#gregg araki movies for example
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Back in this very depressing and full of anger queer era
#gregg araki movies for example#gregg araki#sakata gintoki and hijikata toshiro of gintama aren't together irl and it makes me mad#but at least they're alive ? i think i didn't watch the final yet#all of my ships are depressing af#and they're not even canon!!!#i love divine#i was trying to write a one shot and couldn't write since my very lovely bf was watching me#my brain short-circuited#i can't work properly when you watch me
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♡ FILMS FOR FAUNLET FASHION INSPO ♡
~~Got bored so compiled this (pretty extensive) list of film references for faunlet style and aesthetics, might be helpful for anyone looking to delve into and develop their style. Don't take this as some kind of gospel, it's just a bunch of movies and shows that I think can be useful reference points. My personal style and taste for example is a huge mix and amalgalm of stuff I see, from movie characters to paintings, books, comics, cartoons, music videos, haute couture collections, K- and J-idols, BJD dolls, even elements and staples from female fashion that I kind of genderflip or just outright mix into and merge with my own "masculine"/boyish/whatever faunlet fits. I think the secret to finding your style is to never limit yourself & always be creative (& clever ofc)! ♡
Feel free to suggest and tell me some of your personal films/shows that inspire you the most. I'm sure I forgot some stuff >.> Hope this helps somewhat lolol
WARNING: A LOT OF THESE HAVE MATURE THEMES AND +18 STUFF, SO DO RESEARCH BEFORE WATCHING AND PROCEED AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION, CAUTION & RESPONSIBILITY!
I. Academia/Schoolboy/Old Money/Preppy/Classic Faunlet Vibes
Les Amitiés particulières by Jean Delannoy
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Film and show)
Both versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Lord of the Flies (both versions tbh)
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by Andrew Adamson
Kaze to ki no Uta + Natsu e no Tobira (Honestly most shounen ai anime especially from the 80s/90s)
CLAMP Gakuen Tanteidan
Kuroshitsuji i.e. Black Butler (probably the most famous ouji aka male lolita-influenced anime out there)
Ouran High School Host Club
Cardcaptor Sakura (Li's fits especially but also Touya's and Yukito's)
The Long Day Closes + The Neon Bible, by Terence Davies
If... by Lindsay Anderson
The Butcher Boy by Neil Jordan
Tea and Sympathy by Vincent Minnelli
Purple Noon by René Clément
Sleepers by Barry Levinson
The Basketball Diaries by Scott Kalvert
School Ties by Robert Mandel
The Dangerous Lives of the Altar Boys by Peter Care
Blue Spring by Toshiaki Toyoda
Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti
East of Eden (also Splendor in the Grass I guess?) by Elia Kazan
Lacombe Lucien (+ Au Revoir Les Enfants) by Louis Malle
Bad Education by Pedro Almodóvar
The Ice Storm by Ang Lee
La Luna + The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci
Teorema by PP Pasolini (also Saló tbh bt I feel kinda weird recommending that lmfao even though it's a pretty well-established masterpiece & one of my favs)
Total Eclipse by Agnieszka Holland (teenage Arthur Rimbaud is a core faunler reference tbh, strange that I don't see him brought up more, though he's been a queer/twink culture icon for ages so yeah)
Les roseaux sauvages by André Téchiné
Call Me by Your Name by Luca Guadagnino
Deep Red by Dario Argento (only for the flashback Xmas scenes with the creepy little boy in knee-highs and Mary Janes tbh lol)
The Omen by Richard Donner
The Good Son by Joseph Ruben
Pinnocchio (OG Disney animation) (you could make a double feature with A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Spielberg/Kubrick too)
Les 400 coups by François Truffaut
L'enfance nue by Maurice Pialat
A Single Man by Tom Ford
Looking for Langston by Isaac Julien
Sacré College, Garçons d'Etage, Scouts and Gamins de Paris by JD Cadinot (WARNING: Cadinot's films are basically erotica/arthouse vintage gay p*rn so obviously 18+!!!!!)
II. More Contemporary/Gas Station/Trashy/Greaser/Hustler/Catalet Faunlet Vibes
My Own Private Idaho (also Mala Noche and Elephant) by Gus Van Sant
Slight Fever of a 20-Year-Old + Like Grains of Sand by Ryosuke Hashiguchi
Mysterious Skin + Totally Fucked Up + Nowhere by Gregg Araki
Hustler White by Bruce LaBruce (+18)
Rebel Without a Cause by Nicholas Ray
Cry Baby + Polyester by John Waters
Pretty much any juvenile delinquent teensploitation 40s/50s Old Hollywood flick tbh
The Outsiders by FF Coppola
A Cruel Story of Youth + Sing a Song of Sex by Nagisa Oshima
Most of Edward Furlong and Vicent Kartheiser's 90s filmography (Pet Semetary 2, Brainscan, Little Odessa for Furlong; Heaven Sent, Another Day in Paradise, Masterminds for Vincent)
River's Edge by Tim Hunter
Young Soul Rebels by Isaac Julien
Sleepaway Camp by Robert Hiltzik
Le Diable Probablement by Robert Bresson
Permanent Green Light + Like Cattle Towards Glow (+18) by Zac Farley & Dennis Cooper
Pauline à la Plage by Eric Rohmer
The Smell of Us + Ken Park by Larry Clark
Flesh by Paul Morrissey
Lonesome Cowboys by Andy Warhol
Cruising by William Friedkin
Un couteau dans le cœur by Yann Gonzalez (though most of the male fashion in this is just ripping off Friedkin's Cruising and Cadinot films like Aime... comme Minet, Deuxième Sous-sol and Les Minets Sauvages so you could just watch those instead I guess lol)
Equation à un Inconnu by Francis Savel (erotica/+18)
Rebels of the Neon God by Tsai Ming Liang
Fireworks + Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger
Dope by Rick Famuyiwa
Cooley High by Michael Schultz
The Inkwell by Matty Rich
Red Hook Summer by Spike Lee
George Washington by David Gordon Green
American Graffiti by George Lucas and Bill Norton
All About Lily Chou-Chou by Shunji Iwai
Stand by Me by Rob Reiner
The Mudge Boy by Michael Burke
US Go Home by Claire Denis
Gummo by Harmony Korine
L.I.E. by Michael Cuesta
Palo Alto by Gia Coppola
Spetters by Paul Verhoeven
Fox and His Friends by RW Fassbinder
The Pit by Lew Lehman
O Fantasma by João Pedro Rodrigues
The Delta by Ira Sachs
What Have I Done to Deserve This + Law of Desire by Pedro Almodovar
The Partridge Family sitcom tbh lol, also the 70s era of the Mickey Mouse Club, pretty much any 70s media featuring male idols of the time like David Cassidy, Leif Garrett etc
Dazed and Confused by Richard Linklater
The Lost Boys by Joel Schumacher
Y Tu Mamá Tambièn by Alfonso Cuarón
Summer 85 by François Ozon
Les Chansons d'Amour + La Belle Personne by Christophe Honoré
Body Without Soul + Not Angels But Angels by Wiktor Grodecki (personally rly dislike the weird Christian melodramatic & imo exploitative direction of these documentaries bt the boys who are interviewed do the best they can to salvage it -- quintessential East European 90s cityboy looks)
III. Fantasy/Glam/Mystical/Sacred/Ancient/Historical Faunlet Vibes
Pink Narcissus by James Bidgood
Caravaggio + Sebastiane by Derek Jarman
Peter Pan (any version tbh)
Fantasia (1940 Disney classic)
Tabou by Nagisa Oshima
Poison + Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haynes
Party Monster by Fenton Bailey
Satyricon by Federico Fellini
Der Rosenkönig by Werner Schroeter
The Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau
#faunlet#faunlet aesthetic#(Honestly almost didn’t post this cus a magician never reveals his secrets but was feeling kind & altruistic today sjsjsjs)#not sure if im keeping this on the blog 4 good bt u all can reblog it so itll live on 6ever#faunlet nation#this was on my drafts 4 a long time
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I think you're doing God's work by shining attention on the less popular humanoid companions. I adore Cass and Raul, and it makes me sad how many people brush them off because they're hard to recruit or not #GayRep
The Cass Sweep was about my love for Cass above all else. Spite turned it into what it was as the tournament attracted the attention of people who don't even care about Fallout, but even if the tournament was run by someone with nothing but positive feelings for Cass, I still would have rallied for her the same way because it was about shining attention on her. I even had a whole thing written up for my predicted grand finals about why i think she is worth it and why she should genuinely earn her vote over (who I thought would be) Arcade and Nick Valentine. The Mean Old Cowpoke Solidarity between Cass and Raul was just icing on the cake, I was amazed that Raul beat both gay companions back to back lmao.
