Journal articles on the topic 'LGBTQ Cinema'

Abstract This article examines representations of LGBTQ+ female protagonists in three recent Italian horror films: La terza madre (The Mother of Tears) by Dario Argento (2008), A Pezzi: Undead Men by Alessia Di Giovanni and Daniele Statella (2013) and The Antithesis by Mirabelli (2017). As homosexuality traditionally falls within the realm of the abject (that which is expelled) in horror films, the genre serves as a medium through which we may assess national and global sensibilities about LGBTQ+ identities. Filmic textual analysis and a consideration of horror and melodrama conventions reveal how these protagonists expose cultural anxieties about non-normative sexual orientations in Italy today. While these films include minority protagonists and offer some resistance to discrimination, they ultimately represent homosexuality as a threat to mainstream Italian culture.

Since the year 2000, twenty Icelandic films have been produced which could be aptly grouped as LGBTQ+ or queer Icelandic cinema. This “queer turn” in Icelandic cinema emerges as the nation makes strides in advancing LGBTQ+ rights and as its demographics markedly shift, first-generation immigrants now comprising 12.6 per cent of the population. These changes have not occurred in a vacuum, and the films discussed in this article complicate the boundary between native and foreign, Icelandic and non-Icelandic, alongside their centering of queer characters and stories. In addition to narrative focus on coming-out and sexuality, many of the films within “Icelandic queer cinema” thematize race and ethnicity, often through the inclusion of foreign characters living and traveling in Iceland.This collection of films is thus well suited to exploring the interlocking national and sexual regulations which produce the Icelandic nation state. This article explores conceptions of the Icelandic nation state in two films that span Icelandic cinema’s “queer turn,” Baltasar Kormákur’s 101 Reykjavík (2000) and Ísold Uggadóttir’s Andið eðlilega (And Breathe Normally, 2018). In tracing representations of racialized otherness within these films and taking theoretical cues from critical race theory and queer of color critique, this article considers the ways in which race and ethnicity co-constitute categories of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, this article poses “Icelandic queer cinema” as a key site for the contemporary negotiation of the meaning of national and sexual belonging in Iceland.

Power of variety. Review of the book The Contemporary Israeli Cinema 2 ed. by Joanna Preizner, Kraków 2018, 260 pp.Israeli contemporary cinema, according to many critics, is one of the most interesting world cinemas. Such theses can be concluded from the first series of the books on Israeli cinema — Contemporary Israeli Cinema ed. by J. Preizner, Austeria, Kraków 2015. This book was well received by the academic environment. Thus, the authors and the editor of it decided to create a second similar work. It was definitely a good decision. The reader can check it out at the very beginning of lecture, reading the introduction, written by Joanna Preizner. It is a text ardent in tone and elegant in style. A very important quality of the book is its broad spectrum of the themes of the articles it consists of. There are in it presentations of the splendid film accomplishments, touching some difficult motives of the Israeli society: condition of women, homosexual relationships and the situation of the LGBT environment and also the ghetto condition of contemporary Hasidim, which is similar to their condition in the 16th-century Europe.

The transformation of the concepts ―mass culture‖, ―pop culture‖ and those artistic genres, which are their components, in the scientific discourse of the 19th-21stI centuries is traced. The ways and results of the interaction of modern culture and society, which is the end-user of the cultural product, are studied. Some examples of modern cinema and music industry are analyzed, and it is determined that these two components being the most used by the consumer spheres of art directly reflect the world social trends. After having considered the key social processes it is possible to conclude that they are brightly represented in the modern popular music and this fact allowed not only to specify and systematize the ways of interaction between the music art and its consumers, but also to trace the ways of how exactly a mass consumer shapes the functioning and development of a popular and mass product. The ideas of combating various discriminations (by gender, identification - as in the case of LGBTQ+ community, by physique, etc.) and the creation of unified polycultural space have been defined as the most common ideas, that are broadcasting by performers. Therefore, in the analysis of selected works of pop music, a polycultural approach was used, which allows to consider them in terms of the synthesis of cultures and the formation of a global product, i.e. the one that will be understood and accessible to everyone. The analytical section includes compositions written by performers over the past few years that makes this analysis relevant and demonstrates that isolated trends occur now and continue to transform and change. Such comprehensive approach to the study of the mass culture can be useful to clarify the definition of this concept, as the interpretation and evaluation of this phenomenon of scientists today differs, despite the significant number of the mass culture studies and its individual forms in various fields of science — philosophy, culturology, sociology, psychology

From September 2017 to June 2020 the University of the Balearic Islands organised a monthly film workshop called Aules Sense Armaris: Cinema LGBTIQ+ a la UIB focused on giving visibility to affective and sexual diversity through film analysis in a university context. Each film was introduced with an interview with a queer activist or cultural expert related to the particular topics the film addressed, and after the screening a cinematographic and critical discussion was held in which the students contributed either with their own reflections or asking questions to the guests. This article exposes the necessity of approaching and celebrating sexual diversity from the university classroom as a form of activism. It also describes the as well as describing the criteria that were followed when choosing the films, how the monthly workshops took place and the most interesting conclusions from the post-film debates between activists, university students and spectators.

The advocacy for gayism and lesbianism in Nigeria is informed by transnational cultural processes, transculturalism, interculturalism, multiculturalism and globalisation. Although critical dimensions on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) are becoming recurrent subjects in Nigerian scholarship, scholarly works on LGBT, sexual identity and Nigerian cinema remain scarce. Perhaps, this is because of indigenous Nigerian cultural processes. While Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist cum socio-political activist, campaigns against marginalisation and subjugation of gays and lesbians and for their integration into the Nigerian cultural system, numerous African socio-cultural and political activists hold a view that is dialectical to Adichie’s. The position of the members of the anti-gay group was further strengthened with the institution of stringent laws against gay practice in Nigeria by the President Goodluck Jonathan led government in 2014. In recent times, the gay, bisexual, transgender and lesbian cultures have been a source of raw material for filmmakers. Some of the thematic preoccupations of films have bordered on questions such as: what does it mean to be gay? Why are gays marginalised? Are gays socially constructed? What is the future of the advocacy for gay and lesbian liberation in Nigeria? Although most Nigerian film narratives are destructive critiques of the gay culture, the purpose of this research is not to cast aspersion on the moral dimension of LGBT. Rather, I argue that films on LGBT create spaces and maps for a critical exploration of the gay question. While the paper investigates the politics of gay culture in Nigerian cinema, I also posit that gays and lesbians are socio-culturally rather than biologically constructed. This research adopts literary and content analysis methods to engage Moses Ebere’s Men in Love with reference to other home videos on the gay and lesbian motifs.

A filmografia de Pedro Almodóvar possui uma intrincada articulação entre sexualidade, gênero e polá­tica. Seu cinema rompe com estereótipos de gênero, inaugurando diferentes maneiras de se viver e representar as feminilidades e masculinidades, através de corpos estigmatizados e vistos como abjetos. O diretor rompe também com o binarismo identitário e as estruturas de poder conservadoras, permitindo que diferentes subjetividades sejam forjadas fora dos moldes da heteronormatividade. Neste artigo é feita uma busca e análise de personagens LGBTs dentro da sua obra cinematográfica, tendo como ponto de partida o contexto histórico espanhol ainda sob os efeitos do governo ditatorial de Francisco Franco. A partir dos anos 1980, a homossexualidade e a travestilidade ganharam projeção social maior, não podendo mais ser silenciadas ou condicionadas aos guetos e á marginalidade. Desse momento em diante, aquilo que estava sendo reprimido pela moral cristã ou pelos governos conservadores ganhou potência e impactou o cinema.Palavras-chave: Almodóvar. Corpos. Sexualidades.[UN]TURNED BODIES, MASCULINITIES AND FEMININITIES: a genealogy of subjects that permeate the cinema of Pedro AlmodóvarAbstract: Pedro Almodóvar's filmography has an intricate articulation between sexuality, gender and politics. His cinema breaks gender stereotypes, inaugurating different ways of living and representing femininity and masculinity, through bodies that are stigmatized and seen as abject. The director takes a break from identity binarism and traditional power structures, allowing for different subjectivities to be created outside the mold of heteronormativity. In this article I will analyze LGBT personages in the Almodóvar movies, taking as a starting point the Spanish historical context still under the effects of the dictatorial government of Francisco Franco. From the 1980s onwards, homosexuality and transsexuality gained greater social projection, and could no longer be silenced or limited to ghettos. From that moment on, what was being repressed by Christian morality or conservative governments gained power and impacted the cinema.Keywords: Almodóvar. Bodies. Sexualities.CUERPOS, MASCULINIDADES Y FEMINILIDADES DESVIADAS: una genealogá­a de los sujetos que pasan por el cine de Pedro AlmodóvarResumen: La filmografá­a de Pedro Almodóvar tiene una intrincada articulación entre sexualidad, género y polá­tica. Su cine rompe con los estereotipos de género, inaugurando diferentes formas de vivir la feminidad y la masculinidad, a través de cuerpos estigmatizados y vistos como abyectos. El director rompe también con el binarismo de identidad y las estructuras de poder conservadoras. Esto permite forjar diferentes subjetividades fuera del molde de la heteronormatividad. En este artá­culo se realiza una búsqueda y análisis de personajes LGBTs dentro de su trabajo cinematográfico, tomando como punto de partida el contexto histórico español bajo los efectos del gobierno dictatorial de Francisco Franco. A partir de la década de 1980, la homosexualidad y la travestilidad obtuvieron una mayor proyección social, y ya no pudieron ser silenciadas o condicionadas en los guetos y en la marginalidad. A partir de ese momento, lo que estaba siendo reprimido por la moral cristiana o los gobiernos conservadores ganó poder e impactó el cine.Palabras clave: Almodóvar. Cuerpos. Sexualidades.

