Queer Cinema

Catalog description

Queer Cinema, in Theory: This course explores the role of cinema in shaping the history of gender and sexuality, at the same time introducing students to some of the most relevant texts in the field of queer, gender and trans studies. While the last decades have been characterized by increasing acceptance of gays, lesbians and trans people into mainstream society, this process has no doubt reproduced new inequalities and asymmetries – in terms of race, class, and gender presentation. Does “queer” still pose a threat to the mainstream or is it now part of the “normal”? Should one welcome the progressive acceptance or queer lives within the mainstream or should one reject it in the name of an indissoluble difference? How do whiteness and homonormativity participate in the structural marginalization of black and trans people? Some of the topics addressed by this course are the “closet” in classical Hollywood cinema and its critique in 1990s queer films such as Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai, 1997); the intersection of sexuality and race in black feminist films such as Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden,1983) and Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996); the treatment of reproductive labor in experimental feminist films such as Jeanne Dielman (Chantal Akerman, 1975); the representation of the AIDS crisis in new queer films such as The Living End (Gregg Araki,1992); sex reassignment politics in 2000s Iranian films such as Sex My Life (Bahman Motemedian).