March 2012 Archives

I had to do a little more reading on this quote because I wanted to know where it was coming from. I found an interview with Babbit where she explains her own quote:

You've used the phrase, "the feminization of camp" to describe a combination of "hyper-real" setting with "real feelings of the characters." What exactly do you mean?

Babbit: I guess that statement came out of a lot of people saying, "Oh, she wishes she was John Waters. Ooh, she wishes she was as bitter and biting as John Waters." I can't tell you how many times I heard that and how irritated I am by it. That was a response. I think it's true. Let's think about camp: Who made camp an aesthetic? Gay men. Okay, let's think about what I wanted to do. I didn't want to make an entirely camp film. I also wanted straightforward emotional scenes. I wanted a counterpoint. I really fought for those scenes. I also wanted a romance. I believe in love at first sight and true love forever. That's just the way I am. I'm not cynical.

And in another interview she says:

CF: And how are you using camp in the film?

JB: The history of camp has pretty much been defined by gay men, so I wanted to be sure that the film, while using camp, also had real emotional moments, that it was a romance. John Waters hates romantic comedies; he thinks they're cheesy. But there's a certain part of me that is cheesy. I'm a small town girl when it comes to relationships, and I wanted to tell a conventionally romantic story. So while there are scenes of high camp, there are also scenes of the girls sitting on a hill, talking about their lives. Some people say that I'm trying to be John Waters but the film doesn't have that bite; I don't want it to have that bite. What's important to me is to have an emotional center for the comedy. If I were writing a paper about it, I'd say it's feminization of the camp aesthetic, bringing emotion to something that's hyperrealized.

I think that her explanation of the quote creates a gender binary because, to me, it sounds like she is attributing real emotion and true love and anti-cynicalism to females only. She is saying that she used camp, a gay male dominated genre, to create certain scenes and to convey a certain message at specific points in the movie. But overall she wanted her movie to be a conventional romantic comedy, and she had to use female romance to create those scenes. The idea here is that she uses gay male camp for certain scenes and female romanticism for other scenes and that itself is a gender binary.

It seems she can't get away from ideas that she was raised with, such as "I'm a small town girl when it comes to relationships." Here she is saying that romance and love are conventional and are not camp, and these ideas are what sets her movies apart from John Waters' movies.

Having said that, I do appreciate this "form" of camp. I think she does have a point because this movie is extremely campy but in a different way than standard camp films. It is more in line with movies like "Saved", "Pleasantville", etc. And although I do feel it creates gender binaries, I think the attempt at creating a different form of camp or using camp in a new way is important to queer cinema as a whole. As we discussed earlier in the year, this kind of goes along the lines of "exposure at any cost". While she may have relied on gender binaries instead of breaking them down, this film is a step in the right direction.

I am on board with the controversial as well! Anyone want to do a look at the appearance of either assumed or closeted roles in Television and Cinema?

For the final project, I am most interested in pursuing discussion over a more international film than those that we've covered thus far. I think it would be useful in terms of broadening our horizons as this is something that needs to be discussed but that we haven't covered yet. Sometimes we tend to forget that other people don't experience being queer in the same way that we do and it's a good point to explore.

Hey guys I really have no idea what I am looking to do. Im totally open and I just want to make the final project fun and enjoyable.

So I have been thinking about this at length and while I would love to present something incredible artistic and brilliant, I also see that we have a very small amount of time to do it in.

I was thinking we could do a simple analysis/comparison of roles and morals in queer and heterosexual films. We could compile films that display character development with the breadth and depth each community would appreciate.

We could draw on television as well as film. Reflect on the societal impacts of the media and so on.

Im totally open ...

For a final project for this class I would be most interested in a queer reading of the "gaze" as it applies to cinema. By this I mean to expand upon feminist film theorizations of the gaze as always already male and always within a position of power. Questions I would like to pose are: What happens when the gaze is desirable? Especially within LGBTQ populations as representation is lacking, and what representation is available in mainstream cinema is often generalized and heterosexist. Is the object of the gaze always passive, and the position from which the gaze originates always active? This is related to my first question, but I believe it could be taken further account for queering gender, sexuality and desire.

Recently, a performance art piece took place where the audience was asked to write down/say words. These words would then be carved into the flesh of one of the performers. The audience then was witnessing a process of active objects upon whom the gaze falls, and interestingly, a somewhat passive audience who, while they were offering the words which would be carved, were not actively carving themselves.

I would like to explore the topic of transnational queer film using Deepa Mehta's film, Fire. It critiques India's patriarchal, post-colonial society through its portrayal of lesbianism.
This film tackles gay dysphoria, inauthenticity, and subjectivity. I also think global representations of gay identities relation to imperialism would be interesting to talk about. Is anyone remotely interested? Other ideas/questions/whatnot relating to global queer film would be rad!!

