{"id":188,"date":"2019-08-30T18:35:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T18:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-lgbtq-studies\/?post_type=chapter&p=188"},"modified":"2019-12-16T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T17:12:18","slug":"introduction-what-is-lgbtq-film-and-media","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-lgbtq-studies\/chapter\/introduction-what-is-lgbtq-film-and-media\/","title":{"raw":"Introduction: What\u00a0is\u00a0LGBTQ+ Film and Media?\u00a0","rendered":"Introduction: What\u00a0is\u00a0LGBTQ+ Film and Media?\u00a0"},"content":{"raw":"

What do Robert Zemeckis\u2019 Who Framed Roger Rabbit?<\/em> (1988), Penny Marshall\u2019s A League of Their Own, and David Fincher\u2019s Fight Club<\/em> (1999) have in common? According to film news website IndieWire (Dry, 2017), they\u2019re all among \u201cthe best queer films you didn\u2019t know were queer.\u201d Dry reads homoerotic valences in Fight Club<\/em>\u2019s plot, which revolves around illicit male-male contact shrouded in secrecy. But if homosexuality never crosses another viewer\u2019s mind, is the film still queer?The question of what \u201ccounts\u201d as LGBTQ+ film and media is anything but straightforward. Many have debated what makes a gay film<\/span> gay,<\/em> a queer film <\/span>queer<\/em>, and so on. Must the plot revolve around someone\u2019s emergent sexuality, as in Todd Haynes\u2019s <\/span>Carol<\/em> (2015) or Donna Deitch\u2019s <\/span>Desert Hearts<\/em> (1985)? Does an LGBTQ+ character suffice? How does one know a character\u2019s sexuality unless it is explicitly indicated? Must we assume all film characters are straight until \u201cproven\u201d queer? What about Charles Herman-Wurmfeld's <\/span>Kissing Jessica Stein<\/em> (2001), in which the title character dates a woman and comes out before finally finding the \u201cright man\u201d? Are films made by queer-identified directors intrinsically queer?<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_773\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\"]\"\" A publicity still of early lesbian director Dorothy Arzner.[\/caption]\r\n

A range of scholars have explored these questions. In a book on early lesbian filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, for example, Judith Mayne writes that though Arzner\u2019s films contain no overtly lesbian characters or plots, they devote \u201cconstant and deliberate attention to how women dress and act and perform, as much for each other as for the male figures\u201d (1994, p. 63). Alexander Doty (1993), meanwhile, suggests that in many popular texts, queerness is \u201cless an essential, waiting-to-be-discovered property than the result of acts of production or reception. This does not mean the queerness one attributes to mass culture texts is any less real than the straightness others would claim for these same texts. As with the constructing of sexual identities, constructing the sexualities of texts results in some \u2018real thing\u2019\u201d (p. xi). In other words, queerness may emanate from the viewer as much as from a same-sex kiss onscreen. As Richard Dyer (1990, p. 23) notes, \u201cIn the process of investigation, the by, for, and about category frays at the edges.\u201d\u00a0 With these concerns in mind, this chapter outlines the history of queer representations in screen media as well as considering the ways both texts and audiences produce queerness in the face of legal and cultural restrictions on overtly queer content.<\/p>\r\n

Representation is important for marginalized groups, but applying labels to individuals and content raises ethical issues. With the aim of advocacy and comprehensibility, this chapter makes provisional use of categories such as \u201cgay\u201d and \u201ctrans\u201d while remaining sensitive to historical contexts. Elsewhere, \u201cqueer\u201d operates as a catch-all for non-normative sexual identities, behaviors, and aesthetics.<\/p>\r\n

Similarly, the categories into which this chapter is organized are makeshift, a subjective organizing tool to render the content more easily digestible. Part of the work of queer theory is to scrutinize and deconstruct categories, and the taxonomies of film genre and textbook chapters applied here are no exceptions.<\/p>\r\n