I have absolutely nothing against Arcade and Veronica to be clear, and we joke about the sweep being homophobic (straight's rights!), but it does make me glad that these characters who are less popular than Arcade and Veronica, partly because they're so much less immediately relatable, got such a genuinely appreciative push in those silly little polls. The discourse over Cass' sexuality only makes it more interesting, really, because then it's like "explicit gay representation" versus "has a weird gay thing going on," and where the tide is turning on what people are appreciating now.
Because there's something I've been noticing (especially in my own curated social circle but also larger out) where I feel like we're moving past and away from a fixation on representation as the ultimate metric of a media or artwork's value, or at least stances on this issue are becoming more polarized. I think of everyone around me watching Succession, The Sopranos, Columbo, Breaking Bad, Better Caul Saul, etc., basically just a lot of these shows that aren't really providing "representation" but are providing these incredibly deep, complex, and smart stories and characters that people can relate to and chew on in more ways than just sharing identities with the characters (especially since, for example, The Sopranos is VERY MUCH a show about gender and sexuality). Part of this is just because the state of representation-forward media is, like, paint-by-numbers YA novels made for BookTok first, cartoons made for literal children, agonizingly twee television shows, or mainstream movies too afraid to let their gay characters be more than two out of three of explicit, interesting, and authentic. For the really good shit you just have to find independent artists telling independent stories because the way media is made at a major and mainstream level, what kind of gay representation is allowed is still just really limited. Especially for queer representation, this has an overlap with how much explicit sexual content is allowed in media, because we are in a post-Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny world, and people are more wanting for fucking and sucking on screen, especially when your sexual identity is inseparable from who you want to fuck and/or suck.
This has gone waaaay off track from your original question, maybe. But to quote the prolific gay filmmaker Gregg Araki: “Just because a movie [or a book, or a TV show, or a character, etc.] is gay or independent doesn’t make it good. I’d rather go see fuckin’ Coneheads than go see most of them.”
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what's wrong with gregg araki?
he’s a cool human being for sure and i like “the living end” & “mysterious skin,” but otherwise it’s the people who watch his movies that make me hate hate hate the concept of it. coz people always have the moment they watch doom gen & then they act better than you for like weeks & suddenly are the biggest fan of the jesus & mary chain you have ever seen. it’s doom gen specifically that gives people complexes, @ least in my history of knowing who araki is as of 2016 or so.
i also think “nowhere” is horribly obnoxious i think most of his dialogue is horribly obnoxious in the way where it’s like ‘hey look at how Cool i am.’ 90’s elitism to the max. i tried to rewatch it this year and made it maybe halfway thru before a line of dialogue made me roll my eyes so hard it hurt and i couldn’t finish it. so often it feels like it’s all a display of musical superiority. look how cool i am, i listen to ride. look how disaffected and unbothered i am. look how cool i am that all my characters are also disaffected and unbothered and so over it. it reminds me of the thing people say about how the 90’s was the “duh” generation. like i never agree, then i have to watch doom gen or nowhere, and i’m like yeah.
i’m having such a hard time explaining this. like tarantino can get the same way sometimes, for example, like sometimes tarantino feels like he and eli roth and all his actors are all in on some joke they won’t tell you about and they made an entire movie about how superior they are. so sometimes araki movies feel like he’s just name dropping musical artists and references to signal to me that he’s cooler than me and i should know it and maybe the word is ‘try-hard’??? i don’t think ‘mysterious skin’ has the same obnoxious dialogue i actually love the main character and think it’s an amazing movie it reminds me of brett easton ellis books.
i compare him to richard kern despite them not technically being similar cuz when i was a teenager and everyone brought this shit up the first time, people kinda did one or the other and i did kern. but they really are nothing alike, it’s just fan bases tend to overlap sometimes
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New Queer Cinema
Starting from the late 1980s through early 1990s, a “new wave” of queer films became critically acclaimed in the film industry, allowing the freedom of sexuality to be featured in films without the burden of approval from the audience. This raw and honest film genre displays the truth, secrets, and vulnerability of the LGBTQ+ community and the representation that is deserved. The New Queer Cinema movement was started by scholar Ruby Rich who wrote “This movement in film and video was intensely political and aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder, and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists, filmmakers, and activists.” (Rich) This movement started from Rich’s writing piece, not the filmmakers themselves. An article by Sam Moore discusses Rich’s start of the movement. He states, “Rich acknowledges that the films and filmmakers she considers under the umbrella of New Queer Cinema (including Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye, Isaac Julien, Gus Van Sant and Gregg Araki), don’t share a single aesthetic vocabulary or strategy or concern.” Instead, they’re unified by the ways that they queer existing narratives, subvert expectations and foreground queerness in material where it had been only implicit” (Moore). The journey through the New Queer Movement started with Ruby Rich defining the movement through her writing and inspiring filmmakers to continue producing movies with the correct representation.
Actress from Gone with the Wind Susan Hayward claimed that Queer cinema existed “decades” before an official title was given to the genre. French filmmaker Jean Cocteau created Le sang d'un poète in 1934 which is documented as one of the earliest Queer films. This avant-garde style of film is associated with Queer cinema filmmakers such as and is displayed in many upcoming films such as Ulrike Ottinger, Chantal Akerman and Pratibha Parmar. The influence of Queer theory that emerged from the late 1980s helped guide the movement with the creators. The theory states "Challenge and push further debates on gender and sexuality.” Another closely related statement by feminist theory states,"Confuse binary essentialisms around gender and sexual identity, expose their limitations.” Queer cinema filmmakers were sometimes known to depict their films in a “mainstream” way that is agreeable to the audience. There was no exposure to the truths and horrors that the LGBTQ+ community experience and had a lack of representation of historical elements or themes. The concept of “straightwashing” was described to filmmaker Derek Jarman’s 1991 historical film Edward II. This film received backlash from the LGBTQ+ community due to the film’s queer representation catering to heterosexuality and heteronormativity.
The truth of the movement was for Queer films to stop romanticizing or bringing positive images of gay men and lesbian woman. The push for authenticity and liberation for the community needed to be represented in films. New Queer films were more radical and sought to challenge social norms of “identity, gender, class, family and society.” (Wikiwand.com).
To quote the amazing drag queen of all time RuPaul “Everyone is born naked, and the rest is drag” the idea of gender identity and representation in the community is unlimited, why do you need to follow the norms of society when anything is possible? The late 90s documentary Paris is Burning introduced the audience to drag culture in New York City and the people of color who were involved in the community. The term “aesthetic” was repetitive in the research of New Queer Cinema which suggests the significance involved with the style of the films. The documentary includes the aesthetic of the drag world involving the makeup, fashion, and politics. AIDS activism was involved heavily in New Queer films and ridiculed the failure of Ronald Reagans acknowledgment of epidemic and the social stigma experienced by the gay community. Conservative politics occurred during this movement resulting in lack of media coverage and government assistance for the LGTBQ+ community. This political struggle did not discourage the community and the fight is still continuing today.
