New Queer Cinema : A Critical Reader

M. Aaron, B.Ruby Rich, M. Pearl, M. Aaron

Coined in the early 1990s to describe a burgeoning film movement, New Queer Cinema has turned the attention of film theorists, students and audiences to the proliferation of intelligent, stylish and daring work by lesbian and gay filmmakers within independent cinema, and to the proliferation of "queer" images and themes within the mainstream. But what constituted New Queer Cinema then and now? And was it political gains, cultural momentum or market forces that determined its evolution? This text is divided into sections on the definition, the filmmakers, the geography, and the spectator of New Queer Cinema. Chapters address the pivotal directors (Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki) and the salient films ("Paris is Burning" and "Boys Don't Cry") but also non-mainstream and non-Anglo-American work (experimental film and third cinema). With a critical eye to its uneasy relationship to the mainstream, the volume explores the aesthetic, socio-cultural, political and, necessarily, commercial investments of New Queer Cinema. This book offers a guide to New Queer Cinema combining discussions of its central issues with new work by key writers.