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnshN0wqiCo

I am unsure what subject I'd like to present on, I am up for anything I just need people to work with! Any ideas?

Why was the guy in this movie here to be the savior? I was uncomfortably with this blatant use of intersection in the movie. The film had some sense of realness, in the sense that not all marriages and families are perfect. However, I take issue by some of the marriage stereotypes given to this family being that the mothers were lesbian. All in all it was an upsetting film, partially because of what is happening, and then the irritating inserted scenes that make us roll our eyes.

I do not feel that there is a detraction from the "queer quota" because the two leads do not identify as lesbian. However, I do feel that out of the millions of queer identified individuals that they couldn't find two to play the part is of interest; I understand they wanted to use big identifiable names to pull in audiences and almost make the film a little less threatening to the audiences whom may be uncomfortable or put off initially by queer film. I think if anything it almost is a commentary of Hollywood and workers who are clearly not heterosexual are made to almost not allowed to be themselves. I think that Female Trouble is boundary less and because of that has a stronger following, whether or not the director is queer or not is almost irrelevant to myself.

While I do agree with Butler that we as individuals are performing genders all the time, I would disagree that it is to imitate heterosexuality. Because one may identity as a masculine or effeminate individual and have partners that exude the opposites attributed to "preference" because the sheer nature of performing, I feel that genders are fluid and ever changing. There is way more occurrences I would argue that have relative neutral identities as well as far as dominance and passivity. I do also agree that the movie is a heterosexual replica however in the sense that the stereotypes played off to reinforce a heterosexual marriage between the kids is why I would argue that the movie itself promotes a hegemony of a heterosexual underlining.

The queer stereotypes in classic hollywood present themselves in the forms of "the sissy" and the "spinster" or women that is older and clearly a representation of corruption, especially in other younger women. Over time I would argue that they have come to become either gays have either become almost a-sexual making them to be linked with other stereotypes of being either fashionable or the side-kick to women in a crisis, or have been able to jump from the contrasting hyper-sexual into potentially still side characters but progressively in some films as the "homonormative" couple in a family. In films like Sweet Home Alabama or Family Stone in for instance are good representatives
I agree that visibility should be a focus. I don't believe at any cost however. If given the power to choose how people perceive us, I think it is the best to not reaffirm stereotypes and better choose to portray the character as it was meant in the script and who that character really is. If it happens to be forms of a certain way, in which may or may not be beneficial to promoting awareness should be irrelevant.

Bell Hooks teaches us what it means to look deeper into films and other forms of mass media and find the underlined meaning of them. She states how the images that are used are intentional and aimed at minorities. She uses several examples of how these images are subliminally sent to the target and this gives understanding as to how and why it is perpetuated. The strategies that she claims that they use to employ these images would be how the thief in a film would almost always be the african american boy. I can't remember what the movie is called, but she provided a example of this. She coined the term 'Enlightened Whiteness' as a way of watching films, but thinking critically. She explains that this can be done by asking questions such as: who is the intended audience, who created it and why, in what ways will the audience be affected by the images, and what is the overall message? I agree that this will allow us to have power of the mass media and control our mind over subliminal messages.

When it comes to the sexuality of the actors and cast of a movie that portrays queer themes and characters, I do not believe that it does not distract me from the themes of the movie as long as they are good at acting. It may be hard to portray a queer character for an actor if they do not look like they could ever be queer but in Heavenly Creatures, I think the actors do a great job. I think the difference between Female Trouble and Heavenly Creatures is that in Female Trouble, the queer themes and elements are more in your face. I think thanks to culture today, you do not have to be queer to direct a good queer themed movie, and I think it would be even easier to direct a true story based on queer themes. Jackson did a good job in my opinion or portraying Pauline and Juliet as queer without being over the top. If he went over the top with it, I think it would have taken away from the story that was being told.

I want to state off the bat that the title of my post is what I thought of this movie- it was awesome! It was creepy and twisted, and very queer in my opinion. I do not feel that the sexual orientations of the cast and crew detracted from the queerness of the movie because they were acting, as actors do. If I go watch a movie about a serial killer I don't expect the actor playing the serial killer to be a serial killer in his/her real life too, that would be kind of ridiculous. When I watched Julie and Julia, I was aware that the main actors were not highly esteemed chefs off screen, and this did not detract from the film, so why would sexuality be any different? Also, I might be a little bit biased because I have a giant crush on Kate Winslet, but that aside, the sexual identity of the other actors/crew did not detract from the meaning of the film for me either. In addition to this, if the sexual identity of the cast/crew were to detract from the meaning of the film for me, I would feel as though I were being discriminatory and closed minded. Queer actors play straight characters and this doesn't make me think less of them or their cinematic creations.
On the flip side, I can see how this could be a challenging paradox because if we replace sexual identity with racial identity for this question, the answer for me would be totally different. If I saw a white person playing a latina character, I'd be like "WTF?! Not ok, definitely not ok", but for some reason I feel differently about sexuality. Perhaps the movie would have been stronger had they used queer actors for queer roles, and this goes for all films, but I don't think the use of "hetero" actors necessarily detracts from the film. Part of this might also be from my thinking that nobody is really 100% straight and all the way at the hetero end of the Kinsey scale, but maybe that's just me.
In regards to Female Trouble, I don't believe it has a larger fan base. Maybe I'm wrong, but just from my experiences in telling people about the movie, everyone I talked to said "What's that?" and when I mentioned Heavenly Creatures I got a more positive response and most of the people I talked to about it had seen the movie. I think Female Trouble is definitely queer, but I don't think it is as accessible because of its plot. I think that Heavenly Creatures is less queer because of the vagueness of the queer element in the film, but that it is much more accessible, and that for many queer people the queer element in the film is more visible, sort of like in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes - I think most queer folks, especially queer women, picked up pretty quickly on the queer element of that film, whereas straight folks, particularly those uncomfortable with queerness, probably didn't pick up on it because they didn't seek it out.
Lastly, I argue that the film Heavenly Creatures is most definitely queer. After all, the two girls kissed and had sex (in the film at least, maybe not in the real story, but I'm arguing in regards to the film only), and whether that is experimentation or not, it's queer in my book. Whether they were queer or not in reality, I don't think anybody can really say that except the two women themselves, and the queer element in the film was just one person's interpretation of Pauline's Diaries.

I believe it is helpful to broaden the term "sexuality" to include aspects of attraction and desire that are not contingent upon one engaging in sexual acts when we discuss the definitions of queerness. I also believe queer is a much broader term than non-normative sexualities, as it is descriptive of non-normative gender identities and expressions. It is through this definition of queer that I define Heavenly Creatures as a queer film.

I believe the sexualities and gender expressions of both lead characters in Heavenly Creatures to be incredibly complex, and even if read as heterosexual, to expand far beyond the parameters of what one could define as being heteronormative. Could we conceive of their relationship as being one of same-sex romantic interest but asexual? Or as I stated earlier, could we think of sexuality as something that extends beyond physical acts? Both I believe to be important considerations given the invisibility and perceived impossibility of asexuality, and also the historic definitions of lesbian sex as non-existent because it wasn't penetrative (at least not to the same degree that heteronormative and procreative penetrative sex is).

Pauline's and Juliet's relationship is obsessive, but mutually so, and it is notable that their families, and following the murder of Pauline's mother, the state is responsible in acting as a barrier between the two.

While John Waters' film, Female Trouble, has a much larger queer following, I believe this is a poor litmus test to measure the queerness of a film. Female Trouble is more explicit in its queerness and was made by a queer filmmaker larger for a queer audience. I am not sure we can (and/or should) effectively state which film is 'queerer' given that based on the intended audience. Simultaneously, I want to exercise caution in stating that because as a queer identified person I do have hesitations over who gets to claim the term "queer", in what contexts, and for what purposes. I believe Jackson's direction of Heavenly Creatures, and the portrayal of incredibly complex characters, was very well executed.

Having a heterosexual cast and director does little to detract from the storyline. I believe that queer cast members would know how to feel the emotions easier because it is mundane to them, but heterosexual cast members could act to portray this. This would make it easier for them to play the roles. I also think it is just as possible for queer actors to play "straight" roles and succeed at it. A lot depends on their ability to act and embody the role and emotions. However, when I think about how heterosexuals perceive the queer community based on what they have read or perceived on television, it is unsettling. I find it unsettling because I do not know what they think is right. There are so many different viewpoints on how the queer community behaves that it can sometimes be trying to get it right. I believe Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey did a good job at portraying what is deemed to be queer in the movie. My viewpoint is the same for Peter Jackson. However, it goes deeper here. There is so much at stake when directing a film (especially a queer film) and a director can change the feel and the focus of the movie with their course of action. When John Waters directed Female Trouble, he clearly allowed his viewpoints to play apart. By him doing this, he most likely tapped into a larger queer audience because they possibly picked up on small things he did in the movie. Most of the time though If you didn't tell the audience who was behind the movie directing and acting (queer people or not queer) most people wouldn't notice the difference. If you are a good actor and director the contrast should be hard to see. I think there is actually a bias when a movie is made from a heterosexual director sometimes because of their lack of understanding overall on all things queer. Peter went overboard with the excess and exhibited over jolly women running through the woods holding hands, screaming at high pitches and rolling around on the ground. These directors are on a mission to elevate their on viewpoints. I think like this because there is so much to incorporate to such storylines to be successful. When the directors are not queer, the movie tends to be aimed strongly in one way and fails to do a good job at mitigating the aspects that were not mentioned even if it goes against what is mainly being presented in the movie. I feel like I could go either way. I think that ultimately it wouldn't matter, but I can see where a heterosexual director and cast could get it wrong because of their lack of understanding and relation to the topic at hand.