RESUMO Este artigo analisa uma postagem publicada no site espanhol Dos Manzanas, que predica Pedro Almodóvar como "pedagogo da realidade LGBT", e alguns dos comentários que esta suscita. Interessa-nos estudar a reflexividade metapragmática que essa pedagogia produz numa discussão online que avalia se a cinematografia almodovariana projeta uma fachada (GOFFMAN, [1967] 2011) favorável para o coletivo em questão. Para tal, focamos em processos de indexicalidade, de entextualização e escalares na construção de significados. O que se observa é que os textos fílmicos, ao serem entextualizados no referido site de notícias LGBT, mobilizam escalas, que inspiram posicionamentos das/dos participantes. Se, por um lado, tais posicionamentos questionam privilégios heteronormativos (BUTLER, 1990), por outro resvalam em essencialismos nada estratégicos (SPIVAK, 1988; BUTLER, 1990).

A Cineground (1975-78) foi uma produtora de cinema amador, fundada em pleno PREC pelo artista plástico Óscar Alves e pelo cineasta João Paulo Ferreira. Projeto também ele revolucionário pela abordagem de sexualidades ainda criminalizadas na década de 1960/70, mostrou que a verdadeira libertação da sociedade teria de passar pela libertação do corpo individual. Esta cinematografia produzida em formato Super-8, e característica das condições sociais particulares deste tipo de circuito, abordou pela primeira vez no cinema português a temática gay, com a representação da vida dupla dos homossexuais (problemática do armário), e também queer, com a presença constante da personagem travesti. À discussão da performance travesti enquanto possibilidade de transgressão e desnaturalização de noções de género e identidade, segue-se uma reflexão sobre a representação e visibilidade das pessoas LGBT no cinema, no qual o Cineground, veículo de desobediência à ordem social e política da época, aparece como uma forma de artivismo.

O início da história da luta por direitos da comunidade LGBT, por vezes, é atribuído às manifestações contra a invasão do bar Stonewall Inn, no episódio que ficou conhecido como “rebelião de Stonewall”. O presente artigo objetiva pensar como se deu a construção da memória sobre o movimento de Stonewall ocorrido na cidade Nova Iorque, em 1969. Além disso, buscamos analisar de que maneira a experiência LGBT estadunidense é representada no cinema. Dessa forma, abordamos o contexto dos Estados Unidos da época, bem como o que foram os protestos de Stonewall e seu impacto para a comunidade LGBT. A questão da memória foi pensada a partir de fontes audiovisuais, com dois longa-metragens, “Stonewall - A Luta pelo Direito de Amar” (1995) e “Stonewall: Onde o Orgulho Começou” (2015), que tiveram diferentes recepções pelo público. Abordamos como esses dois filmes, apesar de tratarem do mesmo ocorrido, possuem narrativas e leituras diferentes sobre a rebelião de Stonewall.

Abstract Drawing on a detailed analysis of a corpus of three key Argentine post-2000 films in which the figure of the child as a sexual/gendered being is central, this article explores three core affective dimensions of the processes of queer child/teenage relational subjectivation. Firstly, it discusses the queer shameful or injured selves of LGBTIQ children/teens as nevertheless being able to open up new spaces of affective performativity that can potentially challenge gender/sexuality norms and boundaries. Secondly, it addresses early queer antagonism associated with the configurative role of the ‘closet space’. Thirdly, emerging processes of peer solidarity and alliances arising from queerness, and non-heteronormative sexualities more generally, are identified and subjected to a political reading in terms of different forms of relationality, mobility and agency. By examining the verbal as well as the visual dimensions of the referential and affective messages inscribed in these films, the analysis attends to both their articulated and non-articulated meanings.

This essay argues that Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives (dir. Israel Luna, 2010, hereafter TOTWK) uses homeopathic trans camp to re-mediate the phobic traumas that trans people face. TOTWK reworks its exploitation cinema aesthetic roots, turning traumas committed against trans people and the ‘bad’ feelings they espouse into homeopathic methods of healing trans bodies, both cinematic and material, through the practice of introjection. Building on philosophies of homeopathy and theories of body camp TOTWK explicates new modes of working through trauma that do not conform to individualistic social norms or to LGBT respectability politics, decentering medicalized, pathologized narratives of transition and trans embodiment.

In the Baltic States, LGBT representation in the media is limited at best. While LGBT activism continues to gain support and visibility, LGBT characters are considerably less common on film and television, and only Lithuania has produced films with openly gay or lesbian characters in main roles. This stands in contrast to the tendency in Baltic media and politics to lay claim to Nordic values and to identify as Northern European rather than Eastern European. In this paper I examine how two Lithuanian films grapple with identity and place in their depictions of gay characters. Porno Melodrama (Romas Zabarauskas, 2011) follows a gay couple as they are forced to choose between nationalistic homophobia and fleeing to “safer” cities in Western Europe. Nuo Lietuvos Nepabėgsi (You Can’t Escape Lithuania, Romas Zabarauskas, 2016) features a fictionalised version of its director in a meta-narrative meditation on the meaning of cinema as well as the place of queerness in the “new” Lithuania. In this article I interrogate how sexual and national identity are placed in contra-distinction to one another in the two films by Romas Zabarauskas: in Porno Melodrama, where gay identity is met with violent retribution; and in You Can’t Escape Lithuania, where queerness serves as a critique of the underlying foundations of gender, sexuality and nationalist narratives of belonging. I critique Western conceptions of homonormativity and homonationalism, where their problematic mapping onto a Baltic context fails to take into account the diverging reality in which neoliberalism has not been accompanied by more inclusive attitudes to sexual and gender diversity.

Porn is so safe; everything is inscribed in a master plan. Like a drug designed to consume entertainment and to be back to work in time, pornography allows you to be at ease in the corner of your world. Through masturbatory micro-rituals, it reaffirms all Western societies values. Back when Pluto was a planet, pushed by the advent of digital technology, a lightning ripped through the grey sky of this boredom valley. In the historical period between the nineties and the two-thousands, pushed by the possibilities of digital communication, a new body front emerged as theoretical and activist battleground, deconstructing the dogmatic anti-sexwork positions of historical feminism and LGBT-identities. “Porn Studies” came out as an open, multidisciplinary field, mixing Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Media Studies, Cinema History and Performance Art. One of the main goals stands in the use of pornography as text, in which to read and to deconstruct identity boundaries where either heteronormative or LGBT-gentrifying politics produce a flat market space. The application of D.I.Y.-ethics to “Porn Studies” moved the thought to a political and activist level through the practices of self- representation and cultural individualization.

Abstract Queer films are largely absent from Indonesian cinema and television screens due to the country’s current climate of LGBT ‘moral panic’. This article examines how, two decades after the reformation, Indonesian film practitioners are forced to navigate complex configurations of power and knowledge—negotiating social, political, and religious entanglements through their cinematic practices. My analysis is focused on komunitas film (film community/ies) and, more specifically, events and activities surrounding Luhki Herwanayogi’s short film On Friday Noon (2016), which chronicles the emotionally and physically fraught journey of a transgender Muslim woman as she seeks to perform Friday prayers. Drawing on this example, the article explores the disruptive potential of cinematic practice to challenge and nullify the ostensible binary between Islam and queerness, showing alternative ways of being Muslim in contemporary Indonesia, where piety and sexual identity often come together in unexpected ways.