Beginning in the 2010s LGBT filmmakers Rose Troche and Travis Mathews created a “newer trend” in queer filmmaking that evolved toward more universal audience appeal. In an article from Wikiwand.com states,
“Rich, the originator of the phrase New Queer Cinema, has identified the emergence in the late 2000s of LGBT-themed mainstream films such as Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and The Kids Are All Right as a key moment in the evolution of the genre.[20] Both Troche and Mathews singled out Stacie Passon’s 2013 Concussion, a film about marital infidelity in which the central characters' lesbianism is a relatively minor aspect of a story and the primary theme is how a long-term relationship can become troubled and unfulfilling regardless of its gender configuration, as a prominent example of the trend” (Wikiwand).
The film Watermelon Woman was one of the first queer films I watched for a film class, and this film allowed me to dive deeper into the subject I care a lot about which is the representation of queer narratives about woman of color. Queer woman and men deal with the most discrimination. It is unfair and cruel to see the difference of racial treatment in the LGBTQ+ community because the backbone motto is full exclusion and equal rights. The film Watermelon Woman shined light on LGBTQ+ black woman and interrogated the “Mammy” stereotype that most films depict about black actresses. Minority narratives were pushed into the circuit of the movement with developed into the later academy-award winning film Moonlight that displays those representations makes film history!
Films to recognize in the height of the New Queer film movement are
Mala Noche (1986), Gus Van Sant, was an exploration of desire through the eyes of a young white store clerk named Walt and his obsession with a young undocumented immigrant named Johnny. The film is shot in black and white on 16mm film, contains many of the early Van Sant fixations that viewers would later see get refined in My Own Private Idaho, including male hustlers, illegality, and class.
Chinese Characters (1986), Richard Fung, this early film asks still-pressing questions about the nature of gay desire when it’s mediated via pornographic images of white men. The video defies genre, mixing documentary with performance art and archival footage to explore the tensions of being a gay Asian man looking at porn.
Looking for Langston (1989), Isaac Julien, this short film, a tribute to the life and work of Langston Hughes, is a beautiful and vibrant elegy. Julien creates a lineage of queer black ancestors for himself. The film moves like the poetry it recites, playing with the gaze and how various eyes look upon the black male body.
Tongues Untied (1989), Marlon Riggs, guided by the writer Joseph Beam’s statement, “Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act,” Riggs goes through his own complicated journey of homophobia from other black people, and then racism in the gay community, to find a community of queer black people.
Poison (1991), Todd Haynes, the three parts of the film tell a story about ostracism, violence, and marginality: the bullied child who allegedly flies away after shooting his father in order to save his mother (“Hero”), a brilliant scientist who accidentally ingests his own serum to become the “leper sex killer” (“Horror”), and a sexual relationship between two men in a prison (“Homo”). Exploits radical work that Haynes later uses in his other films.
The Living End (1992), Gregg Araki, the film follows Luke, a sexy homicidal drifter who has a distaste for T-shirts, and Jon, an uptight film critic in Los Angeles. Both are HIV-positive, and as their relationship unfolds, they fight about being respectful or lustrous.
Swoon (1992), Tom Kalin, a black and white film that romanticizes wealthy Chicago lovers kill a 14-year-old boy named Bobby Franks because they want to see if they are smart enough to do it. The murder is more a play of power between them, with Loeb weaponizing sex as a way to control Leopold.
Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992), Mark Rappaport, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies is a documentary made up of glances and innuendos from Rock Hudson’s persona, displaying how this dashing, leading man of the Hollywood Golden Age was a closeted gay man.
MURDER and Murder (1996), Yvonne Rainer, is known for her experimental filmmaking and choreography, this film represents a late-in-life lesbian named Doris who suffers from neuroses and breast cancer. Her partner, Mildred, a queer academic, tells the story of their romance as older women. Rainer also makes appearances throughout the film in a tux, going on rants about smug homophobic parents while showing her bare chest with a mastectomy scar.
1992 was the year of the highest amount of New Queer films being produced and exceeding box office expectations. Upcoming 2000s films such as “Booksmart”, “Call me by your Name”, “The Prom”, and “Rocketman” all represent the truths and authenticity of the LGBTQ+ community and creates pathways for more films to include these cinematic themes. The movement continues to grow and succeed in the film industry with new creators and actors being more honest about the LGBTQ+ community.
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Do you have any recs for early gay movies?
hi! i'm flattered to be asked, tho i've gotta say i definitely don't have the most extensive knowledge of earlier gay cinema (i've only been watching movies seriously since like this february so i still have a lot to learn and see myself) but here are some things that come to mind (also i don't know how early you want but i tried to stay between 1970 and the mid 90s since that's what i'm most familiar with):
Parting Glances (1986), The Living End (1992), Totally Fucked Up (1993), Fox and His Friends (1975), Law of Desire (1987), The Birdcage (1996, and La Cage aux Folles 1978, both based on the same play), The Wedding Banquet (1993), The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Beautiful Thing (1996), Poison (1991), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Something For Everyone (1970, kinda? idk this one is pretty weird lmao), Victor/Victoria (1982), Coming Out (1989), Paris is Burning (1990)
some things i haven't seen yet, but are on my watchlist:
Victim (1961), A Taste of Honey (1961), Desert Hearts (1985), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), The Watermelon Woman (1996), Go Fish (1994), Longtime Companion (1989), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Tongues Untied (1989), Swoon (1992), Edward II (1991), The Boys in the Band (1970), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)
you could also look into New Queer Cinema and related directors, or there are a bunch of movie lists on letterboxd that are a lot more comprehensive
ps. since this is a pretty random selection, some are more heavy than others, so definitely proceed with caution (for example early Gregg Araki movies can be.. A lot lmao)
#a lot of these are super basic but hopefully there are some new things to discover#also wish this list was more diverse so that's something i'll be working on in the future#if anyone has more recs feel free to add xoxo#asks#anon
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A truth specific to our time is that dissent against one level of authority is now very often driven by a deeper hegemonic force.
Caroline Busta, “The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—You Just Won’t Find It on Instagram”
(Is this a truth specific to our time? Anarcho-spectacular youth energy from Antigone to Akira—though my own favored example is good old Hamlet—breaks the static old order to clear ground for the new hegemony. As Adorno wrote in one of his most arrestingly bleak left-conservative sentences,
One realizes with horror that earlier, opposing one’s parents because they represented the world, one was often secretly the mouthpiece, against a bad world, of one even worse.
The article is correct that counterculture in its 20th-century forms is dead, that trying to offend John Lithgow in Footloose, a film that itself embodies the neoliberal hegemony now to be overthrown, is worse than pointless. The remainder of the article, despite its prevailing tech-determinist view that the digital rhizome has obsolesced the very idea of a counterculture, argues nevertheless that there is potency left in strategies of political shock:
The names of these e-deologies tend to be both fantastical and literal. A “post-civilizationist” might focus on what optimal human survival would look like were civilization no longer possible. A “voluntarist post-agrarianist,” meanwhile, might value anarcho-primitivism skills but see them as integral to realizing a civilization sustained through opt-in agrarian communes. Elsewhere on the compass, one finds the likes of “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism” (where a total embrace of technology delivers humanity from scarcity, ecological volatility, and the reactionary social ills of resource competition) and the defiantly neo-traditionalist “technocratic theocracy,” which puts its faith in a machine-governed future that upholds Christian virtues. E-deologies are further explored on message boards and social media via memes, TikTok posts, and livestreamed Twitch and YouTube debates, all of which can get pretty gnarly (calls for “eco-fash global genocide” and “secession of white ethnostates,” etc.) And maybe here, we do have an aesthetic counter to the wallflower non-style of Big Tech: a raging messy semiotic meltdown of radicalizing (if absurdist) meme culture where the only ideological no-go zone is the liberal center.
I hear people my age—roughly the far wrong side of 30—lament the absence of a youth counterculture, but why would it be happening in places we go? I suspect I know as much about whatever Zoomer counterculture there is as my mother knew about, say, Daniel Clowes comics or Gregg Araki movies in 1996. Which is fine with me—I’d rather be reading Adorno. It’s pathetic and not a little menacing to still be hanging around the proverbial high school when you’re approaching middle age. Then there’s the harder truth implied by the article: it is in the nature of counterculture to be counter, and not counter to whomever we thought was “the man” when we were 16, to some stereotyped Republican in a suit and bowtie, but counter to what presents itself as authority to the youth of today, which just might be something we take for granted, identify with, or even cherish highly—as I was saying. Luckily, it is also in the nature of counterculture to be neutralized by commodification in the long run; I have fondly heard the scandalous sex-and-suicide songs of my youth playing over the store speakers at two in the afternoon as I palpated the avocados in the produce aisle.)
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LGBTQI & BIPOC Representation In Media
With creative editing and filming, I believe that any type of style can be achieved visually. But the interpretation of a particular style of cinematography really depends on the person filming or editing. More importantly is the viewers perception. Outstanding filmmakers and editors find ways to create a film where viewers get the message or feeling they set out to deliver. I’ll compare achieving a visual style to my world of art. When an artist does a sketch or paints a picture, they do their best to depict their message through their art. But each person translates that message of artwork differently. Just walk around an art museum such as MoMA with a group of people and I guarantee each person will have a different view of each piece of art. This goes the same for films. Films have a different impact on each viewer, but the ultimate goal is for the filmmaker to get their message through. I’ll admit, “queer cinema,” is something I never thought about or analyzed. I did some research online to get a better understanding of this style of cinematography. According to Todd Haynes, “New Queer Cinema produced complex work that didn't simply create new gay heroes as subjects. It dealt with the politics of representation, it ventured into transgressive themes [and] challenged simple ideas about victimhood and subjugation” (Green, 2016).
In order to understand how I came up with answers to the questions for this blog, I think it’s important that I list the films we were assigned to watch. There were five films in all: Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki, Boy’s Don’t Cry by Kimberly Peirce, Moonlight by Barry Jenkins, Call Me By Your Name by Luca Guadagnino, and Brokeback Mountain by Ang Lee.
(Jenkins, Moonlight)
I think “queer cinema” is a visual style that is secretive, as in most of the films we watched for this blog. A secretive style can be dark or isolated. In Moonlight at 51m:20s-55m:50s when Chiron and Kevin are sitting on the beach in the moonlight is a safe place for them to be together. The darkness is the only time of day that Chiron can be himself. Oliver and Elio secretly persued their gay relationship in the secluded countryside of Italy in Call Me By Your Name. There are many examples throughout this film, but one is at 1h:45m:50s when Oliver and Elio go on a hike. Another way to show a “queer cinema” style in film is through the editing. Scenes can be cut in a way where only enough information is shown, giving it a secretive style. And by secretive, I’m referring to the hidden lifestyle like we see between Ennis and Jack as they go drive out to the mountains to hide their affair (1h:09m:30s). Their relationships are hidden because depending on each person’s race or living environment, it conflicts with what is considered ‘normal’.
As we saw in most of these films, race, gender, and sexual identities visually intersected. In Moonlight, we saw a young black boy struggling with his gay sexuality in a high crime neighboorhood in Miami. Then in Call Me By Your Name, we saw a young, wealthy white man exploring his gay sexuality in the natural countryside of Italy. These are completely opposite films in terms of race and status, but both protagonists are gay men who struggle with being open about their sexuality.
While films can educate or empower people, and even make us change our perceptions, films can’t change someone’s sexuality. That’s like saying a film showing heterosexual relationships can make a gay person straight. Cinematography doesn’t sway or change one’s sexuality. But the message of these films might empower someone struggling with their sexuality to no longer hide it. Just as films can change an anti-LGBTQ’s perception about LGBTQ. Boys Don’t Cry was based on a true story about Brandon Teena. When movies are based on someone’s life, they have more of an affect on the audience. I found an article about Brandon Teena’s court case and the end of the article summed up the message of the film. The writer of the article reached out to the Sheriff’s Office that investigated Brandon’s case to ask if they would be willing to attend a LGBT-sensitivity training program. The current Sheriff asked what was the definition of a transgender person. “I struggled to define it, but I basically came to the conclusion that a transgender person is whatever they say they are. It's a simple concept—honoring however people want to define themselves—but it requires a leap of imagination Lotter, Nissen and [ex-Sheriff] Laux couldn't make—and it would have made all the difference” (Fairyington, 2018).
Speaking about messages from films, I was disgusted by how mistreated and abused by society LGBTQ people were. I was hoping society changed a lot since the time of these films but that’s not the case. According to a 2020 FBI Hate Crimes Report, “Today’s report shows that hate crimes based on sexual orientation represent 16.7% of hate crimes, the third largest category after race and religion” (Ronan, 2020). There’s still a lot of ignorance about LGBTQ. Boys Don’t Cry is a great example of a film that opened my eyes to how life was for a transgender female back in the 1990s in a small town in Nebraska. The minute Brandon’s secret was out that he was really a female (1h:13m:07s-1:13m:55s), two men who didn’t agree with his sexuality came up with a plan to beat and rape Brandon, then eventually kill him. In Moonlight, Chiron got the crap beat out of him (1h:01m:05s-1h:02m:00s) simply because he was gay. Mysterious Skin showed the horrifying world of a young boy who was sexually abused by his baseball coach. I’m still not sure if Neil was gay or if he knew no other form of sexuality because of being sexually abused at such a young age. Brokeback Mountain showed how forbidden being gay was for two cowboys out in Wyoming. And Call Me By Your Name was the only film out of the five that didn’t result in violence once others found out that Elio and Oliver had a relationship. In fact after Oliver left and broke Elio’s heart, his father told him, “You’re too smart not to know how special what you two had was…just remember I’m here” (1h:57m:30s- 2h:12m:00s). Even though Elio’s family was open to their son’s gay relationship, it was forbidden in Oliver’s world.
(Magan, 2019)
These films showed me how difficult it was (and still is) for someone who is LGBTQ to live a life without fear. These films are educational and eye-opening. If that was each filmmaker’s goal, then they all succeeded with me. I just hope each film’s message has a bigger impact on people with no compassion for LGBTQ’s.
My entry for a 5th grade diversity art contest, 2013. I purposely sketched this in black & white as a symbolism of equality.
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With The Other Two and Vox Lux, here’s another child star worth talking about. The song itself is pretty good New Jack Swing from a white person (the original “Boyfriend by Justin Bieber is actually good!”) but his biography is what I want to talk about.
Per Wiki:
Jordan's real name is Don Henson, he was born in 1973 and his mother gave custody of him to his father that later married another woman and had four more children, all of whom he placed in Mooseheart orphanage after his wife abandoned them.[1] Once they got to the orphanage, he and his brothers were separated and every year there, from the third to eleventh grade, he had a different set of houseparents, some of them very violent.[1][2] Jordan wanted to get involved in movies and sign with a talent agency in Chicago, but was forbidden since the orphanage was from Aurora, forty miles away from it.[1] When he was seventeen, before the 1991's Thanksgiving, he moved in Chicago to a friend’s parents house. After a fight he was expelled from the house where he was living and ended up homeless.[1] He lived in a subway most all the time, till he met his manager Peter Schivarelli. He then signed a record deal with his record company.[1]
Literally, what?! This is so dark and bizarre. I never would have pick up any of that. It’s just one tragedy after the next until he got some short lived fame, which was just a one hit wonder moment. Even then, the last line about meeting his manager sounds.... suspect. I’ve never heard of Peter Schivarelli before, but I don’t feel well about a homeless teen just happening to get a record contract after meeting a wealthy man on a subway.
And then this male gazey photoshoot just makes me feel too uneasy. He just did a full nude photoshoot (carefully censored) for a no name magazine I never heard of? At least today when people do their first “I’m grown” project, they can get some indie cred. What did this photoshoot do for Jeremy? And guess who shot the project? Photographer Bruce Weber, who is creepy enough to have a Sexual Assault Allegations section on his Wiki. Obviously, this is just one example of how young stars are taken advantage of, like Fifth Harmony, but Jeremy Jordan stands out as a literal rags to riches story. Even Allmusic describes his as a “teenybopper sex symbol”, in addition to juxtaposing him to Todd Rundgren.
Jeremy Jordan didn’t release another album, but he acted in a few movies, including Gregg Araki’s out of print Nowhere. He released a song about homeless people in 2009. And he gets lost in Google searches with actor slash singer Jeremy Jordan. Knowing what we know about early 90′s music having scandals like Martha Wash not getting credited for singing or Milli Vanilli’s lipsync drama, the odds that Jeremy Jordan was just lipsyncing to a homelier background singer while getting abused behind the scenes so he can stay off the streets are too high.
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Blog #3 LGBTQI & BIPOC Representation In Media
The term queer cinema became popular in the early’s 1990s when the panel at the Sundance Film Festival brought to light movies based on the lives of gay and lesbian individuals. I think that there is such a term as “Queer” visual style where filmmakers use creations through cinematography, mise-en-scene, and editing to elicit such scenes. One example of this is in Chasing Amy when Holden McNeil is at a bar with his friend Banky Edwards. Holden is there to see Alyssa Jones who gets up on stage dedicates a song and sings looking at the audience. Holden thinks that she is singing to him but one notices Alyssa looking at another woman standing next to Holden. This becomes an “ah-ha” moment and I was able to predict that Alyssa was not singing to Holden but to this other woman. After the song ends, Alyssa goes directly to the woman and plants a big kiss on her while Holden looks on surprised and dismayed at what just took place (22:44-26:08). The assumption is that Alyssa is singing to Holden as that is what people deem as typical but nowadays there is generally no “typical” and someone would be deemed not socially correct in such assumptions. Another example is when Chiron is on the beach with Kevin in the movie Moonlight. This entire scene from the setting, atmosphere, lighting from the moon, and the characters themselves and their tone all set up the scenario that they will have their first kiss (53:50-56:02). Both of these examples demonstrate how directors utilize particular aspects of filmmaking to portray Queer visual styles in their movies.
Relationships between people are identified in various ways. Some filmmakers focus on a particular race or gender when developing characters for their movies. Through this, the filmmaker uses their characters to display “Queer” visual styles. One may look at a movie differently by trying to put yourself in the character's shoes to see how they identify themselves. In Moonlight, the main character Chiron, a black male, gets bullied in school for being homosexual. The director, Barry Jenkins, is also black but he is heterosexual. Gregg Araki, director of Mysterious Skin, identifies as a gay Asian American so I would say that his visual style connects on a personal level with some of the films that he has created. He has been known to not accept heterosexuality as the norm but to embrace people’s differences.
Even though in today’s society, Hollywood has major influences on people, I do not agree that a queer film would queer an audience. I do feel that if someone is struggling to find out who they are, one of these films may make them more comfortable in expressing themselves and exploring their identity a little more; therefore, yes, a person will be stimulated emotionally but their identity is already part of their being before going to see a particular film. When watching scenes in Brokeback Mountain when Ennis and Jack become intimate with one another I truthfully did not think that this was something that I would like to have experienced (27:18-28:50). In today’s film industry, filmmakers are attempting to allow their audience to use their judgment to see how the movie influences their perspective on sexuality.
A true romantic comedy with caucasian heterosexual representation is 50 First Dates starring Adam Sandler (Henry) and Drew Barrymore (Lucy). Henry tends to take on a patriarchal role in that he continues to try to win over Lucy each day despite her amnesia that resulted from a car accident. Lucy’s father and brother are also patriarchal as they feel it is their duty to protect her after the accident. The theme is true unconditional love, determination, and persistence that occurred between a man and woman. Let us flip the narrative now of 50 First Dates where Henry remains heterosexual and Lucy is bisexual. Henry and Lucy (Asian American) meet at a coffee shop one morning before they both go off to work. Henry becomes smitten with Lucy and she flirts back batting her long fake eyelashes at Henry. Lucy agrees to go on another date with Henry but is also presently dating someone else named Brenda (mixed caucasian black). Neither Henry nor Brenda know about the other one. Lucy has an accident resulting in amnesia. Both Brenda and Henry now vie for her love. Henry claims it was love at first sight while Brenda has been dating Lucy for the past several months. Brenda visits the hospital several times before Lucy is discharged then once she is discharged, she goes to the coffee shop again and that is where she meets up with Henry for the “first time” because she doe not recall meeting him prior to the car accident. Lucy sticks to her daily morning routine at the coffee shop and meets up with Brenda in the afternoons. Coincidently she does remember Brenda. It is only a matter of time before the three of them run into each other and yes it does happen. The three of them run into each other one evening at Lucy’s house which is an awkward encounter. Lucy’s father answers the door and there is Henry. Brenda is already inside sitting on the couch with Lucy. Henry innocently asks Lucy if Brenda is one of her friends. Brenda does not wait for Lucy to respond, instead, she intimately touches Lucy and there stands Henry bewildered and crushed. The story continues with each of Lucy’s suitors fighting to win her over. The plot concludes when Lucy admits she is bisexual and chooses Brenda over Henry. Lucy truly never regains her memory of Henry leaving him broken-hearted to pursue, hopefully, one day another woman to love. Brenda is also hurt not knowing that Lucy thought she was bisexual, she thought she was lesbian, but she accepts Lucy for who she is. Brenda understands she is learning about her true identity. In this story, love does prevail and Lucy lives happily ever after with Brenda her true love.
Works Cited
“50 First Dates.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343660/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl.
Bfi. “Where to Begin with Gregg Araki.” BFI, BFI, 4 Mar. 2019, https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-gregg-araki.
Ebert, Roger. “50 First Dates Movie Review & Film Summary (2004): Roger Ebert.” Movie Review & Film Summary (2004) | Roger Ebert, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/50-first-dates-2004#:~:text=Just%20in%20time%20for%20Valentine's,caused%20short%2Dterm%20memory%20loss.
“Jump Cut a Review of Contemporary Media.” "The Making of 'Monsters'" by R. Bruce Brasell, https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC40folder/MakingofMonsters.html.
Bruce Brasell, https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC40folder/MakingofMonsters.html. Piepenburg, Erik. “The Day New Queer Cinema Said: Let's Do This.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/movies/new-queer-cinema-anniversary.html.
Piya Sinha-Roy February 18, 2019 at 06:12 PM EST. “'50 First Dates' Wasn't Originally Set in Hawaii - and Had a Completely Different Ending.” EW.com, https://ew.com/movies/2019/02/18/50-first-dates-untold-stories/.
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I just stayed up all night making a list of 100 Movies I Wish Everyone Would Watch because this is what I do with my life now. If anyone is curious I’m putting them below the cut. I have very good taste. That last part is a lie.
