Forum and intensive lectures at Nanjing University

"Queer Film Theory" / SHIMIZU Akiko (Feminism and Queer theory, University of Tokyo)

This class mainly chooses mainstream Hollywood movies as material and considers them in terms of queer film theory. Queer film theory took its start from an attempt to "read against the grain", as there was a long period of time when it is was not allowed (or avoided) to mention or depict in particular gay sexuality in Hollywood movies. As an introduction to this kind of queer theory this class plans to identify the problem of the "unanticipated audience" in classic story movies movie and then "read" a few movies "against the grain", thereby showing how these movies are related to the "queer" issue complex.

1) Introduction: Female spectatorship and The Celluloid Closet
    The Celluloid Closet (1995) dir. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman

2) The structure surrounding rumors and community
    Christina (1993) dir. Rouben Mamoulian

3) Representations of "love that does not dare to speak its name"
    Rope (1948) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
    The Haunting (1963) dir. Robert Wise

4) In an alien space
    Alien Resurrection (1997) dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
    (Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992))

5) The surroundings of the "victim"
    Boys Don't Cry (1999) dir. Kimberly Peirce

References
＊Creekmur, Corey K. and Doty, Alexander, eds. Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian,
    and Queer Essays on Popular Culture.
＊Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society.
＊Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures
＊Hanson, Ellis, ed. Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film.
＊Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies.
＊Stacey, Jackie and Street, Sarah, eds. Queer Screen.
＊White, Patricia. Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability.