Queerness as pursuit of identity: How does Velvet Goldmine utilise queerness as a device for crafting the private and public identity?
Velvet Goldmine (1998) is a film directed by Todd Haynes that follows the rise and fall of the glam rock era and its effects on the main characters living through this tumultuous time. In detailing the struggles and accomplishments of its key characters, Velvet Goldmine has become an exemplary model for queerness in independent cinema and acts as a great vehicle for the exploration of identity in LGBT+ communities and within popular culture. Queerness in Velvet Goldmine becomes a lens by which we can further understand the importance of identity as subject in American independent cinema, queerness as private
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New Queer Cinema, a term coined by B. Ruby Rich in an article for Sight and Sound in its September 1992 issue , is used to describe the movement in 1990s independent cinema which is comprised of radical films created by queer filmmakers about queer stories, dismantling the clean-cut, positive image of the gay community previously created during the gay liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s. New Queer Cinema aims to absolve itself from conventional filmmaking by exploring honest representations of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience and identity. Identity becomes the vehicle by which New Queer Cinema can begin to establish a candidly queer narrative and voice, particularly when attempting to dismantle a preconceived perception of what it is like to be a marginalised group within society. Velvet Goldmine fits in comfortably with this New Queer Cinema mode of filmmaking as it mirrors the experimental nature of outsider cinema whilst still advocating a pro-LGBT identity subject in its exploration of queerness and queer …show more content…
In Velvet Goldmine we see, quite explicitly, how characters like Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) actively adopt queer characteristics and mannerisms in an attempt to define themselves. This is done a few ways within the film such as through costuming, makeup, movement and so forth. These techniques come together to contextualise concepts of queerness and become a means by which audiences can track the trajectory of the story and the characters’ evolution into an identity in which they feel most comfortable. Velvet Goldmine maintains a steady spotlight on the spectacle and performance of the human body, particularly that of the cultural icon, which is no surprise as Todd Haynes’s films have often concerned themselves with the difficult relationship between the young body, the adult body and the cinematic body. Arthur’s point of view within the film causes him to become an active voyeur of this complicated climate, a voyeur that seeks clues to help him in his mission of understanding
Society has grown to accept and be more opened to a variety of new or previously shunned cultural repulsions. Lesbians, transgenders, and gays for example were recognized as shameful mistakes in society. In the story Giovanni 's Room, the author James Baldwin explores the hardships of gays in the 1960. The book provides reasons why it is difficult for men to identify themselves as homosexuals. This is shown through the internalized voice of authority, the lack of assigned roles for homosexuals in society and the consequences entailed for the opposite gender.
Released in 1994, 14 years into the AIDS epidemic, the film had a phenomenal response around the world and in Australia. Travelling from Sydney, the three main characters, played by Hugo Weaving, Guy Peirce and Terrance Stamp, travel to Alice Springs for a cabaret show hosted by Mitzi’s wife. The audience is positioned to sympathise with the main characters during their hardships, and good times. The movie confronts different types of masculinity in an extreme environment. The film presents the stereotypical behavior of gay men that is evident in our society.
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...
Kidd, Dustin. 2014. “Not that There’s Anything Wrong with That: Sexuality Perspectives.” Pp. 129-163 in Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Boulder: Westview Press.
Despite the fact that the character of Phyllis as the “tough as nails” perpetual, intentional aggressor is a valid attempt to obliterate the image of women as the oppressed, one interpretation of this role is that she ultimately seems to misrepresent herself, and females in cinema, anyway. Janet Todd, author of Women and Film, states that, “Women do not exist in American film. Instead we find another creation, made by men, growing out of their ideological imperatives”(130). Though these “power girl”characters are strong examples of anything but submissive and sexual females,the...