Though I do see Heavenly Creatures as a queer film, I think that the heterosexual identity of Kate Winslet, Melanie Lynskey, and Peter Jackson does somewhat detract from the queerness of the film. Though I do think their acting was brilliant, Jackson could have found two queer actors who would probably play the parts just as well, and add a bit more legitimacy to it, and it would bring even higher visibility of queers, by having two out and proud cast members. I think Female Trouble has a larger queer fan base not mainly because the director is queer, but probably because of the ridiculous nature of the movie, and the "in your face" queerness of it. The lead character is a drag queen...

Having said that, I think that since the girls were both great actors, the film was still able to be seen as queer. As others have mentioned, it is their job to act; not every person who has acted a character has been able to identify themselves with that character, that is why they have to act. True, Jackson is hetero, but it seemed like he was able to extract the queerness out of their relationship still, and portray it in the movie. Pauline later states that there was no sort of sexual relationship between her and Juliet, but then why did her diary entries contain things like "we made love all night"? Jackson may not have portrayed their relationship exactly how it was, but I think a line like that seems pretty difficult to misinterpret. Overall, I think the cast and the director did a fantastic job of interpreting Pauline's diary, and the events that lead up to her mother's murder.

There was only one time during this film when I felt the presence of a male gaze--when Juliet and Pauline were frolicking in the yard around Ilum (Juliet's home) and they stripped off their clothing, eventually sharing a brief kiss. It was at once tender and innocent and excitingly queer, and innocent in that tired school girl way. However, I do not believe this detracted from the film's standing as queer.

Yes, I believe queer directors/actors have an added level of experience to bring to their films and perhaps this makes for a more nuanced portrayal of queerness (or in Waters' case, a more, um, unique and never before seen portrayal of queerness). But this film was based on a true story, with the voiceovers being lifted directly from the diary of a young queer girl (despite what she may have said decades later). I thought it received excellent, non-sensationalist and non-exploitative treatment from Jackson. You do not need to be queer to deftly tell a queer story.

The sexuality of the cast and crew has absolutely no effect on my interpretation of a movie being "queer". Ignoring the fact these people are acting detracts from the point of cinema. As for Heavenly Creatures, I cannot say that any movie is less queer because of the number of people in the cast who identify as heterosexual.
I don't at all think that Female Trouble has a larger queer fan base. I think that anyone can identify with a movie for any reason. If I were to assume that because John Waters' is queer that more queer people would like him, I would be ignoring everything that I have learned about stereotypes and why they are bad. I do not think the literal "queer eye" of the director makes a difference in telling a queer experience. I think that it is more important for the director to research, to understand the story that they tell. If enough work is put into his research, I'm certain that Peter Jackson could make a "John Waters" style film.
I am not at all saying that while making a "queer" film, being "queer" has no effect on the experiences you can portray. I would also like to point out that I could be wrong about all of this. But in my opinion, the "queerness" of a movie comes from the actors while acting, and the directors while directing; not their sexualities.

The question of a film's "queerness" in reference to the cast members attached to the film was actually something I discussed in one of my class responses, but I feel that it's always an interesting topic to discuss. While I feel that in a film like Brokeback Mountain the straight-ness of the two leading actors actually detracted from the "queerness" of the film, in this instance I would actually argue the opposite.

I think one of the greatest aspects of this film was that it introduced the two starring actors to the rest of the world. I believe that it was in the director's choice to cast two young, otherwise unknown actors into the leading roles that gives the film a "queer" slant. What's great about this film is that it plays a double narrative without the audience knowing it; the second narrative being Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey's entrance into the world of film through the lens of two young girls growing up. It is the fact that the actors outside of the film are growing up coupled with the fact that the characters they are portraying are exploring youthful sexuality that gives this film a uniquely "queer" eye. Furthermore, Heavenly Creatures does a brilliant job of never explicitly telling the audience what the nature of Pauline and Juliet's relationship is, leaving loose ends and ambiguous imagery up to the audience to interpret. Perhaps the most subtle, but also one of the most powerful examples of "queerness" in the film is Pauline's perpetual chase of Juliet. While watching the film, I noticed that in almost every scene Pauline is following Juliet's lead, chasing her into a fantasy world. While this is not overtly sexual, the undertones beneath it: longing, desire, youthfulness and desperation all re-enforce the sexual nature of the film from underneath. At the end of the film, when they are about to kill Pauline's mother, Pauline initially leads the way with Juliet trailing behind. It isn't until the two girls switch positions that Pauline musters the strength to kill her mother.

