‘Coming Out in the FIL230 Cinema of Experience

Middle’: The Evolution Lecture 9

of LGBTQ
Representations
 Week 10 Workshop Task
• Produce a 300-500 word writing sample that will be part of
your essay and upload it to your respective group forum
(‘writing task forum’) on the Week 10 section of the FIL230 LS
page for peer feedback.

• This sample could be a draft introduction or outline an

analytical point that is part of the main body of your essay.
 2010s cinema:
Multiplication and diversification
of queer representation

"Over the past two decades", cinema has witnessed "a significant evolution"
of the "understanding and cultural acceptance of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people.
Consequently, media coverage of LGBTQ issues has moved beyond simplistic
political dichotomies and toward more fully realised representations, not only of the
diversity of the LGBTQ community, but also of LGBTQ people's lives, their families,
and their fundamental inclusion in the fabric of […] society. Today, LGBTQ
people's stories are more likely to be told in the same way as others – with fairness,
integrity, and respect." – GLAAD, n.d.
 Queer Cinema
" 'Queer' has come to function as an umbrella term signifying a
range of non-normative sexual and gender identities, including
gay, lesbian, bisexual, cross-dressing, transvestite, transgender,
transsexual, intersex, effeminate men and butch women."
– Barbara MENNEL, Queer Cinema, 2012, p. 3

"Queer film promises to tell stories about gays and lesbians who
negotiate events typical for their lived collective experience:
alienated youth and unrequited crushes; sexual awakening
and coming out; the trials and tribulations of gay and lesbian
communities. By representing defamed desires and allowing
audiences an affective engagement with them, queer film is
inherently political.“ – MENNEL, 2012, p. 2

→ problematic: Mennel defines queer cinema exclusively

as films about queer people’s struggles within
a heterosexual/heteronormative society
 Heteronormativity
" 'Heteronormativity' denotes the normative power of
heterosexuality in both society and politics. Following the
literal invention of 'heterosexuality' – a term introduced in the
19th century [...] social norms, political practices and legal
structures all developed to produce a practical truth. [...] This
'truth' is the idea that heterosexuality is the 'normal' or 'natural’
way through which human physical or social experience must
be lived. Heteronormativity constructs not only the natural
domain of heterosexual practices and relations, but also the
attendant realm of denigrated or despised sexualities,
relationship forms and identities – particularly homosexuality
and other putative threats to 'the family'.“

– Samuel A. CHAMBERS and Terrell CARVER, Judith Butler and

Political Theory: Troubling Politics, 2008, p. 121
Discourse and
Queer Theory
• Michel FOUCAULT:
Discourse creates truth
and asserts power

• Judith BUTLER:
biological sex itself is a
linguistic interpretation
of biology that can only
conceive of two sexes
as the basis of
compulsory
heterosexuality
Gender as performance

– Judith BUTLER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc

“Gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much

as a script which survives the particular actors that
make use of it, but which requires individual actors in
order to be actualised and reproduced as reality
once again”
– ‘Performative Acts
and Gender Constitution’, 1988: 526
 Judith Butler –
Performativity of Gender
• “What is ‘sex’ anyway? Is it natural,
anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal, and
how is a feminist critic to assess the scientific
discourses which purport to establish such
‘facts’ for us? […] If the immutable character
of sex is contested, perhaps this construct
called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as
gender; indeed, perhaps it was always
already gender, with the consequence that
the distinction between sex and gender turns
out to be no distinction at all. “
– BUTLER, 1999 [1990], p. 9-10
• “Gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an
exterior space through a stylised repetition of acts. The effect of gender is
produced through the stylisation of the body and, hence, must be
understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements,
and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered
self.“ – BUTLER, 1999 [1990], p. 179
Performance (Nicholas Roeg, 1970): gender is performative!

Chas' narcissistic masculinity "is broken up by the mirror that Pherber

manipulates [...] which projects a female face and body on to the
surface of Chas' masculinised body. It is this acceptance of the
trauma of difference; the recognition of the body's interchangeability
that enables Chas to both embrace Turner and to make love to the
boyish Lucy." – Colin MACCABE, 1998, p. 75
 A History of
queer identity and representation
• Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948): homosexually
coded, pathological, murderous protagonists
• Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York City:
key "turning point from a subcultural existence
to an 'out' life style – MENNEL, 2012, p. 4

• AIDS crisis late 1980s/early 1990s: gay rights activism

(e.g. ACT UP, slogan: ‘Silence = death’)

• New Queer Cinema (early 1990s): "radical and highly

aestheticised films portray[ing] queers in the margins
of past and contemporary societies“ – MENNEL, 2012, p. 5

• 1990s onwards: gay and lesbian characters enter

mainstream film and TV (Philadelphia, Queer as Folk,
Will and Grace; The L Word, In and Out, My Best
Friend’s Wedding, Brokeback Mountain, Carol …)

• 2014: Release of Pride (Matthew Warchus),

a comedy-drama in the mould of The Full Monty
and Billy Elliot: Queer characters enter British
working class representation
 New Queer Cinema
• Term first coined by academic B. Ruby Rich in
Sight & Sound magazine in 1992
• Experimental, disregarding linear narratives,
irreverent, postmodern
• Representations are unapologetic and explicit
– often attempting to break down binary thinking:
“New queer cinema seemed to offer a challenging voice
from the margins (politically and artistically) that was not
asking to be allowed into mainstream representation (in
any senses of the term), but which asserted its difference
with a proud defiance"
– STACEY and STREET, 2007, p. 5
• Key films: Edward II (Derek Jarman, 1991), Swoon (Tom Kalin,
1992), Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien, 1991),
Looking for Langston (Isaac Julien, 1989), Tongues tied
(Marlon Riggs, 1989); Poison (Todd Haynes, 1991);
Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990),
My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
 Philadelphia
(Jonathan Demme,
1993)
• Aims to make homosexuality
and AIDS palatable to US
mainstream audience:

• Andrew Beckett's (Tom Hanks’)

homophobic lawyer, Joe Miller
(Denzel Washington), “models
a journey from prejudice to
acceptance"
– MENNEL, 2012, p. 95

• Long-term lovers Beckett and

Alvarez (Hanks and Banderas)
are extremely chaste
→ anticipating homophobic
response towards an explicit
representation of queer
sexuality
 Brokeback Mountain
(Ang Lee, 2005)
• Critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated
drama queering the arch-American
genre of the Western
• Combines Western (‘masculine’ genre)
with melodrama (‘feminine genre’ about
entrapment and suffering)
• "Brokeback Mountain captures the […]
violence associated with masculinist
socialisation and heterosexist institutions.
[…] Ennis belie[ves] that he cannot
overcome societal norms“
– MENNEL, 2012, p. 103

• Does it marginalise (the plight of) the

women characters (Alma and Lureen)?

• “Heartbreaking love story that could

equally be applied to straight couples“
(Clarke Forbes, Sunday Herald-Sun,
2006)
→ Narrative about queer oppression
and suffering to educate straight
viewers?!
 A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2013)
• Associated with ‘typically gay’ pursuits of aestheticism
and fashion due to its director Tom Ford
→ got much less critical recognition than
Brokeback Mountain

• "Ford and Firth invent one of US cinema's

very few intelligent, eloquent gay
characters, making A Single Man the
more 'progressive' text [than Brokeback]
as far as 'positive' representations go“.
– Kyle STEVENS,
Dying to Love, 2013, p. 107
 Queer women in film since 1990
➢ Go Fish (Rose Troche, 1994)
➢ Bound (Wachowskis, 1996)
➢ Imagine Me & You (Ol Parker, 2005)
➢ The Kids Are Alright
(Lisa Cholodenko, 2010)
➢ Blue Is The Warmest Colour
(Abdellatif Kekiche, 2013)
➢ Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
➢ Freeheld (Peter Sollett, 2016)
➢Below Her Mouth (April Mullen, 2016)
➢ Disobedience (Sébastian Lelio, 2017)
➢Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019)

"In contrast to the films of earlier periods, the

impossibility to 'name' lesbian desire, or conversely
to 'come out' does not motivate the narrative. The
characters do not suffer tragic fates because of
their lesbianism" – MENNEL, 2012, p. 87

• But: Historical dramas (e.g. Todd Haynes’ Carol

(2015)) continue to highlight suffering of characters
in a homophobic (1950s) environment
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Céline Sciamma, 2019
 Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory (2019) –
Clara Bradbury-Rance

• “The paradoxical positioning of the lesbian in film has always

meant reading between the lines, against the grain. […] Now,
subversive erotic identifications are met by the possibility of
looking for lesbians on-screen – and finding them. […] [I]n this
context of visual and social change, we might disavow the
pleasurable evidence of the sex scene in favour of an
otherwise frustrating ambiguity. […] We might be committed to
films that forsake their commitments to us. We might discover
identifications in heteronormative spaces. We might be
overwhelmed by affect before we engage with politics. We
might discover that our intellectual pleasures counteract our
aesthetic pleasures. […] We might divert calls for seriousness.
We might be excited by the need to look, and to look again.
We might want to find a new way to describe all these ‘mights’.
We might want to call them queer.” – 2019, p. 3
 2010s: Normalising homosexuality
in mainstream film
Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti, 2018) Can You Ever Forgive me?
(Marielle Heller, 2018)
• First (?) teenage high school comedy • Biopic of author and
film centring on a gay protagonist and forger Lee Israel (1939-2014)
his group of friends
• Both central characters,
• Didactic approach (≠ confrontational,
Israel and her friend Jack
defiant position of New Queer cinema):
Hock, are gay but their
naming and shaming persistent, direct
sexual orientation is not the
and indirect homophobia (of some of
focus of the film
Simon’s schoolmates and his father),
→ Normalising homosexuality
advocating inclusivity and tolerance
Related image
Call Me by Your Name
Luca Guadagnino, 2017)
• Coming of age film centring
on love story between
a teenager and his father’s
research assistant in 1980s Italy

