Highbrow Magazine - the maltese falcon https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/maltese-falcon en Why Queer Audiences Co-Opt Media https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19271-why-queer-audiences-co-opt-media <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 01/31/2022 - 11:30</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coopting.jpg?itok=0WLyf7PV"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1coopting.jpg?itok=0WLyf7PV" width="480" height="351" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Opinion:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Given the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000838/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">scarce</a> portrayals of LGBTQIA+ characters in media, it may be shocking to learn that, in fact, there is no shortage of queer experiences found in film, literature, and oral histories. In yearning to see their stories reflected in the media, queer audiences have been clamoring for representation and, when there isn’t any, they become adept at co-opting narratives that were never meant for them in the first place. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Plagued with portrayals of <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gay-panic-stereotype-lgbt-glaad-study-2015-movies-get-hard/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">harmful</a> stereotypes and tropes that paint queer people as deviants, queer audiences have had to stretch their imaginations to see themselves depicted in media channels that have historically been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191218-the-decade-that-saw-queerness-go-mainstream" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">hostile</a> towards and that continue to be obstinate about depicting a more accurate, modern queer world. As a result, in order to find at least a glimpse of our experiences they’ve had to lay claim to the narratives and stories that do exist, even when queer people are purposefully left out of them. This reclamation of narratives may even be survival instinct, given the toxic and dangerous ways in which movies, books, and stories have long depicted queer people. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In film, for example, queer coding has been used pretty much since the <a href="https://stacker.com/stories/4331/history-lgbtq-representation-film" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">emergence</a> of film itself. Queer coding is the indirect way to “identify” a character as queer, which is to say without explicitly referring to them as such. Queer coding itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it can be purposefully used as a sort of a wink to a receptive queer audience in an environment that would normally not allow explicit displays of queerness – like Doris Day dressed in buckskins and singing about her secret love in <em>Calamity Jane</em>. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2coopting.jpg" style="height:600px; width:407px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But even since the times of classical Hollywood, gay coding has also been used to inform the audience that a character was probably an untrustworthy sort. The <em>Maltese Falcon</em> is an early example of the long tradition of coding villains as queers. Joel Cairo, the villain of the famous film, is <a href="https://www.out.com/armond-white/2016/7/15/decoding-gay-subtext-hollywood-classic-maltese-falcon" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">characterized</a> by his effeminate nature, his flower-scented business card, and the suggestive way he fondles the cane handle of his umbrella. During the <a href="https://productioncode.dhwritings.com/multipleframes_productioncode.php" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Hays Code</a> era, the film wouldn’t have been allowed to depict any explicit homosexuality anyway, as it would have fallen under the category of “sex perversion” at the time, which was strictly prohibited; so instead it only subtly implies Cairo’s queerness. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Meanwhile, when characters were depicted as explicitly queer, they were often up to no good, as in the case in 1980’s <em>Cruising</em> (gay serial killer into leather and chains), the much-lauded films <em>Silence of the Lambs</em> (transgender serial killer who skinned his victims) and Oliver Stone’s <em>JFK</em> (real-life homosexuals Clay Shaw and David Ferrie depicted with <a href="https://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100party.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">very</a> <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/199204/the-story-that-won-t-go-away-33588" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">wide</a> dramatic license over their queerness, including a completely salacious orgy scene because these questionable men also had to be… depraved, oversexed homosexuals?). In <em>Basic Instinct</em>, the infamous Catherine Tramell is depicted as bisexual—if not pansexual—merely as a plot point. The lesbians of the film are dispensed with quickly, and Catherine ends up being a villainous murderess. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In <em>The Thin Red Line</em> book, Corporal Geoffrey Fife is depicted as having a sexual, albeit not romantic, relationship with Private Edward Bead, though no such homosexual depiction is made in the movie version. There’s also the toned-down lesbianism of Celie in the film version of <em>The Color Purple,</em> even though in the book, Celie has a sexual awakening because of her intimate relationship with Shug.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3coopting.jpg" style="height:499px; width:325px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But even if in the original <em>Silence of the Lambs</em> book, Thomas Harris at least tried to say that the murderous Buffalo Bill was not a true transgender in the real clinical sense, literature is generally not really better off. <em>Carmilla</em>, a book that predates Dracula, is about a predatory lesbian <a href="https://bookriot.com/lesbian-representation-in-carmilla/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">vampire</a> that prays on innocent women. Pussy Galore of Bond fame was written as a lesbian in Ian Fleming’s original book who gets “cured” of her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/04/ian-fleming-bond-cured-pussy-galore-psycho-pathological-malady-lesbian" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">lesbianism</a> by the suave spy himself. Perhaps we should be grateful that Pussy Galore was straightwashed in the film, then? Recently, the queen of witches and wizards herself, J.K. Rowling, published a new <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/entertainment/jk-rowling-troubled-blood-book-trans-gbr-scli-intl/index.