As far as the comparison between this film and Female Trouble, it's honestly like comparing apples and oranges. They are both "queer films" in very different ways, noticeably different in content and especially different in form. I also feel that they can be appreciated by different sub groups of the queer community and for different reasons. In a sense Female Trouble explores the idea of in your face "queerness" while Heavenly Creatures is characterized by what we may call the "inexplicably queer."

I don't think that the members of a film crew necessarily detract from the queerness of a film that is meant to be queer. When I watch the film, I understand that the actors are portraying a certain person and the director has a certain goal, so I don't really think, "Well the actors aren't even queer so this isn't even real." That's what acting is all about. That is the purpose of films; to present a story that isn't real, even if it is depicting a story that happened in real life. This film proves that even movies that are based on true events, still are not entirely real because in the end, they are movies and are up to the interpretation of the actors and director.

Having said that, I do believe that the queerness of the film crew can ADD to the queerness of the film, especially in the case of the director. It can be easier to depict something when you've already experienced it. A heterosexual person who does not fully understand queer culture may have a hard time making the movie seem authentic, while a queer director would be able to add personal experience to the film to make it seem truer to real life. I don't think a heterosexual director could possibly make films like John Waters does, but if they ever did I don't think the director's heterosexual orientation would detract from the film.

I feel like the actualization of Juliet and Pauline's relationship walked a very fine line between queer and not queer, and it is hard to say whether or not the actors' sexualities would have swayed it one way or the other. There were many queer aspects about their relationship, especially in forms of excess. The way they talked throughout the entire movie seemed deliberately overacted, but maybe I'm giving them too much credit. Also, they were constantly shrieking and laughing and screaming, especially in their fantasy land. And every time they seemed to enter their fantasy land there was a lot of disorientation with the camera angles and movements and them constantly running through the woods and twirling around and being crazy.

It is interesting to learn that Pauline claims they never had a sexual relationship. To me, that detracts from the queerness of the film far more than the film crew does. While Jackson employed techniques to bring an element of fantasy and excess to the film, he may not have been doing that to make the film queer. Perhaps to him, the only thing queer about the whole film was the sex scenes between the two girls.

It's difficult to clearly mark "queerness" in stone. I don't think that in the particular case of Heavenly Creatures it matters whether or not Peter Jackson, Kate Winslet or Melanie Lynskey are homosexual or heterosexual. The film's queerness still measures up to those directed and acted by truly queer individuals. I can believe, however, that the queerness of a film could be detracted by its makers' heterosexuality. In the case of Female Trouble, I absolutely believe that it's queerness was birthed by John Waters and his fan base gave it an even clearer identity. It is probably safe to say that a large portion if not majority of John Waters' fans fit into the LGBT category, which gave him an immediate captivated audience for many of the films he created. Many people were bothered when Brokeback Mountain appeared on the big screen, because none of the actors were actually gay in real life. As a straight person, I feel less qualified to pass judgment, but I didn't think the film suffered one bit from its casting. This film, as well as Heavenly Creatures, has led me to believe that a "queer eye" is not as important as one may think. It may affect the films initial popularity with the gay community, but as Harvey Fierstein said in the documentary we viewed earlier in the semester, any representation is better than none at all. I think that Peter Jackson's interpretation of Juliet and Pauline's relationship is really captivating and interesting. They way the girls miss each other, and Juliet's jealousy regarding Pauline's relationship with the lodger were both realistic and beautifully told. The letters they write to one another in their fantasy world are so unique and fantastical; I think Peter Jackson did an excellent job.

I place great emphasis on the cast having queer identities in a film labeled "queer." If taken at face value (that the girls are heterosexual) then I don't see anything that would make this film queer. In fact, the film would have been little more than a waste of our time. However, I don't believe that it is possible to watch this film and not detect the queerness within the context of the girls' relationship. The love these two hold for one another is something that transcends friendship. It tells a tale of heartbreak and passion that is simply not demonstrable in two school yard friends who are truly just friends. The heterosexual cover feels forced and fake.
I find it very difficult to compare and contrast this film to Female Trouble. The two are distinguishably different. It is possible that the fan base behind Waters' film has grown in part due to his queerness, but that feels like little more than an excuse for the failure of Heavenly Creatures ("I can't help it is people don't like my movie. It's because I'm not gay!"). Is it not also possible that the queer fan base is larger because Female Trouble is simply a better movie? Or because it has a better message behind the film? Where Heavenly Creatures shouts, "don't let two women get too close because it always ends in trouble," Female Trouble shouts, "what is expected of you isn't always the best decision on an individual level." One must analyze how each of these messages is translated to a queer viewer. Where one is saying lesbian relationships are always negative, the other is saying that normativity can be negative and sometimes rejection of expected sexuality is a more positive experience.