• Screenplay by James Ivory,

known for ‘Merchant Ivory’
films of 1980s = literary
adaptations of E.M Forster
novels (e.g. A Room With A
View (1985), set in 19th
century, often centring on
young female or gay male
characters/subjectivity
→ Representing (and
idealising) the 1910s in the
1980s, and the 1980s in the
2010s…
 A Fantastic Woman
(2012, dir. Sébastian Lelio)

‘I Can Be Whoever I Want to Be’:

*Trans Identity in Cinema
 New Visibility

May 2014: June 2015: February 2025:

Trans actress Trans celebrity First trans actress
Laverne Cox on the Caitlyn Jenner nominated for
cover of Time magazine on the cover of Academy
Vanity Fair magazine Award - Emilia
Perez (2024)
• “The history of trans
representation in mainstream
and canonical cinema is triply
tragic: firstly for its scarcity,
second for its frequent
transphobia, and third for its
melodramatic, often deathly
endings.”

– Sophie Mayer,
‘A Moment of transition’,
2010,p. 38
Stereotype of crossdresser as psychotic killer: Norman
Bates in Psycho (1960) and Jame Gumb in
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
 Noteworthy trans characters
on screen

Dil (Jaye
Davison) in The
Crying Game
(1992)
Brandon (Hilary
Bree (Felicity
Swank) in Boys
Huffman) in
Don’t Cry(1999)
Transamerica
(2004)
The Danish Girl
(Tom Hooper, 2015)
• Eddie Redmayne plays Lily Elbe
(1882-1931), a Danish trans*
woman, one of the first people
to receive gender reassignment
surgery Image result for danish girl 2015

• Mainstreams trans*
representation – Created by
Oscar-winning director and
actor

“It was a heterosexual

director, trying to direct a
heterosexual, cisgender man,
on how to perform as
a transgender woman, and
what you got was a drag
performance.” AUDIOCLIP
– Tom Fitzgerald, 2015
 A Fantastic Woman
(Sébastian Lelio, 2017)
• Chilean film about Marina (Daniela
Vega), a m-to-f trans* singer facing the
loss of their partner, Orlando

• Academy Award Winner 2018:

Best Foreign Language Film
• Features elements of magical realism

• Highlights discrimination of trans* people

in Chile: Marina is rejected by Orlando’s
family, and social services patronisingly
treat her as a potential victim of sexual
violence (i.e. a prostitute)

• But: Reproduces stereotyped violence

against trans* people: Marina is
captured, tied, gagged and beaten up
by Orlando’s male relatives…
 Transgender
Representation
Always Amber
dir. Lia Kim Hietala and Hannah Reinikainen, 2019
 Always Amber (2019)
• Documentary by Swedish filmmakers Lia Kim Hietala*
and Hannah Reinikainen*, screened at Berlinale 2020
• Coming of age film centring on Amber, a non-binary
teenager
• Amber decides against mastectomy: ”Why should I
change just because society is too slow to change?”
”It is an amazing thing, it is reassuring to know that I
could have [the surgery] if I wanted it, and to know
that is enough…”
A blurry image of a person

Description automatically generated

*
 Understanding Trans* identities:
A paradigm shift
Trans researcher Jack Halberstam (2016, p. 367):
the 2010s are seeing a much greater awareness of and respect
for trans* identities than any previous decade:

“Gender variant children [today] may experience their gender

identity in vastly different ways from people just a decade older.”