Resumen. Desde el principio del siglo XX en los Estados Unidos y Europa, las personas vivían su homosexualidad a escondidas por temor a las leyes que la castigaban; el cine pues, les representa del mismo modo creando una subcultura en la que pueden ser ellos mismos.La cinematografía clásica y los años posteriores se componen de numerosos filmes cargados de representaciones homosexuales de manera oculta. Interpretados desde una lectura queer, conoceremos las mil maneras de sugerir a los gais y a las lesbianas en la gran pantalla, descubriendo así la verdadera condición sexual de muchos personajes.La modalidad latente sugiere la homosexualidad sin llegar a expresarla explícitamente. Los filmes se producían y leían en clave heterosexual, pero a lo largo de todo el largometraje hay un subtexto homosexual.Este estudio atiende a la presencia de personajes gais y lesbianas, principales o secundarios; en los que su homosexualidad es latente por imposición de la censura. A fin de lograr una reflexión crítica sobre sus características y evolución, se estudian también algunos ejemplos claves de representación semilatente y explícita.El objetivo principal es conocer las razones de la censura y responder a cómo se podía ofrecer un relato con componentes homosexuales sin que ésta se percatara. La intención es analizar el contenido de esos filmes, la evolución de los roles y los significados que se han vinculado a cada uno de ellos y encontrar las relaciones en el discurso latente.Palabras clave: homosexualidad, representación latente, cine, LGBTI, gay, lesbiana.Abstract. From the beginning of the XX century in the United States and Europe people lived their homosexuality hidden for fear of the laws that punished it. The cinema represents them in the same way by creating a subculture where homosexuals can be themselves.Classical cinematography and beyond are composed of numerous films loaded with homosexual representations hidden. Interpreted from a ‘queer’ reading we know the thousand ways of suggesting gays and lesbians on the big screen, exposing the true sexual condition of many characters. Latent homosexuality suggests mode without explicitly express it. The films were produced and read in straight key but throughout the film there is a homosexual subtext.Gay statements had to be clear enough but care enough to avoid arousing the suspicion of the censors whonsometimes omitted so many movie scenes that were lacking a logical narrative.It pays attention the presence of gays and lesbians, major or minor characters, which their latent homosexuality is imposing by censorship.The main objective is to understand the reasons of censorship and respond to how they could offer a story with homosexual components without noticing it. The intention is to analyze the content of these films, the evolution of the roles and the meanings have been linked to each of them and find relationships in the latent discourse.Keywords: homosexuality, latent representation, cinema, LGBTI, gay, lesbian.

Between 2012 and 2019, this qualitative sociological research was part of a documentary "boom" moment in Brazil, in terms of production and international recognition. Faced with a bottleneck in terms of their distribution, a growing number of festivals have opened up for documentaries, not counting the historical festival "É tudo Verdade" (São Paulo). This period also corresponds to a time when attempts at policies in favor of documentary films were made by the Federation and the Ministry of Culture (MinC) – public channel TV Brasil, TV Cultura, Doc.TV... These various advances have allowed the expression of a "black" cinema (Joel Zito Araujo), LGBT concerns (Karla Holanda), women’s rights (Helena Solberg and Susanna Lira) and the possibility for indigenous people to seize digital tools to reflect their own realities (Vincent Carelli, Video nas aldeias). Thus, while the Brazilian authorities were carrying out unfinished policies facing the weight of the private oligopolistic sector, it was interesting to analyze how documentary filmmakers developed their professional strategies. From this perspective, fourteen directors were the subject of semi-structured interviews in the state of Rio de Janeiro and three in Minas Gerais. In addition, producers and festival managers were also contacted. But the arrival of the Bolsonaro government caused a real rift. Against a backdrop of cultural war, fake news aimed at discrediting artistic circles, the takeover of the National Cinema Agency (ANCINE) and the abandonment of the São Paulo film library, cuts from major corporate sponsors, and beyond, Brazilian documentary filmmakers have found themselves strangers in their own country.

Este artigo pretende a realização de uma antropologia do cinema a partir do filme Tatuagem (dir. Hilton Lacerda, Brasil, 2013) para pensar temas caros às discussões políticas LGBTs contemporâneas como a luta por direitos civis e a dicotomia entre carnaval e política que ronda essas manifestações nas últimas décadas. Tatuagem traz à tona antigas possibilidades do estar junto para os “modos de vida”, como a amizade, num tempo como o atual em que os moldes da família e do casamento tradicional passaram a compor os mais caros ideais coletivos LGBTs. O filme também aponta a possibilidade de se pensar o deboche e o humor camp enquanto formas políticas legítimas e contestadoras. Nesse sentido, esse trabalho também vai pensar numa festa que não existe mais, o carnaval do Roma, realizado na cidade de Florianópolis, do final dos anos 1970 até o ano de 2008, reconhecido nesse período como um carnaval LGBT que reunia moradores e turistas que performavam e carnavalizavam nesse espaço suas identidades. Defendo que a força política desse carnaval e das manifestações narradas em Tatuagem está em grande medida ancorada nas desestabilizações e deslocamentos que pressionam os campos de gênero e sexualidade estabelecidos socioculturalmente.

Este artigo trata da peculiar relação tripartida entre o cinema, a Psicologia Positiva e aresiliência. Apresenta-se uma forma de resiliência nomeada “do outro”, baseada em“enfrentar”, para conseguir superar uma limitação que acaba por limitar as ações, restringindoa felicidade. Para isso, buscaram-se filmes edificantes, que correspondam aos critérios daPsicologia Positiva, para ilustrar distintas formas de enfrentamento capazes de controlar (e atéprevenir) abalos físicos e emocionais provocados pelos limites impostos por outros, com aintenção de restringir a felicidade. As histórias selecionadas contam enfretamentos bemdíspares: enquanto o pianista David Helfgott, no filme Shine (1996), precisa confrontar opróprio pai na busca por seu lugar de bem-estar emocional na vida, o político profissionalHarvey Milk, no longa-metragem que leva seu nome, Milk (2008), se vê diante uma massacontrária à existência de membros da comunidade LGBTI na vida pública norte-americana.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as representações sobre filmes com temática lésbica construídas pelo jornal recifense Diario de Pernambuco entre 2016 e início de 2020. Para tanto, focalizará resenhas críticas publicadas concomitantemente aos lançamentos de três filmes de diferentes nacionalidades: Carol (2015), dirigido por Todd Haynes, Rafiki (2018), de Wanuri Kahiu e Retrato de Uma Jovem em Chamas (2019), de Céline Sciamma. Considerando os contextos de produção e recepção das matérias e das obras cinematográficas, o artigo procura as representações sobre mulheres e identidades LGBT+ em artigos publicados em diversas editorias neste que é um periódico tradicional e influente, à luz da Teoria das Representações Sociais, como proposta por Denise Jodelet.