In regards to Heavenly Creatures and the idea of queer, I do belive there was a definite queer factor in this film. I don't believe that it matters that Kate Winslet and Melanie are heterosexual in real life. They are actors and are asked to portray a part that they may or may not identify with because this is their job. I also think that because this was based on her diary entries, there has to be some truth to all of the queer connotations made throughout the film. The fact that they took baths together, were inseparable, Kate Winslet got mad when Melanie had a male friend (NICK), all play in to the idea that they may or may not have been lovers. I found myself the entire film thinking, does one love the other more? or are they going to be lovers? or is it just a crazy obsessed friendship? I am unsure even after watching the movie but I do feel that it is definitely queer.

Also, I do feel that the director being queer might have something to do with having a queer fan base. I think that naturally a queer director might have more queer friends/supporters than a heterosexual director, but I could be wrong.
When seeking to tell a queer story, I feel that any director could do it well, if he/she is a great director. Also, like i said a queer director may have a bigger fan base, but may also have a bias in directing so could totally skew the movie in one way or another to how he/she wants the public to view it. Not saying that a heterosexual director wouldnt do the same thing.
I think that Smelik makes a point when she says that "the excess of deepfelt emtions is visualized in a refined aesthetic style or cinematic spectacle" This to me, means that the fantasy world that Pauline and Juliet create is so visually and sexually spectacular both for viewing pleasure and their own pleasure that it creates a lot of excess in the queer factor as well as the fantasy factor.

Pauline and Juliet have an obsession for one another that lasts more than just what we see in the movie. I do believe that they may have had romantic feelings for one another, but given the time period were socially unacceptable, so they kept it to theirselves. And anyways, who needs to know their romance on a level that they do anyways? it is their business only. And the fact that they created a plan to kill Pauline's mother tells me that their relaitonship may have played a part in this decision. I think anybody who thinks it is a good idea to kill their mother because they hate her so, is probably sick in the head and not in any way a great decision maker. but that is just me.

I feel that this is a difficult subject to tackle. Although I think the best way to understand something is to experience it (in this case, understanding queerness by being queer), ultimately there can't be a completely accurate way to go about a story unless it has been been experienced first hand. But what does that say about any other movie or television plot line? A movie made by a queer director with queer actors could be entirely inaccurate in a queer sense if none of the above have ever experienced whatever story is being presented.

I don't think that in "Heavenly Creatures" having a straight, male director detracted from its queerness. It may be true in many portrayals of queerness that the view is perverted and skewed to fit the idea of what is generally acknowledged as queer (say, in just about any movie or television using queerness for ratings or expanding the fan base), but Peter Jackson's film told a story of an unorthodox "friendship" between two girls, nothing else.

As for the movie itself, I do believe it is queer, even with statements saying that the friendship was completely non-sexual. It shows an obsessive and extremely intimate relationship between two girls that is not what is considered "normal." And not normal=queer, right? With or without the sex, the friendship was romantic in a sense, just in the imaginary world that Parker and Hulme shared. As for other aspects of a queer horror film, it pretty much fit the bill with over-dramatization of emotion, the constant shrieking, and fantastical element.

Since the director and lead actresses of Heavenly Creatures don't identify as queer, is the film any less queer? I don't think so.
It's an actress's job to ACT as someone she's not, and a director's job to tell a STORY through film. It doesn't detract from the queer nature of the film to have non-queer cast and crew involved.

However, having an very showily queer director can certainly ADD to a film's queer fan-base. I don't think a film is intrinsically more or less queer because of its cast or crew's orientation, but it may help a movie gain footing within the queer community to have these assets.

In the case of Heavenly Creatures, I think Jackson chose to highlight the queer nature of Pauline and Juliet's relationship because the intensity of their relationship paired with the oddity of their fantasy world makes for a memorable film experience. We have to remember that this film was BASED on a true story but the director can clearly put his own spin on the thing without "lying"about the story. The queer factor of the film remains high even though later testimonials say the actual relationship was not sexual.

On a mostly unrelated note, why choose a BRICK as a murder weapon??