“Today’s gender nonconforming children […] may grow up trans

rather than struggling through long periods of enforced gender
normativity.”
 A person looking at the camera

Description automatically generated

Trans* today:
Jack Halberstam
“We might also think about transgenderism
[…] as not simply a contrapuntal relationship
between bodily form and content but as an
altered relation to seeing and being seen:
[…] it constitutes radically new knowledge about the experience of
being in a body and can be the basis for very different ways of
seeing the world.” – HALBERSTAM, 2016, p. 369-70
Seeing trans* bodies differently then – not simply as trans bodies
that provide an image of the non-normative against which
normative bodies can be discerned – but as bodies that are
fragmentary and internally contradictory, bodies that remap
gender and its relations to race, place, class and sexuality, […]
means finding different visual, aural and haptic codes and systems
through which to figure the experience of being in a body.”
– ibid, p. 371
 Film and TV industries –
Moving towards inclusivity ?
• “We’ve got a ways [sic] to go before trans roles
and characters stop being so sensational,
and start being real.”
– Trace Lysette (Actress: Transparent, Pose)

• Trans lead characters in films and TV shows more often than not
played by cisgender actors
(Boys Don’t Cry – Hilary Swank; Transamerica – Felicity Huffman;
Dallas Buyer’s Club – Jared Leto, Transparent – Jeffrey Tambor;
The Danish Girl – Eddie Redmayne)

• Few trans people in film industry (directors, scriptwriters etc.)

– Is their perspective valued?!

• US studio movies unlikely to feature prominent transgender

characters since they depend on foreign box office from regions
in the world intolerant of LGBT rights
SETOODEH, Ramin (2015). A Change for the Better. Variety, 5 May 2015, pp. 40-45
 Seminar Task I
LGBTQ- Identity in Cinema – Terms/concepts/scholars
What do you understand by the following terms/concepts?
Can you apply them to the analysis of the screening?
(Key terms highlighted)
• Paradigm (change) • (Gender) performativity
• Trans*(gender) • Othering
• Gender identity • Transphobia
• Gender role • Judith Butler
• Non-binary • Jack Halberstam
• (Self-)representation • Heteronormativity
• Transitioning • (deconstructionist)
• LGBTQ+ Feminism
• Queer theory
 Seminar Task II
Reading Performance (1970)
• How would you characterise Chas’ masculinity at the
beginning of the film and how does it change through the
encounter with Turner, Pherber and Lucy?

• MacCabe (seminar reading) writes that “Judith Butlter’s

fascinating theories of sexuality and performativity often read
like extended […] commentaries on Roeg’s and Cammell’s
film.” (p.78)
What does he mean by this?
• MacCabe writes that “The final fusion of Chas and Turner
brings together the two elements in English society which have
the power and the energy to transform 'old England’” (p. 79).
How does Performance comment on the link between
sexual identity and class through the working class Chas and
the middle class Turner?
 Seminar Task III
Reading Tangerine (2015)
• How does the film portrays the joys and struggles
of Sin-Dee and Alexandra’s everyday life?
• How do their story arcs comment on trans
identity?
• According to Macintosh (seminar reading), how
do the lead characters subvert the trope of the
‘pathetic transsexual’(pp. 2015-218)?
• How does Mactintosh use the example of
Tangerine to highlight the insufficiently inclusivity
of trans people in the film industry (pp. 227/230)?
 Works Cited I
• BOUCHER, Leigh & PINTO, Sarah (2007) I Ain’t Queer”: Love, Masculinity
and History in Brokeback Mountain. The Journal of Men’s Studies 15(3),
Fall 2007, pp. 311-330.
• BRADBURY-RANCE, Clara (2019). Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• BUTLER, Judith (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An
Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal 40(4)
(December 1988), pp. 519-531.
• BUTLER, Judith (1999) [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
• CHAMBERS, Samuel A. & CARVER, Terrell. (2008). Judith Butler and
Political Theory: Troubling Politics. Routledge.
• FORBES, Clarke (2006). Full range of emotions. Sunday Herald-Sun, 29
January 2006, p. E9.
 Works Cited II
• HALBERSTAM, Jack. 2016. ‘Trans* - Gender Transitivity and New
Configurations of Body, History, Memory and Kinship’, Parallax,Vol.
22, No. 3, pp. 366-375.
• JUETT, JoAnne C. (2010). Just Travelin' Through: Transgendered
Spaces in Transamerica. In JoAnne C. JUETT and David JONES
(Eds.), Coming Out to the Mainstream: New Queer Cinema in the
21st Century, pp. 60-90. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• MENNEL, Barbara (2012). Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and
Gay Cowboys. London: Wallflower.
• RICH, B. Ruby (2013). New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut.
Durham and London: Duke University Press.
• SETOODEH, Ramin (2015). A Change for the Better. Variety, 5 May
2015, pp. 40-45
• STACEY, Jackie and STREET, Sarah (Eds.) (2007). Queer Screen: A
Screen Reader. London: Routledge.
• STEVENS, Kyle (2013). Dying to Love: Gay Identity, Suicide, and
Aesthetics in A Single Man. Cinema Journal 52(4), Summer 2013,
pp. 99-12.