DISCLAIMER: This is not a list of 100 movies that I think are the best examples of the craft (although some of them certainly are). This is a list of 100 personal favourites that have moved me personally, deeply influenced me, or I just plain wish more people would see them (for good or for ill). Sorry for including 1 Roman Polanski film, rest assured I’m praying he dies a horrible and painful death asap (and he can take Woody Allen with him).
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari - Robert Wiene (1920)
M - Fritz Lang (1931)
Frankenstein - James Whale (1931)
Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder (1944)
It’s a Wonderful Life - Frank Capra (1946)
Rope - Alfred Hitchcock (1948)
Un Chant D’Amour - Jean Genet (1950)
The Night of the Hunter - Charles Laughton (1955)
Throne of Blood - Akira Kurosawa (1957)
Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958)
Some Like it Hot - Billy Wilder (1959)
La Jetee - Chris Marker (1962)
Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean (1962)
Lord of the Flies - Peter Brook (1963)
Rosemary’s Baby - Roman Polanski (1968)
Midnight Cowboy - John Schlesinger (1969)
Cabaret - Bob Fosse (1972)
Jesus Christ Superstar - Norman Jewison (1973)
The Exorcist - William Friedkin (1973)
Phantom of the Paradise - Brian de Palma (1974)
The Omen - Richard Donner (1976)
Logan’s Run - Michael Anderson (1976)
Carrie - Brian de Palma (1976)
Suspiria - Dario Argentino (1977)
Watership Down - Martin Rosen (1978)
Possession - Andrzej Żuławski (1981)
An American Werewolf in London - John Landis (1981)
The Thing - John Carpenter (1982)
First Blood - Ted Kotcheff (1982)
The Dark Crystal - Jim Henson, Frank Oz (1982)
A Nightmare on Elm Street - Wes Craven (1984)
Fright Night - Tom Holland (1985)
Re-Animator - Stuart Gordon (1985)
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge - Jack Sholder (1985)
The Fly - David Cronenberg (1986)
Night of the Creeps - Fred Dekker (1986)
Withnail & I - Bruce Robinson (1987)
I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing - Patricia Rozema (1987)
The Lost Boys - Joel Schumacher (1987)
Maurice - James Ivory (1987)
Hellraiser - Clive Barker (1987)
Willow - Ron Howard (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Robert Zemeckis (1988)
Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo (1988)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Terry Gilliam (1988)
Archangel - Guy Maddin (1990)
Misery - Rob Reiner (1990)
Thelma & Louise - Ridley Scott (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgement Day - James Cameron (1991)
Fried Green Tomatoes - Jon Avnet (1991)
The Crying Game - Neil Jordan (1992)
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Stephan Elliott (1994)
Interview With the Vampire - Neil Jordan (1994)
In the Mouth of Madness - John Carpenter (1994)
Cold Comfort Farm - John Schlesinger (1995)
Sense and Sensibility - Ang Lee (1995)
Matilda - Danny DeVito (1996)
Lilies - John Greyson (1996)
Romeo + Juliet - Baz Luhrmann (1996)
The Hanging Garden - Thom Fitzgerald (1997)
Dark City - Alex Proyas (1998)
EverAfter - Andy Tennat (1998)
The Prince of Egypt - Brenda Chapman Steve Hickner Simon Wells (1998)
Following - Christopher Nolan (1998)
The Blair Witch Project - Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez (1999)
The Talented Mr. Ripley - Anthony Minghella (1999)
American Psycho - Mary Harron (2000)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Ang Lee (2000)
But I’m a Cheerleader - Jamie Babbit (2000)
Ginger Snaps - John Fawcett (2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Joel Coen (2000)
Battle Royale - Kinji Fukasaku (2000)
The Devil’s Backbone - Guillermo Del Toro (2001)
Bend it like Beckham - Gurinder Chadha (2002)
Far From Heaven - Todd Haynes (2002)
Hero - Zang Yimou (2002)
Holes - Andrew Davis (2003)
American Splendor - Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini (2003)
Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World - Peter Weir (2003)
Mysterious Skin - Gregg Araki (2004)
Hard Candy - David Slade (2005)
Brick - Rian Johnson (2005)
Little Miss Sunshine - Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (2006)
The Orphanage - Juan Antonio Bayona (2007)
There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson (2007)
Pontypool - Bruce McDonald (2008)
Doubt - John Patrick Shanley (2008)
The Loved Ones - Sean Byrne (2009)
Precious - Lee Daniels (2009)
Attack the Block - Joe Cornish (2011)
Stoker - Park Chan-Wook (2013)
Coherence - James Ward Byrkit (2013)
The Babadook - Jennifer Kent (2014)
The Invitation - Karyn Kusama (2015)
10 Cloverfield Lane - Dan Trachtenberg (2016)
Train to Busan - Yeon Sang-Ho (2016)
Get Out - Jordan Peele (2017)
Disobedience - Sebastian Lelio (2017)
Hereditary - Ari Aster (2018)
A Quiet Place - John Krasinski (2018)
#I had to shave off so many good movie’s yall#like adaptation#and catch me if you can#gone girl...#things you can tell about me from this list#I’m gay#I’m a horror nerd#and I’m a Gay Horror Nerd
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I tbh honestly love/hate everything
#gregg araki movies for example#or heaven knows by five for fighting#gay ships make me wanna die happy but make me cry terribly#tragedy#comedy#situations#feelins in generak#general#friendships#conversation or people that i'm addicted to and then blank#I DON'T INOW OHOW TO EXPRESS MY FEELING AND THE WAY I ARTICULATE WYOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND
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May 2nd
I remember seeing the trailer of Mysterious Skin back in high school when we learnt about the issues surrounding the rating of the film, and it’s been on my watch list ever since. Just took me 14 years to finally watch it. Almost like the boys in the film, coming back to the shadow of a memory so many years later.
If you don’t know anything about it, just watch the movie. The less you know the better. The film is a must watch for four reasons:
1. I’ve yet to see this subject matter being addressed in such a head-on manner in any other film.
2. That mysterious but warm (?) tone of the film, especially of the 80s childhood portion. Another thing I haven’t seen before.
3. Gregg Araki’s use of addressing-directly-to-camera Close-Ups as Point-of-View shots from the person being spoken to. These are some of the best examples I’ve ever seen of this being done. I think the reason it worked so well was because they’re mostly from children’s POVs.
4. The amazing performances, namely by Brady Corbet and the child actors.
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Queer coming of age in the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy
Coming of age has changed a lot in queer films over the last 20 years. As representation has changed on screen, and acceptance has changed off of it, recent queer films have been called “post-gay,” where the queerness of characters is incidental, and unimportant to the wider story, a kind of expansion of queer assimilation into straight society, a way of saying, ‘See, we’re just like you.’
But Gregg Araki’s films are different. Even 1995’s The Doom Generation, given the tongue-in-cheek description of being ‘a straight movie by Gregg Araki,’ embraces a kind of strange, punk queerness, situating characters on the fringes, living life differently to the straight majority. These lives are imperfect; the characters are lonely, victims of violence. But in spite of the bloodstains and anger that decorate Araki’s apocalyptic adolescence, it still shines a light on cornerstones of growing up queer, looking for art and parties and lovers to escape with.
The climax of Nowhere, the final film in the trilogy, sums up the nihilism at the heart of the triptych best, when Dark (played by James Duvall, who appears in all three films) says, “Our generation is gonna witness the end of everything. You can see it in our eyes. It’s in mine. Look. I’m doomed.” This short, clipped dialogue, and inner darkness echoes the novels of Bret Easton Ellis; the lonely youth and empty promises of ‘Less Than Zero’ can be seen throughout the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy.
