Found in Translation (2021)
Negotiating Queer Identity and Otherness in Mainstream Cinema
This text is a summary of my thesis, "Found in Translation," for the Art Education program at Aalto University.
My thesis examines the relationship between gay culture and mainstream cinema from two perspectives: identification and othering. In the context of my thesis, identification refers to the way gay men identify with female characters in films. Othering, on the other hand, deals with how homosexuality is equated — through an external, homophobic gaze — with monsters in horror films.
In my text, homosexuality is caught between two different interpretations: as a self-defined identity and as a characteristic reified by the outside gaze. These perspectives form two sides of a coin, wherein different audiences use and interpret the content of visual culture from their own, often contradictory starting points.
The title of my thesis refers to how gay men, like other minorities, may have to seek points of identification within mainstream representations that were not initially intended for them. The surface of identification can be found, as it were, by "translating" the codes of mainstream culture to serve one's own purposes, "into one's own language."
My thesis examines the relationship between gay culture and mainstream cinema from two perspectives: identification and othering. In the context of my thesis, identification refers to the way gay men identify with female characters in films. Othering, on the other hand, deals with how homosexuality is equated — through an external, homophobic gaze — with monsters in horror films.
In my text, homosexuality is caught between two different interpretations: as a self-defined identity and as a characteristic reified by the outside gaze. These perspectives form two sides of a coin, wherein different audiences use and interpret the content of visual culture from their own, often contradictory starting points.
The title of my thesis refers to how gay men, like other minorities, may have to seek points of identification within mainstream representations that were not initially intended for them. The surface of identification can be found, as it were, by "translating" the codes of mainstream culture to serve one's own purposes, "into one's own language."
Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct (1992).
The research consists of two complementary essays. The first essay, "Femme Fatale—a Gay Man in a Woman's Body," addresses the widely recognized phenomenon of gay men identifying with women and female characters. I explore this topic through film noir's classic femme fatale character and through aesthetic styles associated with gay culture, such as camp.
Othering is explored through the portrayal of monsters in horror films in the essay "Monsters and Queers — How to Read Bodies." The starting point of this text is Harry M. Benshoff's idea of monsters as metaphors for homosexuality. Heteronormative audiences project their fears and anxieties onto monsters and homosexuals, thereby maintaining notions of normalcy and abnormality, as well as health and sickness.
The theoretical framework of my text relies on queer and feminist film studies. Critical perspectives are provided by works such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet" (1990), Alexander Doty's "Making Things Perfectly Queer" (1993), Harry M. Benshoff's "Monsters in the Closet" (1997), and Richard Dyer's "The Culture of Queers" (2002).
My thesis contains autoethnographic elements. My personal childhood and adolescent experiences influence both the research approach and the selection of materials.
The research addresses visual culture and its impact on individual and collective identities.
Othering is explored through the portrayal of monsters in horror films in the essay "Monsters and Queers — How to Read Bodies." The starting point of this text is Harry M. Benshoff's idea of monsters as metaphors for homosexuality. Heteronormative audiences project their fears and anxieties onto monsters and homosexuals, thereby maintaining notions of normalcy and abnormality, as well as health and sickness.
The theoretical framework of my text relies on queer and feminist film studies. Critical perspectives are provided by works such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet" (1990), Alexander Doty's "Making Things Perfectly Queer" (1993), Harry M. Benshoff's "Monsters in the Closet" (1997), and Richard Dyer's "The Culture of Queers" (2002).
My thesis contains autoethnographic elements. My personal childhood and adolescent experiences influence both the research approach and the selection of materials.
The research addresses visual culture and its impact on individual and collective identities.
SUMMARIES OF THE ESSAYS ARE COMING UP