Segundo pesquisas, as mulheres negras são maioria no trabalho doméstico brasileiro. Um levantamento da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT) mostrou que mais de 7 milhões de pessoas no Brasil vivem dessa profissão, o que reflete a desigualdade social do país. Dados também mostram que pessoas negras e LGBT são presença minoritária nos filmes norte-americanos e nacionais; quando contemplados, com frequência podem reforçar preconceitos e desigualdade quanto à identidade individual ou coletiva desses grupos e seus integrantes. Esta pesquisa discute as representações de gênero, classe e raça nos cinemas brasileiro e norte-americano. O conceito de masculinidade tóxica (MAGHFIROH, 2017) é estudado a partir dos filmes Madame Satã (Karim Aïnouz, 2002) e Moonlight: sob a luz do luar (Barry Jenkins, 2016), a fim de compreender a representação do homossexual negro e marginalizado. Nos filmes norte-americano Histórias Cruzadas (The help, Tate Taylor, 2011) e brasileiro Que Horas Ela Volta? (2015, Anna Muylaert), verificamos as representações sociais das relações entre patroa branca e empregada negra, a partir de reflexões teóricas sobre gênero, raça, classe e sexualidade (LOURO, 2004; RODRIGUES, 2011; BUTLER, 2003; DAVIS, 2016). A metodologia utilizada para a realização da pesquisa foi a análise fílmica. Os filmes apresentam elementos para o debate e questionamento de concepções que envolvem esses grupos

Using film semiotics, queer studies, and discourse theory as developed by Laclau, Mouffe, and Žižek, an enunciative and rhetorical analysis of Rosa Patria (Pink Motherland) (Santiago Loza, 2008–2009) and Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento (Peronist Faggots, Cumbia Feeling) (Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011) points to the changes in the political and cinematic frames that have enabled the transformation of LGBT people into political subjects in the context of the Argentine documentary of the twenty-first century. The metaenunciative and metadiegetic marks made evident by reframing processes in audiovisual texts can be read as a discursive transition from “element” to “moment” and as cinematic-reflexive symbolization of the traumatic event posed by the dislocation or antagonism that institutes these identities in situated local contexts, contexts contemporary with the struggles for diverse sexual citizenship that led to the promulgation of Argentina’s Equal Marriage (2010) and Gender Identity (2012) Laws. Utilizando herramientas de la semiótica del cine, la teoría queer y la teoría del discurso de Laclau, Mouffe y Žižek, un análisis enunciativo y retórico de Rosa Patria (Santiago Loza, 2008 -2009) y Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento (Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011) se concentra en cambios de marcos políticos y cinematográficos que hacen posible la transformación de las personas LGBT en sujetos políticos en el documental argentino del siglo XXI. Esas marcas metaenunciativas y metadiegéticas que los procesos de re-enmarque dejan en los textos audiovisuales pueden leerse como pasaje discursivo de “elemento” a “momento” y como simbolización cinematográfico-reflexiva del acontecimiento traumático de la dislocación o antagonismo que instituye a dichas identidades en contextos locales situados, contextos contemporáneos a las luchas por una ciudadanía sexual diversa conducentes a la promulgación de la Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario (2010) y la Ley de Identidad de Género (2012).

La revue Masques a joué un rôle important, à partir de 1979 et durant la première moitié des années 1980, au côté du périodique Gai Pied, dans l’affirmation publique de la communauté LGBT, de même que dans l’émergence d’un champ médiatique qui lui soit dédié. Elle a manifesté également une mutation dans les formes d’action qui ont affecté alors le militantisme homosexuel de la décennie précédente, mutation qui a conduit à accorder à la dimension culturelle et aux modes de vie une place majeure à partir du moment où l’homosexualité a été pleinement dépénalisée. La revue s’est ensuite prolongée au travers d’une maison d’édition, Persona – la première structure éditoriale se revendiquant de l’homosexualité en France –, à l’activité intense durant cinq ans. Le catalogue de cette dernière, reconnue dans l’espace éditorial, a vu coexister littérature exigeante, études (principalement sur le cinéma), documents et enquêtes sociologiques. La cohabitation entre hommes et femmes au sein d’une revue qui se voulait délibérément mixte n’a toutefois pas été aisée au moment où les lesbiennes ont entendu manifester leur singularité à travers leurs propres publications, de sorte que différentes tensions sont advenues et que les contenus gais se sont montrés majoritaires au fil des numéros parus. L’inscription dans la durée, surtout, malgré le passage d’une parution trimestrielle à un format mensuel, s’est heurtée à un manque de trésorerie, en même temps sans doute qu’à des erreurs de gestion de jeunesse, ainsi qu’à une frilosité certaine des partenaires professionnels, libraires comme annonceurs, encore fortement réticents, dans ces années-là, envers des publications LGBT. Il en est résulté que les deux entreprises ont dû cesser leurs activités en 1986.