To me a film is as queer as the viewer makes it. It is like any other piece of artwork, meaning that it does not matter so much what the author or creator means by the piece, but how the spectator see's it. I personally found "Heavenly Creatures" to be queer. The main characters are young women who are romantically and emotionally obsessed with one another and in the film, sexually involved. However the characters do not ever have sex with one another as themselves, rather as other people in heterosexual roles. Thats an extreme queering of sex to me. I think that Female trouble has a larger fan base perhaps because of the extreme over the top insanity. Hollywood movie viewers LOVE over the top and extreme, especially queer movie viewers in my opinion. Just like an extreme action movie gets higher ticket box numbers than a romance movie may. Sure the romance may have plot, but that's too close to reality and we want an escape from reality, not a reminder of things really are. I think that the fact that heavenly creatures was based on a true story is the reason that is has a lesser fan base than Female Trouble. I do think that a directors and actors personal identities and experiences are going to leak into any film, and that will affect the movie as a whole, but ultimately it is up to the viewer in my opinion as to how queer the film is or isn't. I think sex sells, and to make for a larger profit margin, Heavenly Creatures needed some sex, even if it hadn't existed in the "true" story. Female Trouble had an abundance of sex and sexuality in it, whereas Heavenly Creatures had to force it into the storyline. I think that a movie about two young women obsessed with one another emotionally, with or without the sex, would make spectators get to thinking about the characters sexualities.

I love when words that were previously used to offend a person or group are reclaimed and their negative connotations fall away. Before reading Lebosco, I was unaware that the word fat had been reclaimed. The acceptance of overweight individuals in media has both grown and shrunk dramatically in recent years, especially since the reality tv age, but it's good to know that the word has changed as well. Divine's character in Female Trouble pushes all sorts of boundaries: cross dressing, exposing her body, practicing violence, and simply the satisfaction she feels with herself that the typical hegemonic viewer would find shocking and possibly offensive. The idea of a fat person being alright with being fat? This idea seems radical to many regular cinema goers and I'm glad that even in the 1980s audiences were pushed to think more freely.
Re-appropriating words like queer and fat takes power from the bigot and forces people to step out from their own prejudices and use real words to express their feelings. It became to tiring in high school listening to people use the words "gay" and "retarded" as negative terms. I found myself constantly sounding like that annoying Hilary Duff commerical; scolding my fellow classmates. Thankfully many young people have realized how unacceptable it really is to use those words for the purpose of degrading something, but unfortunately it has not completely disappeared. As "queer" has been changed, please let the negative use "gay" be erased as well.

Personally, the sexual identities of the cast and crew of a given film have never been a factor in the credibility I place on the film's interpretation or representation of a story. When it comes to the true story of Heavenly Creatures, I am very satisfied by the fact that the narration comes from Pauline's diary entries and that there were many congruent depictions of the mid- 20th century that surrounded the young women.

I feel that just because someone identifies with a plot-line, or a specific character does not necessarily that they give an accurate depiction of the story. I think it could work in reverse, at times even. However, with the right intentions, a person of any identity can accurately portray any given character and his/her life.

Just as it seems unreasonable that we can disregard all films based on women that are directed by men, I feel it is similarly closed-minded to say that a queer identified person could not accurately create a film of a non-queer identified person/lifestyle.

I personally believe that having queer actors and directors in films enhances the accuracy and reality of being queer into a film. I think queer audiences like seeing themselves represented accurately and have attention brought to the elements of their lives that never seem to play out on mainstream cinema. Within the definition of queer though fails many subcategories of personal identification so a film like female trouble, a cult classic, is a complete turnoff for me personally and not to others. I think the film Heavenly Creatures was well done in the context of its queerness because it wasn't representing a lesbian relationship but a deep obsession between two individuals. Having a straight cast and director didn't kill the film for me but it wasn't touching on a category of my self-identification of being a gay man. I have seen gay relationships and topics butchered in movies done by mainstream/straight actors and directors. I think it really takes a queer to know a queer and by that I mean the issues and struggles of being queer in this society can only really be understood by another queer.

For me, personally, the identity of the cast and crew don't really sway my love for Queer movies. Brokeback Mountain, for example, is a movie I adore and I don't know anything about the cast or crew being Queer. Milk's cast, also, is predominantly heterosexual, but I still love that movie with all of my heart. Similarly, I don't think that the Queerness of Heavenly Creatures is detracted from because of the heterosexuality of the cast and crew. Even when movies aren't supposed to be Queer in any way, people sometimes find Queer meanings and relationships. For example: Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson in the recent Sherlock Holmes adaptations by Guy Ritchie or James McAvoy as Professor X and Michael Fassbender as Magneto in the latest X-Men movie. People find meaning where they want to, regardless of identity. I think the Queer eye of a director is helpful in some cases, but it doesn't make or break a movie. The TV show Glee is directed by Ryan Murphy, who is publicly out as a gay man, yet Glee is full of bi- and transphobia, along with other problematic ideologies and stereotypes. (As far as Female Trouble is concerned, I honestly have no idea why it has such a huge fan base!)