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">book</a> with a villain who dresses as and pretends to be a woman in order to prey on women.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with flawed queer characters, or even evil ones, as long as that villainy and deviance is not tied to their queerness or that queerness is not used as a defining characteristic of evil people. For example, I personally love the fact that Sean Bateman from the <em>The Rules of Attraction</em> is a psychotic bisexual (in the book at least; the film predictably made him heterosexual). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Dorian Gray is a deliciously selfish and vindictive cautionary tale. In P.J. Vernon’s recently released <em>Bath Haus</em>, the protagonist Oliver gets caught up in a dangerous net of lies of his own making because he wanted to get hot and heavy with a man who was not his husband. And pretty much every queer character in an Adam Silvera book gets messy at some point. But these characters are not flawed because they are queer, they are flawed because they are human. Well, except maybe Sean from <em>The Rules of Attraction</em> who is deranged because he’s Patrick Bateman’s, the literal original psycho, brother.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">All this is to say that, given the troubled history of the depiction of LGBTQIA+ characters in literature and film, it’s no wonder that we’re still looking through cracks and angles hoping to find a vestige of a queer experience that is not rife with the negative connotations that have traditionally plagued queer characters, in the rare occasions that queer characters are depicted at all or not straightwashed. And so queer audiences have had resort to this co-opting of media, this assimilation of narratives to fit within queer stories and experiences that have shifted and refocused the way some films and literature are consumed. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4coopting.jpg" style="height:390px; width:602px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">There is a differentiation here—and similarities, to some extent—between “queer theory” and queer “co-opting” of media. Queer theory began to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/17/books/queer-theory-is-entering-the-literary-mainstream.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">appear</a> in the early 1990s. Generally attributed to have been developed by Eve Sedgwick and scholar Judith Butler, queer theory emerged as a prism through which scholars can examine literary texts. As a fully developed field of study, queer theory is a complex and ever-evolving network of philosophies and concepts infused with changing understandings of gender and even the meaning of “queer,” from Butler’s own ideas on the performativity of gender from their seminal “Gender Trouble” to more modern repudiations of labels and sexual preferences boxes. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">We touch on queer theory because, in a sense, this “prism” through which media is observed and studied as it relates to a queer experience has been around for a very long time—certainly since at least the emergence of mass media, though there are instances of literature and oral histories being viewed as “queer stories” that go back centuries. But more so that seeing through the cracks of half-opened doors where there may have already been crumbs of queer representation, queer audiences are also pros at co-opting stories devoid of clear queer narratives and reshaping them into one that mirrors their experience.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In that sense, this isn’t that same kind of prism through which to study works of art and media because this co-opting is a <em>claim</em> upon these stories. In other words, just as there could be a feminist reading of <em>The Usual Suspects</em>, for example, queer theory would say that there could, too, be a queer reading of that film; but no one is claiming <em>The Usual Suspects</em> as a forgotten queer film gem (yet, anyway). </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">On the other hand, the ancient Greek poem “The Iliad,” for instance, has basically become queer <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/at-the-heart-of-homers-iliad-is-lgbt-love-story-you-probably-missed-41498" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">canon</a>. Scholars have been <a href="http://ancientheroes.net/blog/achilles-patroclus-lovers" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">debating</a> forever whether the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was romantic in nature. But just ask any homosexual who has seen half a dozen movies or read a few romance books, and there would be no hesitation in proclaiming Achilles and Patroclus a gay power couple. The tale of the fall of Troy is an interesting example because should it be written today, now that we’ve been trained by decades of movie and literature tropes, it would be next to impossible to deny what was going on between Achilles and Patroclus. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5coopting.jpg" style="height:442px; width:297px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is because we as consumers have been <a href="https://screenrant.com/most-common-romance-movie-tropes/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">coached</a> by the media to understand and pick up on narrative points and tropes to tell us that a relationship between two characters may be romantic in nature or may turn romantic; think: the long stares and turning away just<em> </em>as he raises his gaze to meet theirs and missing it, the tumbling down a hill and <a href="https://twitter.com/fernmaximoff/status/1375351311265189891" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">falling</a> on top of each other, the lifetime friends who follow each other wherever the world may take them (even to war like, ahem, Achilles and Patroclus). Because of this, we could not ignore these narrative points and tropes when they are also present in an “Iliad” written in modern times. Decades of movies and books haven’t taught us that you bring down entire cities because you’re sad about your childhood pal dying in some war; but that you rain destruction upon those who bring harm to the one you love like epics such as <em>Gladiator</em>, <em>Braveheart</em>, and <em>John Wick</em> taught us. So, a modern “Iliad” would better give us gay soldiers or it would just be another queer-bating mess, and thus “The Iliad”<em> </em>has <a href="https://s-usih.org/2017/11/the-bodies-of-men-who-have-perished-reading-the-iliad-in-the-1980s/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">rightfully</a> been <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/at-the-heart-of-homers-iliad-is-lgbt-love-story-you-probably-missed-41498" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">claimed</a> as a queer tragedy of doomed love. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The story of Mulan, as the folklore goes and of course even before Disney’s animated film secured her place as a queer icon (more on that later), was already questioning ideas about womanhood, loyalty, and the performativity of gender around the tail end of classical antiquity. Even if the legend was perhaps meant to illustrate the value of courage, loyalty, and love of family, Mulan was already reexamining what it means to “behave like a man,” even if subversively so, way before Captain Shang told us to be as swift as a coursing river and have the force of a great typhoon. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Closer to our century, we have Frankenstein. The doctor goes in search of the <em>perfect</em> body parts to make a man. Frankenstein’s Monster comes to life and is then ostracized by the locals, who come for him with literal torches while the Monster pleads for his life, explaining in vain that he poses no harm, mostly just wants to be left alone, and that he didn’t ask to be made and be born a monster. The Monster even gets to give a <a href="http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shelley_mary_001.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">monologue</a> about his sorrows and he eventually, very dramatically, leaps into the darkness of the ocean and is borne away by the waves. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/6coopting.jpg" style="height:600px; width:405px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even with the daddy issues aside and Frankenstein’s obsession with manly parts, we can see how there can be a queer reading of the Monster’s ostracization at the hands of the villagers for no other reason than he is alive. His mere existence, regardless of his harmless disposition, is an affront to nature that must be eradicated, never mind that the Monster didn’t even want to be here in the first place. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">While there is no evidence that Mary Shelly wrote the seminal sci-fi/horror novel as a parable for the queer experience, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. In fact, <em>The Bride of Frankenstein</em>, the sequel to the original film, is <a href="http://sequart.org/magazine/56511/a-homosexual-reading-of-james-whale-bride-of-frankenstein/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">widely</a> <a href="https://www.gaylydreadful.com/blog/we-dont-belong-dead-a-definitive-reclamation-of-james-whales-bride-of-frankenstein" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">regarded</a> as a queer <a href="https://the-take.com/read/why-is-abride-of-frankensteina-often-analyzed-as-a-gay-parable" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">allegory</a>. Commonly lauded as the masterpiece of director James Whale, who was queer himself, the film even features two men essentially playing father figures to the creature they create. The gay crumbs were already there from the start; we just had to follow them. Literature after all, like all art and media, is meant to be consumed and is thereby shaped by the audience’s reading of it. Who’s to say, even, that immigrants in the U.S. couldn’t apply their own experiences to Shelly’s story and see it as a tale of survival in the face of adversity, ostracization and all? </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">And we had to mention Frankenstein because there are so many examples that offer such clear parallels between “monstrosity” and the queer experience that this reclamation of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-do-gay-men-love-monsters_b_4181062" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">horror</a> for the queer community should not shock anyone. Just as literature is replete with villains who are evil for evil’s sake, it is also full of monsters who are villainized for factors outside of their control. So queer people identifying with monsters is nothing new. Queerness has long been depicted as a facet of monsters and evildoing, so it was perhaps the logical conclusion that queer people would come to identify with the villains after being villainized for so long. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This has led to an empowering claim by queer people over all things monsters. In 2017, the now-beloved Babadook became the unofficial queer <a href="https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/6/9/15757964/gay-babadook-lgbtq" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">icon</a> of the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-babadook-gay-icon-lgbt-history-20170609-story.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pride</a> month of June when it was discovered that Netflix had accidentally <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/06/the-babadook-is-a-gay-icon-now-but-why.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">labeled</a> the film <em>The Babadook</em> as a queer movie<em>. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge </em>has become so <a href="https://decider.com/2015/11/01/nightmare-on-elm-street-gay/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">canonically</a> queer and dubbed the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/louispeitzman/the-nightmare-behind-the-gayest-horror-film-ever-made" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">gayest</a> horror film, that I have been to gay bars playing the film on the TVs behind the counter as normally as if they were playing <em>Ru Paul’s Drag Race</em> reruns. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7coopting.jpg" style="height:303px; width:600px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Meanwhile, queer people’s fascination with <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jpbrammer/how-did-a-bunch-of-mythical-monsters-become-queer-icons" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">cryptids</a> is a more modern but easily observed phenomenon, though perhaps also not that entirely shocking. The myth of cryptids like the Flatwood Monster and the Mothman usually emerge from tales of sightings around rural areas and small towns. In places where queer people were oftentimes thought of as the bogeyman, it’s maybe not surprising that they ended up identifying with the local monster of lore. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Then, of course, there is the “beloved” <a href="https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/06/22/58413455/the-gay-power-of-disney-villains" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">tradition</a> of Disney imbuing its villains with myriad queer characteristics. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Disney is an easy target in many ways because of the sheer amount of media it produces. It has long been accused of brainwashing the youth with some hidden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2021/05/06/disney-woke-snow-white-fox/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">liberal</a> <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/happy-feet-two-politics-childrens-movie-267827/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">agenda</a> or another. Disney has also been widely <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/news/a21506/disney-gay-lgbt-characters-history/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">criticized</a> for its portrayals of villains, from the well-known fact that Ursula was inspired by the real-life drag icon Divine, to the way its male villains love to saunter and speak in lisped witticisms the way homosexuals have been stereotyped as doing. But beyond these harmful stereotypes, what’s not to like about Disney villains? They have the flair, the dramatics, the smoky eyes, the best songs. Maleficent rained down curses because she wasn’t invited to a brunch -- if that’s not a queer narrative, I don’t know what is. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">With some Disney villains, we see more multifaceted characters that live in more gray areas of villainy. Sure, Ursula took Ariel’s voice, but she gave her legs and what do we even know about what King Triton may have done to cross her in the first place? Maybe it wasn’t very nice that Maleficent cursed Aurora, but why wasn’t she invited to the royal christening when all the other fairies were? She even gave the royals a chance to apologize for their disrespect and they blew it, so what is a powerful spurned fairy to do? And there’s also just the irresistible camp of Disney villains. Somewhat similar to the way queer men gravitate towards pop divas because of their larger-than-life theatricality, the camp and grandeur with which these posh Disney villains get up to in their evildoing is wildly appealing.  </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/8coopting.jpg" style="height:339px; width:602px" typeof="foaf:Image" /></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">In addition to identifying with the villains, there’s been a reclamation of Disney heroes, too. This is not to be confused with Disney’s meager attempts at queer representation (see <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/03/29/are-beauty-and-the-beast-power-rangers-queerbaiting-lgbt-fans/99744846/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">LeFou</a>), and its never-ending queer-bating (too many examples to list, but see <em>The </em><a href="https://www.comicsbeat.com/mcu-bucky-queer-coding-falcon-and-winter-soldier/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Falcon</em></a><em> and the </em><a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a35946311/falcon-winter-soldier-queer-bisexual-lgbtq-bucky/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Winter</em></a><em> </em><a href="https://mashable.com/article/falcon-winter-soldier-marvel-bucky-bisexual" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Solider</em></a><em> </em>and entire animated film <a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-disney-and-queerbaiting-in-animation-164349" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><em>Luca</em></a> for recent examples). As far back as the height of the Disney renaissance era, queer audiences were co-opting heroes and heroines for themselves. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Mulan has long <a href="https://www.vox.com/21417591/disney-mulan-gay-hero" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">been</a> <a href="https://www.shondaland.com/live/a21073307/disney-mulan-queerness/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">considered</a> a queer narrative. More so than the gender-bending antics—a trope that even Shakespeare was using back in his day—the possibility of bisexuality if Captain Shang fell in love with Mulan while she was still disguised as a man, and literal men in drag helping to save all of China, the heroine herself mirrors the experience of queer people. Mulan is trying to find her role as a woman but does not want to be constrained by tradition-dictated woman-specific roles. She even sings to herself in the song “Reflection” about wanting her appearance to manifest what Mulan actually feels like inside, verses that many transgender persons can identify with. Also, it’s entirely possible that Disney knew exactly what it was doing here, because you don’t just get Harvey Fierstein to voice a character who ends up dressing in drag and then claim there’s nothing suspiciously gay going on. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">Even vintage Disney films have been given a queer makeover. Peter Pan which, arguably, depicts gender roles as a being split squarely down the middle, may have some queer <a href="http://wannalearntheory.blogspot.com/2015/12/queer-reading-of-peter-pan.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">undertones</a> especially when these gender roles are studied through a loupe. In fact, every single theatrical production of Peter Pan casts a woman to play Peter – an act that goes beyond a casting tradition and perhaps instils the story of the boy who never wants to grow up with more social commentary than it had originally intended. Pinocchio wants to become a “real boy,” and <a href="http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2010/09/transgender_pinocchio.php" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">debate</a> has been around for a long time if the tale mirrors facets of the trans experience. <a href="https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/film/2015/03/13/queer-appeal-cinderella" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Cinderella</a> is a quintessential story of “it gets better,” a rallying motto of the queer community. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">More recently, there was the widely supported co-opting of Elsa as a lesbian icon, for example. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/idina-menzel-frozen-petition-give-elsa-girlfriend_n_5742fe05e4b00e09e89f751f" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Petitions</a> to give Elsa a girlfriend in the second <em>Frozen</em> movie gained a lot of traction. Even detractors, who <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/14/10000-sign-petition-stop-elsa-getting-girlfriend-disney-frozen-sequel-7388245/" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">predictably</a> started an opposing campaign to <em>not </em>give Elsa a girlfriend, asserted that the first <em>Frozen</em> movie has been co-opted by liberals for its pro-gay themes. Alas, she didn’t get a girlfriend in the sequel film but, she also didn’t get a boyfriend. So we’ll take what we can and co-opt as necessary.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"> Similarly, <em>Luca</em> is such a simple and beautiful story about a young boy curious about what lies beyond the surface of the oceans, who is afraid of not belonging, who discovers others who are just like him, and who finds acceptance from others for being who he really is (part monster, in case that was in doubt). The film is about a fish out of water, literally, finding his path. <em>Luca</em> offers such a hopeful depiction of a queer coming-of-age experience, that <em>The New York Times</em> even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/movies/luca-review.html" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">dubbed</a> the film <em>Calamari by Your Name</em> in reference to the gay romance story <em>Call Me by Your Name.</em></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">The film’s director, Enrico Casarosa, was stalwart in <a href="https://www.out.com/film/2021/6/22/luca-director-says-film-about-pre-romance-time-boys-lives" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">explaining</a> that <em>Luca </em>is, in fact, <em>not</em> a queer story because it is only about friendship. In the depiction of the two boys at the center of the film, he clarified, he purposefully made them young enough so that they did not have to worry about girlfriends or boyfriends just yet, and friendship can remain the central theme of the movie. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">This is probably one of the biggest reasons why queer audiences like to co-opt stories like these, even when they are explicitly told that there is no queerness anywhere to be seen. Casarosa’s explanation may well be what the filmmakers intended, yet this rationalization makes the incorrect assertion that in order for a story to be queer, it must involve romance, or sex, of contain characters of a certain age. </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif">But there is more to queer people than just their identities, and this erroneous belief that queer stories must somehow and for some reason be “age appropriate” is an excuse that has been overused to exclude queer narratives from media of all kinds. And it’s exactly why we sometimes don’t have to look that hard to find a narrative that reflects our sensibilities. There is something revolutionary in claiming these stories as queer, as part of the queer collective. It’s as if there’s a kind of universality among the infinite experiences that queer people journey through.   </span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Author Bio:</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong><em>This is an opinion piece by Angelo Franco. Franco is</em> a <em>chief features writer at </em>Highbrow Magazine.</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif"><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></span></span></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/co-opting-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">co-opting media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/queer-audiences" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">queer audiences</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/disney-movies" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">disney movies</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/maleficent" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">maleficent</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/disney" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Disney</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/luca" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">luca</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/frozen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">frozen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/maltese-falcon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the maltese falcon</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/calamity-jane" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">calamity jane</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/rules-attraction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the rules of attraction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/cruising" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">cruising</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Angelo Franco</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 31 Jan 2022 16:30:05 +0000 tara 10894 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/19271-why-queer-audiences-co-opt-media#comments ‘The Maltese Falcon’: Fact or Fiction? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3448-maltese-falcon-fact-or-fiction <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 01/16/2014 - 09:51</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1maltesefalcon.jpg?itok=yYaH6Kns"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1maltesefalcon.jpg?itok=yYaH6Kns" width="480" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>It’s no surprise that some writers walk a thin line between the world of fiction and the world of fact.  As Dashiell Hammett, that master of the hard-boiled detective story told the <em>New York Evening Journal </em>in 1934, “All of my characters are real.  They are based directly on people I knew or came across.”  In Owen Fitzstephen’s <em>Hammett Unwritten</em> from Seventh Street Books, Hammett is revisited by the cast of unforgettable characters he presented us in his legendary <em>The Maltese Falcon</em>, and we discover just how thin the line between reality and imagination really is.</p> <p>It’s quite a journey that Fitzstephen (the pseudonym for author Gordon McAlpine, but more about that later) takes us on with Hammett.  But first, he gives us the actual 1922 newspaper clipping from the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em> describing the murder of one Louis Doyle, the sea captain who had transported the black falcon statuette from Hong King.  Before expiring, Doyle manages to place the falcon in the hands of none other than Samuel Dashiell Hammett, a twenty-six-year-old Pinkerton detective.  Not a bad beginning for a would-be writer. </p> <p>We jump ahead to Hammett’s hard-drinking, glamour-splashed days in Manhattan in the early ‘30s, his head awash with the publication of <em>The Thin Man.  </em>Enter Moira O’Shea fresh from a hospital for the criminally insane and a co-conspirator in the falcon case murder (filmgoers will remember her as Mary Astor, the conniving co-conspirator in John Huston’s film of the famed falcon).  He gives her the statuette, maybe to convince himself that he doesn’t buy the mumbo-jumbo about its mystical powers. <em> </em></p> <p><em><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2maltesefalcon.jpg" style="height:419px; width:625px" /></em></p> <p>Not surprisingly, things spiral quickly downward for our hero—a tryst with his former Pinkerton secretary that goes sour; a spooky encounter with Gaspereaux, the devious Big Man who has dedicated his life to possessing the real falcon (Sydney Greenstreet from the film); and a 1951 stint in the Federal Penitentiary in Ashland in Kentucky for refusing to testify against Communist cohorts.  While there, he encounters Emil Madrid, another conspirator and a dead ringer for the Peter Lorre character in the film. Madrid reminds him writers are essentially criminal too.  “They steal people’s lives, is that not so?”</p> <p>If this cast is not colorful enough, John Huston as an ambitious upstart Hollywood director and Lillian Hellman, the successful playwright who co-habited with Hammett (no easy task) add spice to the proceedings.  It is Hellman who sticks by her beloved “Dash” through what could be the longest writer’s block on record, fearing for his growing obsession with the falcon.  Given Hammett’s death in 1961 from lung cancer it seems unlikely that his eventual recovery of the bird made much of a difference.</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3maltesefalcon.jpg" style="height:464px; width:625px" /></p> <p>The biggest mystery of all, however, concerns <em>Hammett Unwritten</em> itself.   In Gordon McAlpine’s afterword, he admits to the 2012 discovery of the manuscript and the falcon in the Lillian Hellman collection at the University of Texas, Austin.  Subsequently, he recognizes the author’s name, Owen Fitzstephan, as a character in Hammett’s novel, <em>The Dain Curse</em>.  Fitzstephan not only resembles Hammett physically but is that novel’s own evil mastermind.  McAlpine concludes that Hammett himself wrote the book as a tightly-focused memoir during the last year of his life.</p> <p>Certainly the dialogue and setups are as quick and sharp as Hammett’s (or Hellman’s for that matter).  So what is the explanation for Hellman’s silence?  McAlpine believes it lies in her introduction to a posthumous collection of his works.  She says he kept his work “in angry privacy” and that the fact she was with him up to his last day may be due to the fact that she never asked.</p> <p>We may never know the answer, but maybe this new manuscript is more than enough if it brings new readers to this elusive writer. </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4maltesefalcon.jpg" style="height:486px; width:385px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong><br /> <em>Sandra Bertrand is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/dashiell-hammett" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">dashiell hammett</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/maltese-falcon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the maltese falcon</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gordon-mcalpine" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gordon mcalpine</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hammett-unwritten" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hammett unwritten</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/owen-fitzstephen" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">owen fitzstephen</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sandra Bertrand</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:51:28 +0000 tara 4127 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3448-maltese-falcon-fact-or-fiction#comments