Black Brown and Queer

      Lookup a list ranking lesbian films and you'll likely notice a weird trend. Some lists seem intent on specifying whether or not the two leads die, whether they actually get a happy ending. I would even argue that on those list of "100 best lesbian films" a solid 1/3 is all about sex and sexualizing lesbian women. None of these lists ever really mention whether they end up together or break up. The trend these days tends to be a bit more optimistic but it took a lot of time to actually get to that point. The only movie I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't follow is "But, I'm a Cheerleader"  and even then that story isn't a romance but a coming of age film. Where's the cheesy lesbian Love, Simon ? or the deep and thought-provoking lesbian  Moonlight ? Where's the wild and out-of-control lesbian I love you, Philip Morris? Why do lesbians' love stories have to end in a break-up, in death, in close-ups of sweaty breasts tha...

 One of the things I felt the hardest when watching Pariah was the feeling of isolation Alike had throughout the film. I think that's one of the biggest hallmarks of being young and queer, this feeling that no one can possibly know what it is you're going through. The desperation to have your family understand you.  I adored how Dee Rees uses the frame-within-a-frame technique throughout the film to show this feeling. Nothing feels more isolating than being in public, surrounded by people, and knowing none of them can really see you. Rees uses this most often when Alike is around her family because those are the people who are supposed to understand her and she knows they don't. Her father is the closest to really know her and there are several scenes where she realizes he doesn't. Even Laura and Bina can't seem to fully understand what she is dealing with at home and within herself. I think that's there's always a sense of helplessness at being queer'd....

            After watching this week's film Paris is Burning I couldn't help but wonder what happened to Ball culture. I tried searching for LGBT balls and Queer balls and all I found were the traditional balls you'd see in ye olden days, talks about ball culture, or Wikipedias page about it. The page claims that ball culture is still a thing, that it even migrated to other countries. I also saw articles claiming ball culture was already "mainstream".  But I never hear any of my queer friends talking about it (many of whom are from NY), I never see people on social media talking about it.     Maybe modern ball culture is still super far underground?   Maybe I'm too white to be able to actually find it? Either way, I kept thinking about how the modern world of Queer culture operates. I know that for many high schools (myself included) students in America, clubs like GSA (either the gay-straight alliance or the gender and sexuality al...

     I really loved Pelo Malo  mostly because of how different the queer narrative is compared to the American (and subsequently white) queer narratives present in media.     In most white American queer films the pain comes either from a character's struggle to come out (like Love, Simon ) or how for whatever reason the two leads can't be together ( Brokeback Mountian ). The possibility of actual injury or death should the characters' queerness be exposed isn't really the focus (or it isn't present at all), the worst that can happen is a bully makes fun of them or their families get mad. Abandonment is also there as a possibility but it isn't often explored. Queer pain often feels more like shallow window dressing, not something that's really given meaningful observation or study. These films feel like queer stories written for straight audiences by straight writers (which is weird to me because Love, Simon  is the only film, as far as I know, on this...

 Hi, my name is Ren (they/them). I am a sophomore film and classics double major. I am from Dallas Texas but I am currently studying on campus.  I am really interested in this course because I want to hear more from POC voices on queer culture and I am queer myself so I also hope to learn more about queer culture as the term goes on. I am also just really excited to watch the films Amy picks out because they are always good.

               As a kid I grew up hearing my parents say things like "I support gay people but I would never want a gay child" and I was always shaken by that statement but never knew why. But when I started interacting with queer spaces in middle school all I would ever hear about is how coming out is this freeing experience that lets you live your "true self" so when I first found an identity I could relate to I jumped out as soon as I could,  I thought if I didn't I wasn't living my "truth" so when I did it was clunky and weird and I had to come out again later because no one really understood what I meant when I said "aromantic" and I didn't have to tools to explain it properly. But my family surprised me by being accepting. But my mom also keeps asking when I plan on telling the rest of the family, and for a while, I wanted to. I felt this guilt at "lying" to them.      It took me a while to realize how messed up the ...