I think the Queer emphasis on Juliet and Pauline's relationship in Heavenly Creatures makes a lot of sense, at least from my perspective. If they hadn't done anything with that relationship throughout the movie, I probably would have assumed it was Queer anyway and would have been perturbed that the movie didn't do anything with it. I also thought it made sense in that the girls reacted so vehemently when they were threatened with separation. Creating an alternate world as an outlet for their relationship seems very plausible, especially with the timeframe they were working with. People do the same thing today: they create identities on the internet in order to experience a life(style) they're too afraid to pursue in reality. The Queering of Juliet and Pauline's relationship made sense psychologically without demonizing the Queer community or painting this picture of lesbians as insane killers.

When I watch queer movies I have the tendency to assume one or more of the main characters has a sexuality that differs from heterosexuality. When watching Heavenly Creatures I kept thinking there was going to be this big scene where the girls professed their love for each other and then would be dating or sexually intimate to the point where their relationship wouldn't be doubted any longer. I definitely think that them being heterosexual detracted from the films queerness. It made me wonder why the film was even considered queer. Their relationship was possessive, obsessive, irrational and clearly abnormal but I don't think I would give it the label as queer. I wouldn't necessarily say that Female Trouble has a larger queer fan base just because the director is queer. The reason why I say that is because a lot of people, myself included, rarely know who directed the film - let alone their sexuality. I think Female Trouble may have a larger queer fan base just because queerness and sexuality is more easily depicted from the film as well as the characters talking about it more. On the contrary I do believe that if a films agenda is to come across as queer and there is a queer director, than that film will most likely either portray more accurate queer lives or the film will just reek queer in ways other than people would think (such as excessive) compared to being produced by a straight director who would most likely make the film based on stereotypes. I also think that the diary entries were shown to the extreme whereas in actuality I'm sure their relationship and moods were not as intense as the film made it seem to be.

I don't think that the actors' or directors' sexuality matters when determining the "queerness quota" of a film. I feel that a film by heterosexuals can be just as queer if not more queer then one made by a queer person. I think the question is how valid is the portrayal of the queer person in the film. We could bring the same question in when we're dealing with race or gender. Let's say a white man makes a movie about African American women, and troubles they seek in America. Would the fact that the director's white and male make the movie any less "racial" or "feminist"? I don't think so as long as the director is knowledgeable on his/her topic. That's what makes a good movie, not the fact that the director/actors match up with the main characters or issues, but the fact that they are knowledgeable and accurate on what they're portraying. Look at "Glee." Darren Criss is a straight actor playing a gay student, and he has such a huge queer following.
Having straight actors/directors definitely doesn't pull from a movie's "queerness," but at the same time, having queer people involved is definitely going to pull in a larger queer audience. I don't think it necessarily even have to do with the fact that the movie is going to be more "queer," but I feel it has to do with general support for queer visibility. I'm sure lots of queers weren't too excited by Female Trouble, but it was directed by an out director, and that's huge. I feel like it's a need to support one another in order to keep queer visibility as common as possible. I think that today, when a queer movie comes out, it's instantly labeled as "queer," and that's a label that seems to be necessary to describe it. When asked about the movie The Kids Are Alright, the first thing that most people say is it's about a lesbian couple. Even though, in my opinion, the movie is more about the relationship between the kids and their sperm donor then the fact that the parents are lesbians, it's still the first thing that comes to most people's minds.

If we think of "queer" at its very basic level of understanding, it means "non-normative". Through this lens, we can see fat bodies as "queer" because they are non-normative, in the sense that it is not what society tells us we should be like nor what we should desire. In fact, fat bodies are often ostracized at hideous and unhealthy, which only further pushes that identity to the margins of society. LeBesco's concept of the "artificiality of truths we think we know" is structured around language being the key to understanding, but also that language can be (and often is) changed. Just as "queer" is a word that now has heavy political and connotations, so "fat" has become a political identity as well. With fat-bodied people working to change the public discourse, it forces people to reevaluate the idea that "skinny" is always "healthy" and "fat" is always "grotesque". I think positivity around fat-bodies is extremely beneficial not only for those that are "fat", but also for those that feel pressured to starve themselves or make themselves vomit in order to stay at a weight that is probably unhealthy for them. In the same way, I think fat sexuality is beneficial because it breaks this idea that sex has to look only one way- be that through the lens of heteronormativity or homonormativity. Which, of course, leads fat sexuality into queer spaces because it is, again, challenging our normative ideology.