Deconstructing Norms on Screen
Queer theory, as applied to film studies, is an approach that emerged from queer studies and postmodern philosophy in the early 1990s. It moves beyond simply identifying gay or lesbian characters (representation) and instead seeks to destabilize the very categories of identity that are often taken for granted. A queer reading of a film is not just about looking for LGBTQ+ content; it’s about analyzing how a film constructs, reinforces, or, most importantly, subverts the assumed norms of gender (male/female), sexuality (heterosexual/homosexual), and family (the nuclear family).
Core Principles in Film Analysis
When analyzing a film through this lens, a queer theorist asks a unique set of questions:
- Challenging Binaries: How does the film treat the binaries of male/female, masculine/feminine, and straight/gay? Does it present them as stable and natural, or does it show them as fluid, ambiguous, or socially constructed?
- Performance and Performativity: Drawing heavily on the work of philosopher Judith Butler, queer theory examines how gender is portrayed as a performance. It analyzes how characters’ clothing, gestures, and speech acts construct their gender identity. Films involving cross-dressing, such as Some Like It Hot (1959) or The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), are prime texts for this kind of analysis.
- Subtext and Queer Reading: This involves reading for queer themes, desires, and relationships in films that do not have explicitly LGBTQ+ characters. This is particularly relevant for analyzing films made under censorship like the Hays Code, where queer content had to be coded. Classic examples include reading the intense friendship in Thelma & Louise (1991) as a lesbian romance or the charged relationship between the two male leads in Ben-Hur (1959).
From the Male Gaze to the Queer Gaze
Queer theory also offers an alternative to Laura Mulvey’s concept of the “male gaze.” It asks how desire and the act of looking are constructed in films by queer filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar, Céline Sciamma, or Todd Haynes. A “queer gaze” might be characterized by its fluidity, its rejection of a fixed subject-object dynamic, and its appreciation for different forms of beauty and desire. The theory grew alongside the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s, which saw a surge of unapologetically queer films from independent filmmakers.