Finally, this chapter critiques many of the texts it describes. Critique does not necessarily indicate that the texts in question are unworthy of watching. Rather, recognizing their flaws as symptoms of the sociopolitical systems in which they are produced and consumed is essential to the viewing process. Helping readers learn to identify and analyze these systems is, I believe, a textbook\u2019s core responsibility.<\/p>","rendered":"

What do Robert Zemeckis\u2019 Who Framed Roger Rabbit?<\/em> (1988), Penny Marshall\u2019s A League of Their Own, and David Fincher\u2019s Fight Club<\/em> (1999) have in common? According to film news website IndieWire (Dry, 2017), they\u2019re all among \u201cthe best queer films you didn\u2019t know were queer.\u201d Dry reads homoerotic valences in Fight Club<\/em>\u2019s plot, which revolves around illicit male-male contact shrouded in secrecy. But if homosexuality never crosses another viewer\u2019s mind, is the film still queer?The question of what \u201ccounts\u201d as LGBTQ+ film and media is anything but straightforward. Many have debated what makes a gay film<\/span> gay,<\/em> a queer film <\/span>queer<\/em>, and so on. Must the plot revolve around someone\u2019s emergent sexuality, as in Todd Haynes\u2019s <\/span>Carol<\/em> (2015) or Donna Deitch\u2019s <\/span>Desert Hearts<\/em> (1985)? Does an LGBTQ+ character suffice? How does one know a character\u2019s sexuality unless it is explicitly indicated? Must we assume all film characters are straight until \u201cproven\u201d queer? What about Charles Herman-Wurmfeld’s <\/span>Kissing Jessica Stein<\/em> (2001), in which the title character dates a woman and comes out before finally finding the \u201cright man\u201d? Are films made by queer-identified directors intrinsically queer?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A publicity still of early lesbian director Dorothy Arzner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A range of scholars have explored these questions. In a book on early lesbian filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, for example, Judith Mayne writes that though Arzner\u2019s films contain no overtly lesbian characters or plots, they devote \u201cconstant and deliberate attention to how women dress and act and perform, as much for each other as for the male figures\u201d (1994, p. 63). Alexander Doty (1993), meanwhile, suggests that in many popular texts, queerness is \u201cless an essential, waiting-to-be-discovered property than the result of acts of production or reception. This does not mean the queerness one attributes to mass culture texts is any less real than the straightness others would claim for these same texts. As with the constructing of sexual identities, constructing the sexualities of texts results in some \u2018real thing\u2019\u201d (p. xi). In other words, queerness may emanate from the viewer as much as from a same-sex kiss onscreen. As Richard Dyer (1990, p. 23) notes, \u201cIn the process of investigation, the by, for, and about category frays at the edges.\u201d\u00a0 With these concerns in mind, this chapter outlines the history of queer representations in screen media as well as considering the ways both texts and audiences produce queerness in the face of legal and cultural restrictions on overtly queer content.<\/p>\n

Representation is important for marginalized groups, but applying labels to individuals and content raises ethical issues. With the aim of advocacy and comprehensibility, this chapter makes provisional use of categories such as \u201cgay\u201d and \u201ctrans\u201d while remaining sensitive to historical contexts. Elsewhere, \u201cqueer\u201d operates as a catch-all for non-normative sexual identities, behaviors, and aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the categories into which this chapter is organized are makeshift, a subjective organizing tool to render the content more easily digestible. Part of the work of queer theory is to scrutinize and deconstruct categories, and the taxonomies of film genre and textbook chapters applied here are no exceptions.<\/p>\n

Finally, this chapter critiques many of the texts it describes. Critique does not necessarily indicate that the texts in question are unworthy of watching. Rather, recognizing their flaws as symptoms of the sociopolitical systems in which they are produced and consumed is essential to the viewing process. Helping readers learn to identify and analyze these systems is, I believe, a textbook\u2019s core responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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CC licensed content, Original<\/div>