A slash manip is a photo remix that montages visual signs from popular media with those from gay pornography, creating a new cultural artefact. Slash (see Russ) is a fannish practice that homoeroticises the bonds between male media characters and personalities—female pairings are categorised separately as ‘femslash’. Slash has been defined almost exclusively as a female practice. While fandom is indeed “women-centred” (Bury 2), such definitions have a tendency to exclude male contributions. Remix has been well acknowledged in discussions on slash, most notably video remix in relation to slash vids (Kreisinger). Non-written slash forms such as slash vids (see Russo) and slash fanart (see Dennis) have received increased attention in recent years. This article continues the tradition of moving beyond fiction by considering the non-written form of slash manips, yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. Speaking as a practitioner—my slash manips can be found here—I perform textual analysis from an aca–fan (academic and fan) position of two Merlin slash manips by male Tumblr artist wandsinhand. My textual analysis is influenced by Barthes’s use of image semiotics, which he applies to the advertising image. Barthes notes that “all images are polysemous”, that underlying their signifiers they imply “a ‘floating chain’ of signifieds, the reader able to choose some and ignore others” (274). That said, the advertising image, he argues, constructs an “undoubtedly intentional […] signification”, making it ideally suited for analysis (270). By supplementing my analysis with excerpts from two interviews I conducted with wandsinhand in February and April 2013 (quoted here with permission), I support my readings with respect to the artist’s stated ‘intentional reading’. I then contextualise these readings with respect to canon (Merlin) representations and gay pornography—via the chosen sexual acts/positions, bukkake and doggystyle, of the pornographic base models, as selected by the artist. This approach allows me to examine the photo remix qualities of slash manips with respect to the artist’s intentions as well as how artistic choices of inclusion function to anchor meaning in the works. I describe these choices as the ‘semiotic significance of selection’. Together the readings and interviews in this article help illustrate the value of this form and the new avenues it opens for slash scholars, such as consideration of photo remix and male production, and the importance of gay pornography to slash. My interviews also reveal, via the artist’s own assessment of the ‘value’ of his practice, a tendency to devalue or overlook the significance of this particular slash form, affirming a real need for further critical engagement with this under-examined practice. Slash Photo Remix: Famous Faces, Porny Bodies Lessig defines remix culture as based on an activity of “rip, mix and burn” (12–5); while Navas describes it as a “practice of cut/copy and paste” (159)—the latter being more applicable to photo remix. Whereas Lessig is concerned primarily with issues of copyright, Navas is interested in remix’s role in aesthetics and the political economy. Within fan studies, slash vids—a form of video remix—has been a topic of considerable academic interest in recent years. Slash manips—a form of photo or image remix—however, has not attracted the same degree of interest. Stasi’s description of slash as “a non-hierarchical, rich layering of genres” points to the usefulness of slash manips as an embodiment of the process of slash; whereby artists combine, blend and mutate graphic layers from popular media with those from gay pornography. Aesthetics and the slash manip process are central concerns of this article’s consideration of slash photo remix. Slash manips, or slash photo montage, use image manipulation software (Adobe Photoshop being the community standard, see wandsinhand’s tutorial) to layer the heads of male fictional characters from stills or promotional images with scenes—static or moving—from gay pornography. Once an artist has selected pornographic ‘base models’ anatomically suited to canon characters, these models are often then repositioned into the canon universe, which in the case of Merlin means a medieval setting. (Works not repositioned and without added details from canon are generally categorised as ‘male celebrity fakes’ rather than ‘slash manips’.) Stedman contends that while many fan studies scholars are interested in remix, “studies commonly focus on examples of remixed objects rather than the compositional strategies used by remix composers themselves” (107). He advocates moving beyond an exclusive consideration of “text-centred approaches” to also consider “practice-” and “composer-centred” approaches. Such approaches offer insight into “the detailed choices composers actually make when composing” (107). He refers to recognition of the skills required by a remix composer as “remix literacy” (108). This article’s consideration of the various choices and skills that go into the composition of slash manips—what I term the ‘semiotic significance of selection’—is explored with respect to wandsinhand’s practice, coupling my reading—informed by my experience as a practitioner—with the interpretations of the artist himself. Jenkins defines slash as “reaction against” constructions of male sexuality in both popular media and pornography (189). By their very nature, slash manips also make clear the oft-overlooked connections between slash and gay pornography, and in turn the contributions of gay male participants, who are well represented by the form. This contrasts with a tendency within scholarship to compare slash with heterosexual female forms, such as the romance genre (Salmon and Symons). Gay pornography plays a visible role in slash manips—and slash vids, which often remix scenes from popular media with gay cinema and pornography. Slash as Romance, Slash as Pornography Early scholarship on slash (see Russ; Lamb and Veith) defines it as a form of erotica or pornography, by and for women; a reductive definition that fails to take into account men’s contribution, yet one that many researchers continue to adopt today. As stated above, there has also been a tendency within scholarship to align the practice with heterosexual female forms such as the romance genre. Such a tendency is by and large due to theorisation of slash as heterosexual female fantasy—and concerned primarily with romance and intimacy rather than sex (see Woledge). Weinstein describes slash as more a “fascination with” than a “representation of” homosexual relationships (615); while MacDonald makes the point that homosexuality is not a major political motivator for slash (28–9). There is no refuting that slash—along with most fannish practice—is female dominated, ethnographic work and fandom surveys reveal that is the case. However there is great need for research into male production of slash, particularly how such practices might challenge reigning definitions and assumptions of the practice. In similar Japanese practices, for example, gay male opposition to girls’ comics (shōjo) depicting love between ‘pretty boys’ (bishōunen) has been well documented (see Hori)—Men’s Love (or bara) is a subgenre of Boys’ Love (or shōnen’ai) predominately created by gay men seeking a greater connection with the lived reality of gay life (Lunsing). Dennis finds male slash fanart producers more committed to muscular representations and depiction of graphic male/male sex when compared with female-identifying artists (14, 16). He also observes that male fanart artists have a tendency of “valuing same-sex desire without a heterosexual default and placing it within the context of realistic gay relationships” (11). I have observed similar differences between male and female-identifying slash manip artists. Female-identifying Nicci Mac, for example, will often add trousers to her donor bodies, recoding them for a more romantic context. By contrast, male-identifying mythagowood is known for digitally enlarging the penises and rectums of his base models, exaggerating his work’s connection to the pornographic and the macabre. Consider, for example, mythagowood’s rationale for digitally enlarging and importing ‘lips’ for Sam’s (Supernatural) rectum in his work Ass-milk: 2012, which marks the third anniversary of the original: Originally I wasn’t going to give Sammy’s cunt any treatment (before I determined the theme) but when assmilk became the theme I had to go find a good set of lips to slap on him and I figured, it’s been three years, his hole is going to be MUCH bigger. (personal correspondence, used with permission) While mythagowood himself cautions against gendered romance/pornography slash arguments—“I find it annoying that people attribute certain specific aspects of my work to something ‘only a man’ would make.” (ibid.)—gay pornography occupies an important place in the lives of gay men as a means for entertainment, community engagement and identity-construction (see McKee). As one of the only cultural representations available to gay men, Fejes argues that gay pornography plays a crucial role in defining gay male desire and identity. This is confirmed by an Internet survey conducted by Duggan and McCreary that finds 98% of gay participants reporting exposure to pornographic material in the 30-day period prior to the survey. Further, the underground nature of gay pornographic film (see Dyer) aligns it with slash as a subcultural practice. I now analyse two Merlin slash manips with respect to the sexual positions of the pornographic base models, illustrating how gay pornography genres and ideologies referenced through these works enforce their intended meaning, as defined by the artist. A sexual act such as bukkake, as wandsinhand astutely notes, acts as a universal sign and “automatically generates a narrative for the image without anything really needing to be detailed”. Barthes argues that such a “relation between thing signified and image signifying in analogical representation” is unlike language, which has a much more ‘arbitrary’ relationship between signifier and signified (272). Bukkake and the Assertion of Masculine Power in Merlin Merlin (2008–12) is a BBC reimagining of the Arthurian legend that focuses on the coming-of-age of Arthur and his close bond with his manservant Merlin, who keeps his magical identity secret until Arthur’s final stand in the iconic Battle of Camlann. The homosexual potential of Merlin and Arthur’s story—and of magic as a metaphor for homosexuality—is something slash fans were quick to recognise. During question time at the first Merlin cast appearance at the London MCM Expo in October 2008—just one month after the show’s pilot first aired—a fan asked Morgan and James, who portray Merlin and Arthur, is Merlin “meant to be a love story between Arthur and Merlin?” James nods in jest. Wandsinhand, who is most active in the Teen Wolf (2011–present) fandom, has produced two Merlin slash manips to date, a 2013 Merlin/Arthur and a 2012 Arthur/Percival, both untitled. The Merlin/Arthur manip (see Figure 1) depicts Merlin bound and on his knees, Arthur ejaculating across his face and on his chest. Merlin is naked while Arthur is partially clothed in chainmail and armour. They are both bruised and dirty, Arthur’s injuries suggesting battle given his overall appearance, while Merlin’s suggesting abuse, given his subordinate position. The setting appears to be the royal stables, where we know Merlin spends much of his time mucking out Arthur’s horses. I am left to wonder if perhaps Merlin did not carry out this duty to Arthur’s satisfaction, and is now being punished for it; or if Arthur has returned from battle in need of sexual gratification and the endorsement of power that comes from debasing his manservant. Figure 1: wandsinhand, Untitled (Merlin/Arthur), 2013, photo montage. Courtesy the artist. Both readings are supported by Arthur’s ‘spent’ expression of disinterest or mild curiosity, while Merlin’s face emotes pain: crying and squinting through the semen obscuring his vision. The artist confirms this reading in our interview: “Arthur is using his pet Merlin to relieve some stress; Merlin of course not being too pleased about the aftermath, but obedient all the same.” The noun ‘pet’ evokes the sexual connotations of Merlin’s role as Arthur’s personal manservant, while also demoting Merlin even further than usual. He is, in Arthur’s eyes, less than human, a sexual plaything to use and abuse at will. The artist’s statement also confirms that Arthur is acting against Merlin’s will. Violence is certainly represented here, the base models having been ‘marked up’ to depict sexualisation of an already physically and emotionally abusive relationship, their relative positioning and the importation of semen heightening the humiliation. Wandsinhand’s work engages characters in sadomasochistic play, with semen and urine frequently employed to degrade and arouse—“peen wolf”, a reference to watersports, is used within his Teen Wolf practice. The two wandsinhand works analysed in this present article come without words, thus lacking a “linguistic message” (Barthes 273–6). However even so, the artist’s statement and Arthur’s stance over “his pet Merlin” mean we are still able to “skim off” (270) the meanings the image contains. The base models, for example, invite comparison with the ‘gay bukkake’ genre of gay pornography—admittedly with a single dominant male rather than a group. Gay bukkake has become a popular niche in North American gay pornography—it originated in Japan as a male–female act in the 1980s. It describes a ritualistic sexual act where a group of dominant men—often identifying as heterosexual—fuck and debase a homosexual, submissive male, commonly bareback (Durkin et al. 600). The aggression on display in this act—much like the homosocial insistency of men who partake in a ‘circle jerk’ (Mosher 318)—enables the participating men to affirm their masculinity and dominance by degrading the gay male, who is there to service (often on his knees) and receive—in any orifice of the group’s choosing—the men’s semen, and often urine as well. The equivalencies I have made here are based on the ‘performance’ of the bukkake fantasy in gay niche hazing and gay-for-pay pornography genres. These genres are fuelled by antigay sentiment, aggression and debasement of effeminate males (see Kendall). I wish here to resist the temptation of labelling the acts described above as deviant. As is a common problem with anti-pornography arguments, to attempt to fix a practice such as bukkake as deviant and abject—by, for example, equating it to rape (Franklin 24)—is to negate a much more complex consideration of distinctions and ambiguities between force and consent; lived and fantasy; where pleasure is, where it is performed and where it is taken. I extend this desire not to label the manip in question, which by exploiting the masculine posturing of Arthur effectively sexualises canon debasement. This began with the pilot when Arthur says: “Tell me Merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?” Of the imported imagery—semen, bruising, perspiration—the key signifier is Arthur’s armour which, while torn in places, still ensures the encoding of particular signifieds: masculinity, strength and power. Doggystyle and the Subversion of Arthur’s ‘Armoured Self’ Since the romanticism and chivalric tradition of the knight in shining armour (see Huizinga) men as armoured selves have become a stoic symbol of masculine power and the benchmark for aspirational masculinity. For the medieval knight, armour reflects in its shiny surface the mettle of the man enclosed, imparting a state of ‘bodilessness’ by containing any softness beneath its shielded exterior (Burns 140). Wandsinhand’s Arthur/Percival manip (see Figure 2) subverts Arthur and the symbolism of armour with the help of arguably the only man who can: Arthur’s largest knight Percival. While a minor character among the knights, Percival’s physical presence in the series looms large, and has endeared him to slash manip artists, particularly those with only a casual interest in the series, such as wandsinhand: Why Arthur and Percival were specifically chosen had really little to do with the show’s plot, and in point of fact, I don’t really follow Merlin that closely nor am I an avid fan. […] Choosing Arthur/Percival really was just a matter of taste rather than being contextually based on their characterisations in the television show. Figure 2: wandsinhand, Untitled (Arthur/Percival), 2012, photo montage. Courtesy the artist. Concerning motivation, the artist explains: “Sometimes one’s penis decides to pick the tv show Merlin, and specifically Arthur and Percival.” The popularity of Percival among manip artists illustrates the power of physicality as a visual sign, and the valorisation of size and muscle within the gay community (see Sánchez et al.). Having his armour modified to display his muscles, the implication is that Percival does not need armour, for his body is already hard, impenetrable. He is already suited up, simultaneously man and armoured. Wandsinhand uses the physicality of this character to strip Arthur of his symbolic, masculine power. The work depicts Arthur with a dishevelled expression, his armoured chest pressed against the ground, his chainmail hitched up at the back to expose his arse, Percival threading his unsheathed cock inside him, staring expressionless at the ‘viewer’. The artist explains he “was trying to show a shift of power”: I was also hinting at some sign of struggle, which is somewhat evident on Arthur’s face too. […] I think the expressions work in concert to suggest […] a power reversal that leaves Arthur on the bottom, a position he’s not entirely comfortable accepting. There is pleasure to be had in seeing the “cocky” Arthur forcefully penetrated, “cut down to size by a bigger man” (wandsinhand). The two assume the ‘doggystyle’ position, an impersonal sexual position, without eye contact and where the penetrator sets the rhythm and intensity of each thrust. Scholars have argued that the position is degrading to the passive party, who is dehumanised by the act, a ‘dog’ (Dworkin 27); and rapper Snoop ‘Doggy’ Dogg exploits the misogynistic connotations of the position on his record Doggystyle (see Armstrong). Wandsinhand is clear in his intent to depict forceful domination of Arthur. Struggle is signified through the addition of perspiration, a trademark device used by this artist to symbolise struggle. Domination in a sexual act involves the erasure of the wishes of the dominated partner (see Cowan and Dunn). To attune oneself to the pleasures of a sexual partner is to regard them as a subject. To ignore such pleasures is to degrade the other person. The artist’s choice of pairing embraces the physicality of the male/male bond and illustrates a tendency among manip producers to privilege conventional masculine identifiers—such as size and muscle—above symbolic, nonphysical identifiers, such as status and rank. It is worth noting that muscle is more readily available in the pornographic source material used in slash manips—muscularity being a recurrent component of gay pornography (see Duggan and McCreary). In my interview with manip artist simontheduck, he describes the difficulty he had sourcing a base image “that complimented the physicality of the [Merlin] characters. […] The actor that plays Merlin is fairly thin while Arthur is pretty built, it was difficult to find one. I even had to edit Merlin’s body down further in the end.” (personal correspondence, used with permission) As wandsinhand explains, “you’re basically limited by what’s available on the internet, and even then, only what you’re prepared to sift through or screencap yourself”. Wandsinhand’s Arthur/Percival pairing selection works in tandem with other artistic decisions and inclusions—sexual position, setting, expressions, effects (perspiration, lighting)—to ensure the intended reading of the work. Antithetical size and rank positions play out in the penetration/submission act of wandsinhand’s work, in which only the stronger of the two may come out ‘on top’. Percival subverts the symbolic power structures of prince/knight, asserting his physical, sexual dominance over the physically inferior Arthur. That such a construction of Percival is incongruent with the polite, impeded-by-my-size-and-muscle-density Percival of the series speaks to the circumstances of manip production, much of which is on a taste basis, as previously noted. There are of course exceptions to this, the Teen Wolf ‘Sterek’ (Stiles/Derek) pairing being wandsinhand’s, but even in this case, size tends to couple with penetration. Slash manips often privilege physicality of the characters in question—as well as the base models selected—above any particular canon-supported slash reading. (Of course, the ‘queering’ nature of slash practice means at times there is also a desire to see such identifiers subverted, however in this example, raw masculine power prevails.) This final point is in no way representative—my practice, for example, combines manips with ficlets to offer a clearer connection with canon, while LJ’s zdae69 integrates manips, fiction and comics. However, common across slash manip artists driven by taste—and requests—rather than connection with canon—the best known being LJ’s tw-31988, demon48180 and Tumblr’s lwoodsmalestarsfakes, all of whom work across many fandoms—is interest in the ‘aesthetics of canon’, the blue hues of Teen Wolf or the fluorescent greens of Arrow (2012–present), displayed in glossy magazine format using services such as ISSUU. In short, ‘the look’ of the work often takes precedent over canonical implications of any artistic decisions. “Nothing Too Serious”: Slash Manips as Objects Worth Studying It had long been believed that the popular was the transient, that of entertainment rather than enlightenment; that which is manufactured, “an appendage of the machinery”, consumed by the duped masses and a product not of culture but of a ‘culture industry’ (Adorno and Rabinbach 12). Scholars such as Radway, Ang pioneered a shift in scholarly practice, advancing the cultural studies project by challenging elitism and finding meaning in traditionally devalued cultural texts and practices. The most surprising outcome of my interviews with wandsinhand was hearing how he conceived of his practice, and the study of slash: If I knew I could get a PhD by writing a dissertation on Slash, I would probably drop out of my physics papers! […] I don’t really think too highly of faking/manip-making. I mean, it’s not like it’s high art, is it? … or is it? I guess if Duchamp’s toilet can be a masterpiece, then so can anything. But I mainly just do it to pass the time, materialise fantasies, and disperse my fantasies unto others. Nothing too serious. Wandsinhand erects various binaries—academic/fan, important/trivial, science/arts, high art/low art, profession/hobby, reality/fantasy, serious/frivolous—as justification to devalue his own artistic practice. Yet embracing the amateur, personal nature of his practice frees him to “materialise fantasies” that would perhaps not be possible without self-imposed, underground production. This is certainly supported by his body of work, which plays with taboos of the unseen, of bodily fluids and sadomasochism. My intention with this article is not to contravene views such as wandsinhand’s. Rather, it is to promote slash manips as a form of remix culture that encourages new perspectives on how slash has been defined, its connection with male producers and its symbiotic relationship with gay pornography. I have examined the ‘semiotic significance of selection’ that creates meaning in two contrary slash manips; how these works actualise and resist canon dominance, as it relates to the physical and the symbolic. This examination also offers insight into this form’s connection to and negotiation with certain ideologies of gay pornography, such as the valorisation of size and muscle. 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Introduction: Serial Space“It feels …like the edge of the world; far more remote than it actually is, perhaps because it looks at such immensity” (Godden “Black,” 38). This is the priest’s warning to Sister Clodagh in Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel Black Narcissus. The young, inexperienced Clodagh leads a group of British nuns through the Indian Himalayas and onto a remote mountain top above Mopu. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger adapted Godden’s novel into the celebrated feature film, Black Narcissus (1947). Following the novel, the film narrates the nuns’ mission to establish a convent, school, and hospital for the local population. Yet, immensity moves in mysterious ways. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) loses her managerial grip. Sister Philippa (Flora Robson) cultivates wild flowers instead of vegetables. Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) sheds nun’s attire for red lipstick and a Parisian dress. The young Indian woman Kanchi (Jean Simmons) becomes a force of libidinous disturbance. At the twilight of the British Empire, white, western nuns experience the psychical effects of colonialism at the precipice. Taking such cues from Pressburger and Powell’s film, Michelle Williams Gamaker, an artist, filmmaker, and scholar, responds to Black Narcissus, both film and novel. She does so through a radical interpretation of her own. Gamaker William’s 24-minute film, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten (forthcoming, London 2018) is a longer “short,” which breaks the mould of what scholar Linda Hutcheon would term an “adaptation” (2006). For Hutcheon, there is a double “mode of engagement” between an original work and its adapted form (22). On the one hand, there is a “transcoding” (22). This involves “transporting” characters from a precedent work to its adapted form (11). On the other, there is an act of “creative interpretation” (22). The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten transports yet recreates the Indian “beggar girl” Kanchi, played by a “blacked up” white Hollywood actor Jean Simmons (Black Narcissus), into Williams Gamaker’s contemporary Kanchi, played by Krishna Istha. In this 2018 instalment, Kanchi is an Asian and transgender protagonist of political articulacy. Hence, Williams Gamaker’s film engages a double tactic of both transporting yet transforming Kanchi, as well as Sisters Clodagh and Philippa, from the feature film into The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. To analyse Williams Gamaker’s film, I will make a theoretical jump off the precipice, stepping from Hutcheon’s malleable concept of adaptation into a space of “trans-serial” narrative.In what follows, I shall read The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten as an “episode” in a serial. The prior episodes, Williams Gamaker’s House of Women (London 2017, Berlin 2018) is a short, fictional, and surreal documentary about casting the role of Kanchi. It can be read as the next episode in Kanchi’s many incarnations. The relationship between Sister Clodagh (Kelly Hunter as voiceover) and Kanchi in House of Women develops from one of confrontation to a transgender kiss in the climatic beat of The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. Williams Gamaker’s film can be read as one of a series which is itself inflected with the elements of a “trans-serial.” Henry Jenkins argues that “transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels” (emphasis in original, “Transmedia”). I use the word “trans” to define the gap between novelistic texts and film. Throughout Williams Gamaker’s series, she uses many textual citations from Godden’s novel, and dialogue from Pressburger and Powell’s film. In other words, verbal elements as well as filmic images are adapted in Hutcheon’s sense and transmediated in Jenkins’s sense. To build the “serial” concept for my analysis requires re-working concepts from television studies. Jason Mittell introduces “narrative complexity” as the “redefinition of episodic forms under serial narration” (“Narrative,” 32). In serial TV, characters and narratives develop over a sequence of episodes and seasons. In serial TV, missing one episode can thwart the viewer’s reception of later ones. Mittell’s examples reveal the plasticity of the narrative complexity concept. He mentions TV series that play games with the audience’s expectations. As Mittell points out, Seinfeld has reflexive qualities (“Narrative,” 35) and Twin Peaks mixes genres (“Narrative,” 33). I would add that Lynch’s creative liberties offered characters who could appear and disappear while leaving their arcs hanging intriguingly unresolved. The creative possibilities of reflexivity via seriality, of characters who appear and disappear or return in different guises, are strategies that underpin William’s Gamaker’s short film serial. The third in her trilogy, The Eternal Return (in post-production 2018) fictionalises the life of Sabu, the actor who played the General’s son in Black Narcissus. Once again, the protagonist, this time male, is played by Krishna Istha, a non-binary transgender actor who, by taking all the lead roles in William’s Gamaker’s trilogy, grows over the serial as a malleable ethnic and transgender subject. Importantly, The Eternal Return carries residues of the characters from The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten by casting the same team of actors again (Charlotte Gallagher and myself Catherine Lord), and switching their genders. Istha played Kanchi in the previous two episodes. The General’s son, played by Sabu, courted Kanchi in Black Narcissus. In The Eternal Return, Istha crosses the character and gender boundary by playing Sabu. Such casting tactics subvert the gender and colonial hegemonies inherent in Pressburger and Powell’s film.The reflexive and experimental approach of Williams Gamaker’s filmmaking deploys serial narrative tactics for its political goals. Yet, the use of “serial” needs to be nuanced. Glen Creeber sets out three terms: “episodic,” “series” and “serial.” For Creeber, a series provides continuous storylines in which the connection between episodes is strong. In the serial format, the connection between the episodes is less foregrounded. While it is not possible to enjoy stand-alone episodes in a serial, at the same time, serials produce inviting gaps between episodes. Final resolutions are discouraged so that there are greater narrative possibilities for later seasons and the audience’s own game of speculative storytelling (11).The emerging “serial” gaps between Williams Gamaker’s episodes offer opportunities for political interpretation. From House of Women and The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi develops an even stronger political voice. Kanchi’s character arc moves from the wordless obedience of Pressburger and Powell’s feature to the transgender voice of post-colonial discourse in House of Women. In the next episode, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi becomes Clodagh’s guide both politically, spiritually, and erotically.I will read The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten as both my primary case-study and as the third episode in what I shall theorise to be a four-part serial. The first is the feature film Black Narcissus. After this is Williams Gamaker’s House of Women, which is then followed by The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, my central case study here. There may be immediate objections to my argument that Williams Gamaker’s series can be read by treating Pressburger and Powell’s feature as the first in the series. After all, Godden’s novel could be theorised as the camouflaged pilot. Yet, a series or serial is defined as such when it is in the same medium. Game of Thrones (2011-) is a TV series that adapts George R.R. Martin’s novel cycle, but the novels are not episodes. In this regard, I follow Hutcheon’s emphasis on theorising adapted works as forged between different media, most commonly novels to films. The adaptive “deliveries” scatter through The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten with an ecological precision.Eco SeriesEcological descriptions from Godden’s novel and Pressburger and Powell’s mise-en-scene are performed in The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten through Kelly Hunter’s velvety voiceover as it enjoys a painterly language: butterflies daub the ferns with “spots of ochre, scarlet, and lemon sherbet.” Hutcheon’s term transcoding usefully describes the channelling of particles from the novelist’s text into an intensified, ecological language and cinematic mise-en-scene. The intensification involves an ingestion of Godden’s descriptive prose, which both mimics and adds an adjectival and alliterative density. The opening descriptions of the nuns’ arrival in Mopu is a case in point. In the novel, the grooms joke about the nuns’ habits appearing as “snows, tall and white” (Godden “Black,” 1). One man remarks that they look like “a row of teeth” (Godden “Black,” 2). Williams Gamaker resists shots of nuns as Godden described them, namely on Bhotiya ponies. Rather, projected onto a white screen is an image of white and red flowers slowly coming into focus. Kelly Hunter’s voiceover describes the white habits as a set of “pearly whites” which are “hungry for knowledge” and “eat into the landscape.” White, western nuns in white habits are metaphorically implied to be like a consuming mouth, eating into Indian territories and Indian people.This metaphor of colonial consumption finds its corollary in Godden’s memoirs where she describes the Pressburger, Powell, and Simons representation of Kanchi as “a basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat” (“A House,” 24-5; 52). The nun’s quest colonially consumes Mopu’s natural environment. Presumably, nuns who colonially eat consume the colonised Other like fruit. The Kanchi of the feature film Black Narcissus is a supporting character, performed by Simmons as mute, feral and objectified. If Kanchi is to release herself from the “fruity” projections of sexism and racism, it will be through the filmmaker’s aesthetic and feminist tactic of ensuring that planets, trees, fruits and flowers become members of the film cast. If in episode 1 (Black Narcissus), plants and Asian subalterns are colonised, in episode 2, House of Women, these fruits and flowers turn up as smart, young Asian women actors with degrees in law and photography, ready to hold their own in the face of a faceless interviewer. In episode 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, it is important that Krishna Istha’s Kanchi, turning up like a magical character from another time and space (transformed from episode 1), commands the film set amidst an excess of flowers, plants and fruits. The visual overflow correlates with Kanchi’s assertiveness. Flowers and Kanchi know how to “answer back.”Like Black Narcissus the feature, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten relies heavily on a mise-en-scene of horticultural and mountain ecology. Just as Michael Powell filmed at Pinewood and Leonardslee Gardens in East Sussex, Williams Gamaker used Rotherhithe’s Brunel Museum roof Gardens and Sands Film Studios. The lusciousness of Leonardslee is