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The 10-year history of LGBTQ movies: Maybe not a crisis

Of course, some queer movies nowadays, to attract the attention of heterosexual groups, often use rhetoric to emphasize the universal value of movies in their propaganda strategies to highlight the sameness between people. Therefore, we often hear expressions such as: "Love is love." and "They are the same as us." On the one hand, such a powerful statement is not a fallacy. Queer groups should be born as human beings which supposed to be treated equally; but on the other hand, this statement can easily obliterate the unique life of queer individuals and runs counter to the core spirit of queer movies. The creator's clever trade-offs determine the yardstick. But in any case, we can indeed smell a trend: Compared with the conflicting narratives of fighting against the system and colliding with the self in the early years, the queer images of the past decade have gradually moved towards a more private and personal path.

With the attention to queer individuals, more and more queer movies no longer evade bold depictions of queer eroticism. In addition to presenting the most primitive desires of human nature, recognizing identity and the fluidity of sexual desire, we have also seen more queer movies, talking about the maintenance problems that queer faces after forming a family, such as "The Kids Are All" Right" (2010), also confronts the birth, old age, sickness and death that queer groups will also experience. Just like "Love Is Strange" (2014) portrays the mutual affection of elderly gays, "Suk Suk" (2019) writes about the honest love affair of elderly gays and also touches on the issue of elderly care in the gay community.

Now, are the traits that can be labeled as queer aesthetics, anti-authoritarian, subversive, etc., have really disappeared? Maybe not. For me, the constant regurgitation of the textual confrontation in "The Half of It" and the wonderful intertextuality with the image lines are also a practice of queer aesthetics. Moreover, since Queerness is fundamentally challenging to define, it might not be eradicated and eliminated.

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The 10-year history of LGBTQ movies: the queer images of the past ten years

Looking at the queer movies of the past ten years, we will find that many movies may be LGBTQ+ in terms of "content," but they are not really queer in terms of "structure." In these queer images, whether they are commercial masterpieces or independent films recognized by the Gold Award, they all share a common spirit even though they are far from the original intention and film quality. Rather than emphasizing differences, they tend to embrace convergence. They always follow similar emotional arcs, telling universal stories that are safe and harmless but also somewhat uninteresting. Queer movies have always advocated diversity, and what they are most proud of is the difference between images? So how can we classify them? Once the conclusion is made, doesn't it imprison the possibility of queer movies or even imply that the impact and aesthetic tension of queer images have been reduced in the past decade?

With the aforementioned questions, let us re-examine the LGBTQ+ movies of the past ten years. In some ways, many of today's queer movies have indeed become more accessible. But have they lost their diversity and value proposition? Maybe not at all.

"Love, Simon" uses a brisk and humorous style to write about the youth boy's road to coming out; the Thai film "Yes or No" (2010) portrays the self-discovery of two girls' sexuality from a fresh perspective; the Hong Kong film "All About Love" (2010) Bringing heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals together, everyone is happy and unrealistic, but still cute.

To a certain extent, these films have indeed abstracted away from the complexities of the family and society in which the queer group lives, but they have therefore returned to the personal choices that belong only to "me." Rather than pinpointing society with a strong force, these images are more important to exist in that they provide comfort to queer groups, eliminate their fear of coming out, and tell them that maybe it is not as scary and challenging as imagined.

From this point of view, a radical statement may not necessarily be the only path to queer images. Of course, the search for oneself is always closely related to youth. There are still some queer movies that talk about sharp bloody youth, such as the Nordic movie "Heartstone" (2016), where the two boys' coming-of-age ceremony is deeply piercing. Another example is the Canadian movie "1:54" (2016). Extremely suppressed sexual identity and campus bullying are the backgrounds. Like the Vietnamese movie "Goodbye Mother" (2019), queer images are still dealing with the collision between self and family, but they are equally meaningful in developing regional themes.

Nowadays, most queer movies finally no longer confuse sexual identity with gender identity. In the transgender category involved in the latter, rich, three-dimensional, multi-faceted expressions can be seen. French director Céline Sciamma's "Tomboy" (2011), implicitly and softly described the gender dysfunction of a 10-year-old biological girl; "Tangerine" (2015) filmed with three iPhones, unrestrainedly unlocked transgender prostitutes, Crazy and broken fringe group portraits of spring girls and middle-aged married comrades; Japanese movie "Close-Knit" (2017) abandons arbitrary values ​​and returns to the daily life of transgender women.

In addition to the proposition of self-knowledge, the queer images of the past ten years still resonate closely with the times and society.

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The 10-year history of LGBTQ movies: a crisis or a turning point?

Every year May 17th is the "International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia," officially designated by the United Nations. This extraordinary day began in 1990 and aimed to call on the world to face up to Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia in society, increase public awareness and understanding of the gay community, and prevent the repeated occurrence of violence, discrimination, and injustice on gays. Like the anniversary, video art is also a key part of promoting the social and political practice of the sexual minority movement. From 2010 to 2019, in the past ten years, queer movies have spread all over the world.

"Blue Is the Warmest Color" (2013), "Carol" (2015), "Moonlight" (2016), "Call Me by Your Name" (2017), "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" (2019), etc., become A new classic in the minds of many people. "Weekend" (2011), "Tangerine" (2015), "Love, Simon" (2018), etc., also attract people's attention with their unique attitude. Recently, Chinese director Alice Wu's latest work, "The Half of It" (2020), was launched on Netflix, which immediately caused an enthusiastic response online.

Faced with the endless stream of queer images in recent years, we are full of joy, but we cannot help but ask, what makes a movie a "queer movie"? Are they the same as the "New Queer Cinema " that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s? With the globalization of queer symbols and LGBTQ+ images that have gradually entered the mainstream market, is it possible that real queer movies will die?