Race, gender and sexuality have complex intersections; race decides how gender, sexual orientation and other aspects of identification are experienced, developed and practiced. Identity can be understood as a fragmentary sense of self that undergoes constant change. In Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties and The Rain God, the main characters forge plural identities by becoming aware of their ethnic and cultural heritages while discovering personally relevant sexual orientation labels, then reaching out and connecting to that specific community in some way. Instead of identifying a ‘true’ lesbian, Chicano or African-American identity, this paper will explore a process of self-definition that is multifaceted and challenges a monolithic form of identity, creating a hybrid sense of self with the possibility to access different spheres that provides the characters in these texts with new perspectives. Audre Lorde, Miguel Chico and Leticia Marisol Estrella Torez exist in a space that is in-between two worlds, but by integrating elements of their cultures and adapting them to their individual present circumstances, they are able to disrupt rigid sexual and racial categories and enable the formation of polymorphous identities which are subject to constant change.
In a structured society, as one we’ve continued to create today, has raised concerns over the way society uses the term queer. Queer was a term used to describe “odd” “peculiar” or “strange” beings or things alike, but over the centuries societies began to adapt and incorporate the term into their vocabulary. Many authors such as Natalie Kouri-Towe, Siobhan B. Somerville, and Nikki Sullivan have distinct ways of describing the way the word queer has been shaped over the years and how society has viewed it as a whole. In effect, to talk about the term queer one must understand the hardship and struggle someone from the community faces in their everyday lives. My goal in this paper is to bring attention to the history of the term queer, how different
Works Cited Kane, Matt. “Transgender characters that changed film and television”. Entertainment Media at GLAAD. 12 November 2013. Web.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
Ethnicity/In today’s world, society already has a judgement against most races, genders and sexualitys. Nothing in society is good enough for anyone there is so much intersectionality in this world it is actually very scary growing up in these times. There is discrimination everywhere, it doesn’t only have to be about racism. There is discrimination against the disabled, gender, and race it almost seems that this topic is “the norm” only because intersectionality and oppression have been around since the beginning of time. The way things look now in this world oppression will be here long after I am gone.
For the purpose of this study, I will critically examine the representation of homosexuality in Hollywood cinema. I will specifically analyse films from the early 90’s to mid 2000’s from ‘Philadelphia’ to ‘Brokeback Mountain’. This dissertation will argue that over the space of 12 years homosexuality has become an acceptable part of cinema. I will look at early Hollywood’s representation of homosexuality depicting how aesthetically so much has changed. The current paper will predominantly focus on the two films ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’, by critically analysing the aesthetic differences between each film as well as their overall importance to gay culture.
‘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).
There is no doubt that Eminem’s performance and music in 8 Mile, an American hip hop drama film loosely based on Eminem’s early life, were phenomenal. His original song “Lose Yourself” that was written for this film even won an Oscar, marking him the first rapper to receive an Academy award. However, viewers are too focused on praising Eminem’s successful transition from rapper to actor and, thus, overlook the role of women in this film, which exemplifies Laura Mulvey’s writings on the male gaze. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Mulvey argues that the processes of the film industry are gendered, through the male perspective of females and the influence of filming techniques, such as camera angles. Because of the overly sexualized
But things were slowly evolving in the movies. Independent films had been featuring gays and lesbians as main characters, depicting real life and real relationships. Armistead Maupin’s Tales of The City revolved around a homo-hetero pairing.
Zora Neal Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, reveals one of life’s most relevant purposes that stretches across cultures and relates to every aspect of enlightenment. The novel examines the life of the strong-willed Janie Crawford, as she goes down the path of self-discovery by way of her past relationships. Ideas regarding the path of liberation date all the way back to the teachings of Siddhartha. Yet, its concept is still recycled in the twenty-first century, as it inspires all humanity to look beyond the “horizon,” as Janie explains. Self-identification, or self-fulfillment, is a theme that persists throughout the book, remaining a quest for Janie Crawford to discover, from the time she begins to tell the story to her best friend, Pheoby Watson. Hurston makes a point at the beginning of the novel to separate the male and female identities from one another. This is important for the reader to note. The theme for identity, as it relates to Janie, carefully unfolds as the story goes on to expand the depths of the female interior.