New Queer Cinema

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The Living End movie poster

New Queer Cinema is the seemingly simultaneous appearance on the independent film circuit of movies dealing openly and even aggressively with queer culture, politics, and identity that began in the early 1990s.

In 1992, Sight & Sound magazine printed an article by North American Feminist and critic, B. Ruby Rich. The article, which gathered together Rich’s experiences of, and reflections upon, the strong gay presence on the previous year’s film festival circuit, effectively coined the phrase "New Queer Cinema".^[1]

As B. Ruby Rich also wrote in the Village Voice,^[1] she described films that were radical in form and aggressive in their espousal of sexual identities which challenged both the heteronormative status quo and the promotion of positive images of lesbians and gay men that had been advocated by the gay liberation movement for more than ten years: films such as Todd Haynes's Poison (1990), Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels (1991), Derek Jarman's Edward II and Tom Kalin's Swoon (1992).

These directors were making their films at a time when the gay community was still reeling from the early days of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and the neo-conservative political wave brought on by the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and later George H.W. Bush in the US and Margret Thatcher in the UK during the same decade. Jarman himself had been diagnosed with AIDS in 1986.

Simultaneously, queer theory and politics had begun to take hold in academic circles. Queer contends that "gay," and the concepts of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality," are pre-constructed identities. Queer theory asserts that as these are the products of a specific era of social history, they are arbitrary and that there will come a time when they are no longer relevant categorizations. When Rich noted that many films were beginning to represent sexualities which were unashamedly neither fixed nor conventional, the phrase "New Queer Cinema" was coined.

1 New Queer Cinema figures
- 1.1 Directors
- 1.2 Producers
2 Evolution of Queer Cinema
3 Notes
4 Further Reference
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] New Queer Cinema figures

[edit] Directors

Gus Van Sant: Mala Noche, My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Todd Haynes: Poison, Safe, Dottie Gets Spanked, Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven
Christopher Munch: The Hours and Times
Gregg Araki: The Living End, The Doom Generation, Mysterious Skin
Tom Kalin: Swoon
Derek Jarman: Edward II, Caravaggio
Bruce LaBruce: No Skin Off My Ass (although this might properly be classified as Queercore)

[edit] Producers

Christine Vachon: Poison and Swoon
Andrea Sperling: The Hours and Times and The Doom Generation

[edit] Evolution of Queer Cinema

New Queer Cinema is not really an organized movement, despite the fact that the directors and producers associated with the term may share similar intentions. However, the attitude and openness of New Queer Cinema may be felt today in the production of more and more films such as Boys Don't Cry and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

In the 21st Century, Queer Cinema is no longer a small sub-genre of independent film; it is rather a traceable movement of cinematic representations of sex towards the destabilisation of conventional sexualities and identities. Contemporary queer is less about the radical form of those early examples of “New Queer Cinema”, than about the queering of traditional/classic cinematic content.

The list below highlights the trajectory of what was once considered a radical concept into the mainstream, taking less prescriptive and more fluid representations of sexuality with it.

Edward II, dir. Derek Jarman (UK) 1991
Orlando, dir. Sally Potter (UK) 1992
Swoon, dir. Tom Kalin (US) 1992
Go Fish, dir. Rose Troche (US) 1994
Frisk, dir. Todd Verow (US) 1995
Beautiful Thing, dir. Hettie MacDonald (UK) 1996
Hustler White, dir. Bruce LaBruce (Can) 1996
Flirting with Disaster, dir. David O. Russell (US) 1996
Happy Together, dir. Wong Kar-Wai (Hong Kong) 1997
Bent, dir. Sean Mathias (UK) 1997
Wilde, dir. Brian Gilbert (UK) 1997
Get Real, dir. Simon Shore (UK) 1998
Sitcom, dir. François Ozon (France) 1998
Bedrooms and Hallways, dir. Rose Troche (UK) 1998
Gods and Monsters, dir. Bill Condon (UK / USA) 1998
Being John Malkovich, dir. Spike Jonze (US) 1999
Holy Smoke, dir. Jane Campion (AUS) 1999
Boys Don't Cry, dir. Kimberly Peirce (US) 1999
The Talented Mr. Ripley, dir. Anthony Minghella (US) 1999
Wonder Boys, dir. Curtis Hanson (US) 2000
Chuck & Buck, dir. Miguel Arteta (US) 2000
Hedwig and the Angry Inch, dir. John Cameron Mitchell (US) 2001
Lan Yu, dir. Stanley Kwan (Hong Kong) 2001
Y tu mamá también, dir. Alfonso Cuarón (Mex) 2001
The Hours, dir. Stephen Daldry (US) 2002
Far from Heaven, dir. Todd Haynes (US) 2002
Bad Education, dir. Pedro Almodóvar (Spain) 2004
A Home at the End of the World, dir. Michael Mayer (US) 2004
My Summer of Love, dir. Pawel Pawlikowski (UK) 2004
Stage Beauty, dir. Richard Eyre (UK) 2004
Alexander, dir. Oliver Stone (US) 2004
Kinsey, dir. Bill Condon (US) 2004
Saving Face, dir. Alice Wu 2004
Shiner, dir. Christian Calson (US) 2004
Rent, dir. Chris Columbus (US) 2005
Brokeback Mountain, dir. Ang Lee (US) 2005
Transamerica, dir. Duncan Tucker (US) 2005
Shortbus, dir. John Cameron Mitchell (US) 2006
Imagine Me & You (UK) 2006
Reign Over Me (US) 2007

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b History of New Queer Cinema, webpage:

[edit] Further Reference

B. Ruby Rich “New Queer Cinema”: Sight & Sound, Volume 2, Issue 5 (September 1992)
B. Ruby Rich “Queer and present danger”: Sight & Sound, Volume 10, Issue 3 (March 2000): http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/80/
Joseph Bristow: Sexuality (1997) ISBN 0-415-08494-6
Derek Jarman: Queer Edward II (1991) ISBN 0-85170-316-X
Mark Simpson (journalist) (ed.): Anti-Gay (1996) ISBN 0-304-33144-9
Tamsin Spargo: Foucault and Queer theory (1999) ISBN 1-84046-092-X
Colin Spencer: Homosexuality: A History (1995) ISBN 1-85702-447-8
Richard Dyer: The Culture of Queers (2002). ISBN 0-415-22376-8