Araki himself has spoken about the films in comparative terms, describing Totally F***ed Up as a “queer John Hughes flick,” and Nowhere as “901210 on acid.” The films exist at odds with, and alongside traditional coming of age stories simultaneously, with their worldview changed by the explicit queerness running through them. The things that the characters engage with is a reflection of this; queer authors like Clive Baker and Dennis Cooper are referenced in the trilogy, placing Araki’s characters and films within a kind of queer canon.
Totally F***ed Up and Nowhere are similar in the stories they tell. Both focus on groups of queer teenagers: their loves, lives and losses; all of them looking for something to hold on to at the end of the world. Not only are the vast majority of the characters in these films openly queer, Araki explores identities that even more contemporary queer films tend to steer clear of (bisexuality figures prominently, for example). The loneliness that permeates the trilogy – often characters are dealing with breakups, distance between themselves and a loved one – is inseparable from the queerness.
Araki doesn’t shy away from showing homophobic abuse, either verbal or physical, showing the ways in which the world can be inhospitable to queer people, and that even the presumed safety of family is something that can be taken away after someone comes out. This happens near the end of Totally F***ed Up and, even now, it resonates, especially when considering the rates of homelessness among young LGBT+ people.
The characters in Araki’s films feel like a kind of rag-tag chosen family; they’re often on the run, either literally like in Doom Generation, or metaphorically, with aliens and the apocalypse creeping onto the horizon at the end of Nowhere. Araki understands the kind of loneliness that can come with growing up queer, and he refuses to shy away from it; the power of the films comes from the fact that he offers a potential antidote; companionship and solidarity, ways of letting people remind themselves that, whatever the rest of the world thinks, being queer doesn’t mean you have to be alone.
As well as exploring the heart and heartlessness of queerness, Araki’s Teen Apocalypse is in tune with the ways in which people grow up; how they surround themselves with art and media, and how this can impact them. The queer Natural Born Killers energy of Doom Generation understands this as it shows surreal news broadcasts, and the masterful production of Nowhere is full of nods to a wide variety of artists, from Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession, to the over-saturation of TVs in the work of Nam June Paik. Araki’s portrait of adolescence is full of knowing winks to the way the world shapes his characters, including the dark comedy of a character in Nowhere being beaten to death by an assailant who uses a Campbell’s can of tomato soup.
At first glance, it would be easy to dismiss Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy as a kind of outdated queerness, one rooted in self-loathing. But the loneliness depicted in Araki’s work is something that his characters are desperately fighting against; they’re all looking for companionship, for love. In Nowhere it’s described as the search for someone who can “hold me in their arms and tell me everything is going to be okay;” in Totally F***ed Up the characters are looking for “something for people to cling to besides TV.” Araki’s characters are looking for hope in an inhospitable environment, trying to grow up while the world is ending around them.
The post Queer coming of age in the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy appeared first on Little White Lies.
source https://lwlies.com/articles/teen-apocalypse-trilogy-gregg-araki-queer-coming-of-age/
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2018-03-28 04 MOVIE now
MOVIE
Birth. Movies. Death.
SXSW 2018 Review: TAKE YOUR PILLS Shines A Light On An Alarming Problem
Is Denis Villeneuve Still Making a DUNE Movie? Nope! Now He’s Making TWO Of Them
FIRST MATCH Trailer Takes A Girl’s Troubles To The Mat
Wes Anderson And Bill Murray: A Cinematic Rapport
Book Review: S. Craig Zahler’s HUG CHICKENPENNY Is A Touching Gothic Parable
CineVue
Criterion Review: Yi Yi
Film Review: A Wrinkle in Time
Film Review: Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
Film Review: The Third Murder
Film Review: Pacific Rim: Uprising
Cinema Blend
What Happened When Andy Serkis Learned Snoke's Fate In Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Why Bill Hader Had Such A Hard Time Performing On SNL
Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans And More Volunteer To Make Wish Come True For Dying Kid
Watch Sean Penn's Bizarre Appearance On The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
When The Big 2017-2018 TV Season Finales Are Airing
Cinema Scope
Cinema Scope 74 Contents
The Work (Jairus McLeary & Gethin Aldous, US)
Global Discoveries on DVD: A Few Peripheral Matters
Canadiana | Hometown Horror: Robin Aubert’s Les affamés
Exploded View: Bruce Conner’s Crossroads
Comicboook.com
'Agents of SHIELD' Showrunner Teases 'Avengers: Infinity War' Connection
How Thanos Gets the Infinity Stones in the Comics
John Cena Confirmed For Upcoming Duke Nukem Film
'Avengers: Infinity War' - Fans Notice Spider-Man's Back Logo Has Changed Color
'Doctor Strange' Director Connects 1958 Polish Film to 'Avengers: Infinity War'
Film Comment Magazine
The Film Comment Podcast: Easter Hams
Festivals: True/False 2018
Berlin Interview: Lav Diaz
Readings: Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa
Film of the Week: Isle of Dogs
Film Inquiry
SWEET COUNTRY: Magnificent Australian Western Touches On Universal Themes
Dinner With Dames #14, With Kimberley Browning (Recap)
TOMB RAIDER: Stays True To The Games
READY PLAYER ONE: Spielberg’s Exhilarating Tribute To Pop Culture In 3D
WILDLING Trailer
Film School Rejects
The Subconscious Reflections of ‘Columbus’
A Brief History of George Lucas’ ‘Star Wars’ Sequel Trilogy
How Pixar Pays Homage to Classic Cinema
Steven Spielberg Resurrects a Lost Dalton Trumbo Script for Amazon
Gregg Araki and Steven Soderbergh Are Collaborating on a “Crazy” New Series
Reddit Movies
Oh hai Reddit! It's Greg Sestero. Let's talk about the new film I made with Tommy Wiseau "Best F(r)iends"
Kodachrome - Official Trailer | Netflix
The House with a Clock in Its Walls - Official Trailer 1
The kraken attack sequence in Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest is a great example of how Gore Verbinski's trilogy delivered a mixture of epic and weird moments in great fashion.
Banning Netflix, Amazon From Festivals And Awards Is Wrong
Roger Ebert
FX's "The Americans" Keeps with Series' Strengths in Final Season
The C-Section in American Movies
How ABC’s “The Good Doctor” is Changing Television
How to Create Sex Scenes That Women Will Enjoy as Much as Men
Return of “Roseanne” Marked by Notable Highs and Lows
Screen Rant
Deadpool 2 Green Band Trailer Adds Another Joke
Star Wars: Solo Rumors Reveal Even More Legends Characters
Hulu Passes on Locke & Key Comic Book TV Show Pilot
X-Men: Dark Phoenix & New Mutants Are Undergoing Reshoots
When’s The Earliest Rick And Morty Season 4 Can Air?
Slash Film
New Blu-ray Releases: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ 2017’s Surprise Blockbuster, and a Horror Cult Classic
‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ Went to Netflix Because Paramount Didn’t Want a Box Office Failure
Contest: Win a ‘Legion’ Mondo Poster and the First Season on Blu-ray
‘Avengers: Infinity War’ TV Spot: Teenaged Groot Has An Attitude
With ‘A.I.’ and ‘Minority Report,’ Steven Spielberg Redefined His Work for a New Century
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(unfinished) Presentation on NQC, how it began, where it went and what has it done for us today.
How was New Queer cinema defined as a movement?
Presenter: “The queer film phenomenon was introduced a year ago at Toronto's Festival of Festivals, the best spot in North America for tracking new cinematic trends. there, suddenly, was a flock of films that were doing something new, renegotiating subjectivities, annexing whole genres, revising history in their image. all through the winter, spring, summer and now autumn, the message has been loud and clear: queer is hot.” B. Ruby Rich said in the same village voice article where she coined the term “New Queer Cinema” in 1992.