film-intertextually echoed in the floral exuberance of the 2018 shots of Rotherhithe. After the crew have set up the classroom, interwoven with Kelly Hunter’s voiceover, there is a hard cut to a full, cinematic shot of the Leonardslee garden (fig. 1).Then cutting back to the classroom, we see Kanchi calmly surveying the set, of which she is the protagonist, with a projection of an encyclopaedic display of the flowers behind her. The soundtrack plays the voices of young women students intoning the names of flowers from delphinium to lupens.These meta-filmic moments are supported by the film’s sharp juxtaposition between classroom and outdoor scenes. In Pressburger and Powell’s school scenes, Sister Ruth attempts to teach the young General how to conjugate the French verb “recevoir.” But the lesson is not successfully received. The young General becomes aphasic, Kanchi is predictably mute and the children remain demure. Will colonialism let the Other speak? One way to answer back in episode 3 is through that transgressive discourse, the language of flowers.In The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, the young women study under Sister Clodagh and Sister Philippa (myself, Catherine Lord). The nuns teach botanical lists and their ecological contexts through rote learning. The young women learn unenthusiastically. What is highlighted is the ludicrous activity of repetition and abstractions. When knowledge becomes so objectified, so do natural environments, territories and people. Clodagh aligns floral species to British locations. The young women are relatively more engaged in the garden with Sister Philippa. They study their environment through sketching and painting a diverse range of flowers that could grow in non-British territory. Philippa is the now the one who becomes feral and silent, stroking stalks and petals, eschewing for the time being, the game of naming (fig. 2).However, lessons with colonial lexicons will be back. The young women look at screen projections of flowers. Sister Philippa takes the class through an alphabet: “D is for Dogbright … L is for Ladies’ Fingers.” Clodagh whirls through a list of long, Latin names for wild flowers in British Woodlands. Kanchi halts Clodagh’s act of associating the flowers with the British location, which colonizes them. Kanchi asks: “How many of us will actually travel, and which immigration border will test our botanical knowledge?” Kanchi then presents a radically different alphabet, including “Anne is African … Ian is Intersex … Lucy loves Lucy.” These are British names attributed to Africans, Arabs, and Asians, many of their identities revealed to be LGBQT-POC, non-binary, transgender, and on the move. Clodagh’s riposte is “How do you know you are not travelling already?” The flowers cannot be pinned down to one location. They cannot be owned by one nation.Like characters who travel between episodes, the travelling flowers represent a collision of spaces that undermine the hegemonies of race, gender and sexuality. In episode 1, Black Narcissus the feature film, the western nuns face the immensities of mountain atmosphere, ecology and an unfamiliar ethnic group. In episode 2, House of Women, the subalterns have transformed their role, achieving educational and career status. Such political and dramatic stakes are raised in episode 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. There is a strong focus on the overlapping oppressions of racial, colonial and ecological exploitation. Just as Kanchi has a character arc and serial development, so do plants, fauna, fruits, flowers and trees. ‘Post’-Space and Its AtmosphereThe British Empire colonised India’s ecological space. “Remember you and your God aren't on British Territory anymore” declares the auditioning Krishna Istha in House of Women. Kanchi’s calm, civil disobedience continues its migration into The Fruit is There to be Eaten between two simultaneously existing spaces, Mopu and Rotherhithe, London. According to literature scholar Brian McHale, postmodern worlds raise ontological questions about the dramatic space into which we are drawn. “Which” worlds are we in? Postmodern worlds can overlap between separate spaces and different temporalities (McHale 34-35). As McHale notes, “If entities can migrate across the semipermeable membrane that divides a fictional world from the real, they can also migrate between two different fictional worlds” (35).In The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, the semipermeable membrane between it and Black Narcissus folds together the temporalities of 1947 and 2018, and the terrains of India and London. Sister Philippa tells a Kanchi seeking Mopu, that “My dear, you are already here.” This would seem odd as Sister Philippa describes the death of a young man close to Saint Mary’s Church, London. The British capital and woodlands and the Himalayas co-exist as intensified, inter-crossing universes that disrupt the membranes between both colonial and ecological space-time, or what I term “post-space.”Williams Gamaker’s post-spaces further develop Pressburger and Powell’s latent critique of post-colonialism. As film scholar Sarah Street has observed, Black Narcissus the film performs a “post-colonial” exploration of the waning British Empire: “Out of the persistence of the colonial past the present is inflected with a haunting resonance, creating gaps and fissures” (31). This occurs in Powell’s film in the initial Calcutta scenes. The designer Alfred Junge made “God shots” of the nuns at dinner, creating from them the iconic shape of a cross. This image produces a sense of over-exactness. Once in the mountains, it is the spirit of exactitude that deteriorates. In contrast, Williams Gamaker prefers to reveal the relative chaos of setting up her world. We watch as the crew dress the school room. Un-ceremoniously, Kanchi arrives in shorts before she picks up a floral dress bearing the label “Kanchi.” There is then a shot in which Kanchi purveys the organised set, as though she is its organiser (fig. 3).Post-spaces are rich in atmosphere. The British agent Dean tells Clodagh in Black Narcissus the film that the mountain “is no place to put a nunnery” due its “atmosphere.” In the climactic scene of The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi and Clodagh face two screens revealing the atmospheric projection of the high mountains, the black cut between them visible, like some shadowy membrane. Such aesthetic strategies continue Powell’s use of technical artifice. Street details the extensive labour of technical and craft work involved in creating the artificial world of Black Narcissus, its mountains, artificial colours, and hence atmosphere, all constructed at Pinewood studios. There was a vast amount of matte painting and painting on glass for special effects (19).William Gamaker’s screens (projection work by Sophie Bramley and Nick Jaffe) reflexively emphasise atmosphere as artifices. The atmosphere intensifies with the soundscape of mountain air and Wayne Urquhart’s original and haunting music. In Powell and Pressburger’s feature, Brian Easdale’s music also invokes a sense of mystery and vastness. Just as TV series and serials maintain musical and mise-scene-scene signatures from one episode to another, so too does Williams Gamaker reframe her precursor’s cinematic aesthetics with that of her own episode. Thus, serial as stylistic consistency is maintained between episodes and their post-spaces.At the edge of such spaces, Kanchi will scare Clodagh by miming a tight-rope walk across the mountain: it is both real and pretend, dramatic, but reflexively so. Kanchi walks a membrane between colliding worlds, between colonialism and its transgression. In this episode of extreme spirituality and eroticism, Kanchi reaches greater heights than in previous episodes, discoursing on the poetics of atmosphere: “… in the midst of such peaks, one can draw near what is truly placeless … the really divine.” Here, the membrane between the political and cultural regions and the mountains that eschew even the human, is about to be breached. Kanchi relates the legend of those who go naked in the snow. These “Abominable Men” are creatures who become phantoms when they merge with the mountain. If the fractures between locations are too spacious, as Kanchi warns, one can go mad. In this episode 3, Kanchi and Clodagh may have completed their journeys. In Powell and Pressburger’s interpretation, Sister Ruth discards nun’s attire for a Parisian, seductive dress and red lipstick. Yet, she does so for a man, Dean. However, the Sister Clodagh of 2018 is filmed in a very long take as she puts on an elegant dress and does her make-up. In a scene of philosophical intimacy with Kanchi, the newly dressed Clodagh confesses her experience of “immensity.” As they break through the erotic membrane separating their identities, both immersed in their full, queer, transgender kiss, all racial hierarchies melt into atmosphere (fig. 4).Conclusion: For a Pitch By making a film as one episode in a series, Williams Gamaker’s accomplishment is to enhance the meeting of narrative and political aims. As an arthouse film serial, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten has enabled definitions of “serial” to migrate from the field of television studies. Between Hutcheon’s “adaptation” and Mittell and Creeber’s articulations of “narrative complexity,” a malleable concept for arthouse seriality has emerged. It has stretched the theoretical limits of what can be meant by a serial in an arthouse context. By allowing the notion of works “adapted” to occur between different media, Henry Jenkins’ broader term of “transmedia storytelling” (Convergence) can describe how particles of Godden’s work transmigrate through episodes 1, 2, and 3, where the citational richness emerges most in episodes 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten.Because one novel informs all the episodes while each has entirely different narratives and genres, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten is not a serial adaptation, as is Game of Thrones. It is an experimental serial inflected with trans-serial properties. Kanchi evolves into a postcolonial, transgender, ecological protagonist who can traverse postmodern worlds. Perhaps the witty producer in a pitch meeting might say that in its serial context, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten is like a cross between two fantasy TV serials, still to be written: Transgender Peaks meets Kanchi Is the New Black. The “new black” is multifaceted and occupies multi-worlds in a post-space environment. ReferencesCreeber, Glen. Serial Television: Big Drama on the Small Screen. London: BFI, 2004.Godden, Rumer. 1939. Black Narcissus: A Virago Modern Classic. London: Hatchette Digital, 2013.———. A House with Four Rooms. New York: William Morrow, 1989. Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2012.Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.———. “Transmedia, 202: Further Reflections.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan 1 Aug. 2011. 1 May 2012 <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html>.McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987.Powell, Michael. A Life in Movies: An Autobiography. London: Heinemann, 1986.Mittell, Jason. “Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television.” The Velvet Light Trap 58 (Fall 2006): 29-40. Street, Sarah. Black Narcissus. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.FilmographyBlack Narcissus. Dirs. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Pinewood Studios, 1947.House of Women. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2017.The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2018.The Eternal Return. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2018-2019.