who coined the art as New Queer Cinema almost a decade earlier, declared that the cinema had co-opted into “just another niche market” dominated by popular culture (Morrison 135 & Rich 24). What had seemed to be a movement, turned out to be only a moment in the brief years between the late 1980s and early 1990s when the energies of queer theory, the furies of AIDS activism, the legacies of independent and avant-garde filmmaking, and the schisms of postmodern identity politics came together in a bluster of cultural production to form a cinema of its own (Morrison 136). In many ways Rich’s criticism of the cinema is correct, the queer aspect that so brightly shone in films like Poison, Swoon, Paris Is Burning, Tongues Untied, The Living End and Head On, was shifting as the new millennium was approaching and making more difficult for queer films to stay queer against the forces of Hollywood. However, Rich lacks in her analysis on New Queer Cinema because she does not consider the breadth to which queer operates as a concept within the cinema. For Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the editors of Queer Cinema, queer is an umbrella term encompassing dissident sexualities through history and, indeed, nominating them more productively than they were ever named in their own time (Morrison 137). For Michele Aaron, queer is a specific product of exigencies of social activism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, “with AIDS accelerating its urgency” and New Queer Cinema arising as an “art-full manifestation” of i... ... middle of paper ... ...eer Cinema.” New Queer Cinema, A Critical Reader. Ed. Aaron Michele. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Print. Sendziuk, Paul. "Moving Pictures: AIDS on Film and Video." Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 16.3 (2010): 429-447. Web. Sneed, Tierney. "Dallas Buyers Club Review: The AIDS Crisis Gone Country." U.S. News. 12/08/2012. Web. buyers-club-review-the-aids-crisis-gone-country>. Rich, Ruby. “New Queer Cinema.” New Queer Cinema, A Critical Reader. Ed. Aaron Michele. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Print. Rich, Ruby. “Queer and Present Danger.” New Queer Cinema. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Web Warner, M. The trouble with normal, sex, politics, and the ethics of queer life. Harvard University Press, 2000. Print.
...e social changes brought about this period. He cites the growing sensationalism of sex covered in the media as a prime driver behind the sexual orthodoxy in American culture (Chauncey 1994, 359). During this witch hunt, he draws a silver lining. Using the scholarship of others such as John D’Emilio, he cites that this period brought a greater bond to the gay community by forging brotherhood of adversity which would then come back into play in the 1960’s as an experiential touchstone for the Civil Rights era (Chauncey 1994, 360). Chauncey nestles his own narrative of the gay community in New York within the larger narrative of gay life in America filling in the gaps of secondary sources through his own primary work.
One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...
A large portion of contemporary film and theatre has been lacking in substance. More often than not, we are presented with a “been there, seen that” scenario. One such exception to this rule is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a film by John Cameron Mitchell that was released in 2001. Set primarily in post-Cold War America, Hedwig is a film that characteristically breaks convention. Our story follows Hedwig, a forgotten and confused homo…trans…well, human being. Growing up in East Berlin during the Cold War, Hansel Schmidt (John Cameron Mitchell) lives what I would call a horrible childhood in the bleak landscape of communist occupied Germany. He falls in love with an American soldier, and undergoes a sex change in order to marry him and leave East Berlin. The operation is botched, leaving him/her as a physical contradiction. Not quite a man, but not yet a woman, Hansel (now Hedwig) has what she describes as an “angry inch.” When describing it in lighter terms, she calls it a “Barbie doll crotch.” Upon arriving in America, the soldier leaves her the same day the Berlin wall comes down. Destroyed, Hedwig spends some time discovering her new self and eventually finds a soul mate in a young boy named Tommy Speck (Michael Pitt). They collaborate musically and romantically, but upon discovering Hedwig’s secret he leaves with all of their music. He becomes a huge rock star, living Hedwig’s dream while simultaneously leaving her in the dust. From then on, Hedwig and her band “The Angry Inch” follow Tommy as he tours the nation while Hedwig tries desperately to gain the notoriety she deserves for her music. Viewing this film through the lens of a feminist gender perspective, I find that Hedwig is a pioneer on the forefront of changing the gende...
In an effort to legitimize all subcategories of sexuality considered deviant of heterosexual normatively, queer theory acknowledges nontraditional sexual identities by rejecting the rigid notion of stabilized sexuality. It shares the ideals of gender theory, applying to sexuality the idea that gender is a performative adherence to capitalist structures that inform society of what it means to be male, female, gay, and straight. An individual’s conformity to sexual or gendered expectations indicates both perpetration and victimization of the systemic oppression laid down by patriarchal foundations in the interest of maintaining power within a small group of people. Seeking to deconstruct the absolute nature of binary opposition, queer theory highlights and celebrates literary examples of gray areas specifically regarding sexual orientation, and questions those which solidify heterosexuality as the “norm”, and anything outside of it as the “other”.
Seidman, Steven. Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print
Mortimer-Sandilands, C., and Bruce Erickson. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Indiana University Press, 2010.
To not only see the lack of black women presence in television and film, but to search at other cultures to gain a better understanding of the world. Although, the author still criticizes feminism to be catered toward once race, concluding with feminism during that time only appealed to white women. The reading depicted the uneasy feeling impression of the “being the only black female present in the theatre” (Hooks, 258). Hooks experiences this activity when she attends to view foreign/independent films in the theatre. Hooks’ experience describes the lack of diversity in television and film during her
Weeks, Jeffrey. Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present. London: Quartet, 1990. Print.
Halperin, David. "Is There a History of Sexuality?." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry
‘Lad flicks’ or ‘lad movies’ is a type of film genre that emerged in the late 1990s. They are defined as a “‘hybrid of “buddy movies”, romantic comedies and “chick flicks”, which centre on the trials and tribulations of a young man as he grows up to become a ‘real man’. ‘Lad flicks’ respond in part to the much-debated ‘crisis in masculinity’” (Benjamin A. Brabon 116). This genre of film explored what it meant to be a ‘real man’ in the twentieth century and in order to do so, they would have to grow up and leave their juvenile ways behind to enter the heterosexual world. Gender relations in ‘lad flicks’ portray masculinity as a troubled, anxious cultural category hiding behind a humorous façade and also rely greatly on a knowing gaze and irony. The two ‘lad flicks’ that will be analyzed are The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow 2005) and Role Models (David Wain 2008).
In recent times, such stereotyped categorizations of films are becoming inapplicable. ‘Blockbusters’ with celebrity-studded casts may have plots in which characters explore the depths of the human psyche, or avant-garde film techniques. Titles like ‘American Beauty’ (1999), ‘Fight Club’ (1999) and ‘Kill Bill 2’ (2004) come readily into mind. Hollywood perhaps could be gradually losing its stigma as a money-hungry machine churning out predictable, unintelligent flicks for mass consumption. While whether this image of Hollywood is justified remains open to debate, earlier films in the 60’s and 70’s like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967) and ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) already revealed signs of depth and avant-garde film techniques. These films were successful as not only did they appeal to the mass audience, but they managed to communicate alternate messages to select groups who understood subtleties within them.
Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985.” New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986.
It is suggested that this new wave of films was an attempt to promote the shift in moog change and ideologies created from the civil rights movement of the late 1960s. Watkins contends that “the industry’s sudden interest in and exploitative turn to ghetto narratives was a swift response to new market opportunities and popular appetites made possible by the currents of social change” (172). Not only that, but these movies were helping the industry to make the big bucks because of the youth moviegoers. Watkins states that “the language, fashions, cultural productions, and allegedly nihilistic lifestyles associated with ghetto youth seem to give life to the production of new popular culture trends in the United States” (175). Even with the genre’s popularity and commercial success, Watkins refers to the time period that these movies originated as the Blaxploitation era because of the exaggerated configurations of blackness (172).
Wilton, Tamsin. "Which One's the Man? The Heterosexualisation of Lesbain Sex." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 157-70. Print.
Stein, Edward. The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Print. 20 Oct. 2011