Projector: the phrase New Queer Cinema commented on the strong gay and lesbian presence that appeared in the previous years film festival circuit. The term described a growing movement of films made by queer independent filmmakers. Films that were radical in form, and aggressive in their presentation of sexual identities.
Projector: what was new queer cinema and why was it defined as a movement?
Projector: “New Queer Cinema produced complex work that didn’t simply create new gay heroes as subjects. It dealt with the politics of representation, it ventured into transgressive themes and challenged ideas about victimhood and subjugation” - Todd Haynes
Presenter: In the Empire article; “movie moments that defined cinema: New Queer Cinema”, it is pointed out that “the term ‘New Queer Cinema’ suggests that there was an Old Queer Cinema too. And there was. The groundwork had been laid for bold new voices in gay cinema like Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Tom Kalin by Kenneth Anger, Jan Oxenberg, Gus Van Sant and Bill Sherwood.” The movement grew from a strong presence of gay and lesbian films in the underground scene, films that typically shared certain themes, including, the rejection of heteronormativity and the lives of LGBT protagonists living on the fringe of society. The themes of these films often reflected the lives of the LGBT community and the homophobia that affected their lives, particularly due to the AIDs epidemic.
Projector: AIDs, known at the time as the “gay cancer/plague”, is a sexually transmitted disease that spread to America through a group of gay men in southern California. With the already intense homophobia within the US, the country reacted severely to the disease and used it as a way to not only alienate but almost attempt to remove the presence of the gay community. With Reagan's lack of action and at the time no cure or treatment that seemed successful, the country used mass propaganda to encourage fear of homosexuality and homosexual relations. In the article “twenty five years of NQC”, Nathan Smith stated; “New Queer Cinema was characterised by a tenacious refusal to give in to the stigmatisation of gay men, transgender folk and queers”, a stigmatisation that with the power of the media conception of “the gay plague” caused the alienation and abandonment of so many sick and dying members of LGBT community.
Presenter: NQC gave the support and acceptance that many who suffered from AIDs failed to find anywhere else. In the article; “Queer and Present danger”, Rich quoted Derek Jarman, the godfather of the NQC movement, in saying that he was “finally able to connect with an audience thanks to the critical mass of new films and videos that burned a clearing in the bush”
Presenter: LGBT protagonists were presented as outsiders and renegades from the rules of conventional society, and filmmakers resisted promoting “positive” images of queer characters and embraced radical and unconventional gender roles and ways of life, refusing to make their films fit to the “palatable”, censored presentation of sexuality that their films needed to break into the mainstream media.
Projector: “the Mississippi hitman Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, attacked Poison for its (non-existent) “explicit porno scenes of homosexuals involved in anal sex”. He later admitted he never saw the film.” – New Queer Cinema: The Director’s cut written by B. Ruby Rich.
Presenter: Although it is clear that the movement came about due to the mass homophobia and alienation of the queer community, there are considered four reasons as to why the movement came into definition when it did.
Projector: the AIDs epidemic.
Ronald Reagan’s failure to respond.
Cheap rent.
Camcorders.
Presenter: In the article “queer and present danger: after new queer cinema”, Rich commented on how the movement came about due to these reasons and would live its life only due to these reasons. She stated “It was meant to catch the beat of a new kind of film- and video-making that was fresh, edgy, low-budget, inventive, unapologetic, sexy and stylistically daring.”
Presenter: The ADs epidemic shows the new queer cinema truly as the movement of a moment that it was.
Video clip: The ADs epidemic.
Presenter: Not only does the film clearly state the presence of the AIDs epidemic and Reagan’s failure to respond, but it unapologetically points out the entire country’s unnecessary media-induced panic and fear of the gay community, which was, in order to mask the homophobic underlining of this fear, blamed on the AIDs epidemic. NQC began in the underground film scene, so it is no surprise that the Ads epidemic can be clearly viewed as the perfect example, being a film made with a low quality camera, with little information to be found online about this film, it justly was an underground independent NQC film.
Projector: is it still new queer cinema if it hits the mainstream media?
Presenter: the film ‘Paris is burning’ is arguably the first NQC film to achieve a mainstream status, but can it also be argued to be the first NQC film that does not fit into the movement.
Presenter: directed by Jeanie Livingston, Paris is burning received funding of 500,000 USD from the National endowment for the arts. Earning over 3,700,000 USD in gross, Paris is burning was one of, if not the highest earning NQC film. The film attempted to capture the realities of New York’s drag balls and houses, and of the non-white people who occupied this space.
Projector: Was Paris is burning film “made for and by the straight community”?
Presenter: Paris is burning has evoked discussion on whether or not it can truly be classed as a NQC film since its release in 1991. Critics (including feminist scholar Bell Hooks, in the ) have questioned whether Livingston (as a white, middle class, lesbian) was enabling cultural appropriation. This film, unlike previous NQC films, seemed concerned with the heterosexual community’s opinion, it lacked the brutal and harsh realities of the lives of the queer community at the time, but rather chose to present the more glamorous and enjoyable aspects of the LGBT community.
Projector: The negative impact that Paris is burning had on the LGBT community only adds to the argument.
Presenter: a 1993 New York Times article entitled “Paris has burned” reported that several of the performers, feeling that they’d missed out on the wealth generated by the film, wished to sue for a share of its profits. One, Paris DuPree, sought $40m in compensation for unauthorised use of her ballroom. Even in recent years performers have come forward admitting they gave no authorisation for themselves to be featured in the film, and received no payment for their service.
Presenter: However, in a recent (2015) article entitled “Burning down the house”, Livingston's was quoted saying that she felt a sense of frustration for the criticism considering the film was produced at a time where she was “up against an entire establishment of people who didn't want you as a woman making films and didn't want to see queer images”.
Projector: so why is it one of the most successful and well known films within the movement?
Presenter: the sad truth is that the heterosexual community, at the time, had utter control of the mainstream media, despite not fully fitting to the ideas of NQC, paris is burning did fit to the mainstream media’s idea of what could be presented as the LGBT community.
Projector: Paris is burning started a transition which led to the evolution of NQC. But many still argue that paris is burning does not fit into the movement, with its mainstream success. However, with the survival of AIDs into the second decade and the proliferation of small-format video the NQC movement in no way slowed its growth. By the late 90s the sheer volume of queer films had began to dilute the quality. NQC had become so successful it had dispersed itself, it lacked the concentrated creative focus and community responsiveness, and simply became another niche market for hollywood to capitalise on, and the evolution that came from such a powerful movement seemed to have no connection its origin.
Presenter: Mysterious skin, directed by Gregg Araki, shows connection to the NQC style, however is clearly a different movement, the modern queer cinema. Mysterious skin shows the evolution of NQC from its 80/90s movement to the more mainstream 2000s version of the movement, however even the time the film was created removes it from the original NQC movement. More similar to the movement than other modern queer cinema, the obvious avoidance to present the queer community in a solely positive light and the queer characters separation from ‘normal’ society within the film shows that Araki clearly was inspired by the NQC movement. Araki has produced queer films from the late 80s well into the early 2000s, so it is no surprise that mysterious skin, released in 2004, would still hold a sense of the NQC movement, despite the time frame for this movement (and the events that took place in this time frame) causing the movement to be one that would only last a ‘moment’.
Projector: in the article “burning down the house”, it was written that the recent murders of 6 transgender women of colour ( im the space of two weeks, in brooklyn), along with the still unsolved murder of Venus Xtravaganza, was simply a reminder of the high rates of violence faced by the trans community and the lack of appropriate response form law enforcement.
Presenter: However it must be taken into account that our modern world, though improved in many ways, still alienates and demonizes the LGBT community, and especially with the rising media coverage of transgender people and characters. There is no reason not to argue that our world still holds enough reasons for this new wave of NQC to be just as powerful as the last.
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