{"id":190,"date":"2019-08-30T18:36:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T18:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-lgbtq-studies\/?post_type=chapter&p=190"},"modified":"2019-12-16T17:13:13","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T17:13:13","slug":"form-and-content","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-lgbtq-studies\/chapter\/form-and-content\/","title":{"raw":"Form and Content\u00a0","rendered":"Form and Content\u00a0"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_775\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"1024\"]\"\" Investigative journalist and documentary maker Dave France (center) and Joy Tomchin (left) accepting a Peabody Award for their documentary \"How to Survive a Plague.\"<\/em>[\/caption]\r\n

While the thoughts and feelings they generate are \u201creal things,\u201d remember that media texts never present objective realities. From Madeleine Olnek\u2019s outrageously campy Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same<\/em> (2011) to hard-hitting documentaries such as David France\u2019s The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson<\/em> (2017), films are representations.<\/em> They\u2019re created through subjective human processes such as writing, casting, acting, costuming, editing, and more. However realistic and emotionally impactful, characters are works of artifice whose \u201clives\u201d stop where the film does. Likewise, documentaries are based on real events but are always interpretations of those events\u2014they\u2019re never fully objective.<\/p>\r\n

Analyzing screen media means considering not just what stories are told but also the techniques and processes\u2014cinematography, editing, mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, casting, etc.\u2014used to tell them and how those elements work alongside the content to construct meaning. In literary contexts, <\/span>form<\/strong> refers to the way a story is told, while content refers to the events, plotline, and characters of which it consists. <\/span>Content<\/strong> might be thought of as the <\/span>what<\/em> of a text, and form as<\/span> how<\/em> it\u2019s depicted. Making a film or a TV episode entails many decisions beyond plot and dialogue, ranging from camera angles to casting to wardrobe to sound mixing, and they all produce certain effects. The language of film form offers a means for examining these decisions and their effects.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_776\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\"]\"\" Cultural critic B. Ruby Rich answering question at the\u00a0Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.[\/caption]\r\n

A trope<\/strong>, meanwhile, is a \u201ccommon or overused theme or device\u201d (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). When overused, it becomes a clich\u00e9; tropes are discussed further later in the chapter. The frequent dramatic death trope in LGBTQ+ film, commonly called \u201cBury Your Gays,\u201d includes suicide (William Wyler\u2019s 1961 The Children\u2019s Hour<\/em>, Lea Pool\u2019s 2001 Lost and Delirious<\/em>, Atom Egoyan\u2019s 2009 Chloe<\/em>), homicide (Anthony Minghella\u2019s 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley<\/em>, Kimberley Peirce\u2019s 1999 Boys Don\u2019t Cry<\/em>, Ang Lee\u2019s 2005 Brokeback Mountain<\/em>, Patty Jenks\u2019s 2003 Monster<\/em>), and HIV\/AIDS (Jonathan Demme\u2019s 1993 Philadelphia<\/em>, Ryan Murphy\u2019s 2014 The Normal Heart<\/em>, Bryan Singer\u2019s 2018 Bohemian Rhapsody<\/em>). These tragic plotlines are so ubiquitous that B. Ruby Rich (2013, p. xxv) wryly noted that in 1999, film\u2019s \u201conly lesbian happy ending involve[d] a portal into John Malkovich\u2019s brain.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Films involving a queer character\u2019s tragic death aren\u2019t necessarily bad or homophobic, but the persistent, minimally varying association of queerness with unnatural death is reductive and harmful in much the same way that the automatic association of HIV\/AIDS with male homosexuality is reductive and harmful. Historically, moreover, these tropes have been cultural or legal requisites for representation to exist at all. To elucidate the reasons why the definition, production, and consumption of LGBTQ+ film and media remain so complicated today, this chapter devotes significant attention to sociohistorical contexts. Because such context is essential to understanding the contemporary conditions and manifestations of LGBTQ+ film and media, the chapter focuses almost exclusively on the US.<\/p>","rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Investigative journalist and documentary maker Dave France (center) and Joy Tomchin (left) accepting a Peabody Award for their documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While the thoughts and feelings they generate are \u201creal things,\u201d remember that media texts never present objective realities. From Madeleine Olnek\u2019s outrageously campy Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same<\/em> (2011) to hard-hitting documentaries such as David France\u2019s The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson<\/em> (2017), films are representations.<\/em> They\u2019re created through subjective human processes such as writing, casting, acting, costuming, editing, and more. However realistic and emotionally impactful, characters are works of artifice whose \u201clives\u201d stop where the film does. Likewise, documentaries are based on real events but are always interpretations of those events\u2014they\u2019re never fully objective.<\/p>\n

Analyzing screen media means considering not just what stories are told but also the techniques and processes\u2014cinematography, editing, mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, casting, etc.\u2014used to tell them and how those elements work alongside the content to construct meaning. In literary contexts, <\/span>form<\/strong> refers to the way a story is told, while content refers to the events, plotline, and characters of which it consists. <\/span>Content<\/strong> might be thought of as the <\/span>what<\/em> of a text, and form as<\/span> how<\/em> it\u2019s depicted. Making a film or a TV episode entails many decisions beyond plot and dialogue, ranging from camera angles to casting to wardrobe to sound mixing, and they all produce certain effects. The language of film form offers a means for examining these decisions and their effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cultural critic B. Ruby Rich answering question at the\u00a0Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A trope<\/strong>, meanwhile, is a \u201ccommon or overused theme or device\u201d (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). When overused, it becomes a clich\u00e9; tropes are discussed further later in the chapter. The frequent dramatic death trope in LGBTQ+ film, commonly called \u201cBury Your Gays,\u201d includes suicide (William Wyler\u2019s 1961 The Children\u2019s Hour<\/em>, Lea Pool\u2019s 2001 Lost and Delirious<\/em>, Atom Egoyan\u2019s 2009 Chloe<\/em>), homicide (Anthony Minghella\u2019s 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley<\/em>, Kimberley Peirce\u2019s 1999 Boys Don\u2019t Cry<\/em>, Ang Lee\u2019s 2005 Brokeback Mountain<\/em>, Patty Jenks\u2019s 2003 Monster<\/em>), and HIV\/AIDS (Jonathan Demme\u2019s 1993 Philadelphia<\/em>, Ryan Murphy\u2019s 2014 The Normal Heart<\/em>, Bryan Singer\u2019s 2018 Bohemian Rhapsody<\/em>). These tragic plotlines are so ubiquitous that B. Ruby Rich (2013, p. xxv) wryly noted that in 1999, film\u2019s \u201conly lesbian happy ending involve[d] a portal into John Malkovich\u2019s brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Films involving a queer character\u2019s tragic death aren\u2019t necessarily bad or homophobic, but the persistent, minimally varying association of queerness with unnatural death is reductive and harmful in much the same way that the automatic association of HIV\/AIDS with male homosexuality is reductive and harmful. Historically, moreover, these tropes have been cultural or legal requisites for representation to exist at all. To elucidate the reasons why the definition, production, and consumption of LGBTQ+ film and media remain so complicated today, this chapter devotes significant attention to sociohistorical contexts. Because such context is essential to understanding the contemporary conditions and manifestations of LGBTQ+ film and media, the chapter focuses almost exclusively on the US.<\/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>