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In Inxeba (2017, dir. John Trengove), an initiate, Kwanda, asks his ikhankatha (initiate guardian), Xolani, why he keeps coming back to entabeni (the mountain). Xolani responds that it is important to return with his "hand" to help the initiates' journey to manhood. We later learn that Xolani's return to entabeni can further be explained by his ongoing passionate affair with Vija – another initiate guardian, who is married to a woman. While much of the analysis of Inxeba has focused on this dynamic and volatile relationship between Xolani and Vija, this paper returns to Kwanda's question: why do seemingly urbanised men like Xolani and Kwanda's father, Khwalo, in Inxeba, and Solomon and his brother, "Bra Lucas" Mahlangu in Kalushi's (2016, dir. Mandla Dube), perceive leaving the city as important for the attainment of personhood and manhood? While Inxeba is set in the rural areas, and Kalushi is set in the city, both postapartheid films represent what I call the "New South African Man" (NSAM). Building on the conceptual terrain of the "New South African Woman" (NSAW), developed by scholars such as Pumla Gqola, Nthabiseng Motsemme and Athambile Masola, among others, this paper employs the concept of the NSAM as a conceptual term to unpack the cinematic representation of postapartheid Black masculinities in these films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on an ideological portrayal and perceptions of homosexuality in selected Nollywood movies. It mentions the reflection of formation of sexual orientations and attitudes through existing normative structures; and also highlights the fact that most African societies considers as patriarchal and seek to affirm the primacy of heterosexuality while denigrating alternative sexualities.

In the 1960s, Australia's film censorship system became the subject of heated debate, leading to significant legislative reforms in the early 1970s. Among the reforms was a new, legally enforceable R rating that banned entry to specific films for anyone under eighteen years of age. Assured that depictions of homosexuality would not be seen by children, Australian censors allowed a range of films that had previously been banned to appear at local cinemas, including The Boys in the Band (1970) and The Gay Deceivers (1969). Gay and lesbian activists had reason to celebrate increased access to homosexual stories on screen. The reforms equally conformed, however, to an argument often made by conservative commentators, that information about gay and lesbian life was inherently harmful to children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bollywood’s queer representational project in the twenty-first century has mostly been understood through a focus on cinematic images and stories and in linear terms of the closet and coming out. This essay considers the idea of queer visibility in Bollywood in embodied terms through an analysis of two eminent filmmakers, Karan Johar and Onir. While Onir’s social advocacy films are an extension of his own openly gay position in Bollywood, Karan Johar as a mainstream, commercial filmmaker has consistently maintained a silence about his sexuality in the media. However, Johar’s queer performances on his chat show, at award shows and the All India Bakchod (AIB) Roast suggest the staging of sexuality in ambiguous and contingent terms without recourse to global identity labels of LGBT. Through an analysis of these performances, the essay argues that Bollywood’s textuality is far too rich and complex to be reduced to any singular logic of queer visibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the attitude of the public towards homosexuality in Italy in 1960. Topics include the murder of accountant Pietro Andrea Gargiulo in his apartment on April 30, 1965, the recall of the murder in the film " Splendori e miserie di Madame Royale" directed by Vittorio Caprioli, and the hidden world of gay sex in Rome shown by the murder of Gargiulo.

The image of Chinese LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) is largely absent from the big screen under the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship control. Taking advantage of the now cheaply available digital-video (DV) technology, queer activist and filmmaker Cui Zi’en has produced more than 10 LGBT-themed films since 2002, which shows the momentum of Chinese independent DV filmmaking. Although circulated mainly underground in China and at international film festivals, Cui’s films seek to promote the visibility of Chinese LGBT by representing queer diversity in this community. As the only filmmaker consistently dealing with LGBT themes and experimenting with new film techniques in China, Cui employs unconventional film aesthetics, featuring extreme long takes, unstable camerawork and minimal narrative, to challenge the oppression of Chinese LGBT by heteronormative conventions, as embodied by state power and a patriarchal social order. Furthermore, facilitated by DV technology, Cui adapts Western New Queer Cinema to the Chinese context, which brings a new dimension to Chinese cinema. In China’s restrictive political environment, Cui, like many other independent filmmakers, uses moving images to challenge official interpretations of social realities in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay explores the impact on American culture and the politics of same sex relationships of the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain. The author proposes that in coming to know the pain of the closeted gay characters in this film, the audience engages in an empathic experience with the potential to transform stereotyped attitudes about homosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the impossibility and possibilities inherent in discussing queerness in films of the South Asian diaspora through the specific lens of Scotland. By using the contexts of “impossibility” in describing the same-sex desire between South Asian women in two different national contexts, this article argues that while same-sex desire becomes “possible” in the Scottish context of Parmar's film (conforming to a type of “coming out” story), Mehta's film cannot posit any open or stable lesbian subject. In light of this, even though Parmar's film may be the more optimistic realization of South Asian lesbian identity, its queer potential is shut down by the parameters of a Western coming out story. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article employs the film Skoonheid (Beauty) to explore the manner in which normative, white Afrikaner masculinity still operates to expel gayness from its self-definition. What is particularly vexing to this investigation, however, is the occurrence of behavioural homosexuality among white Afrikaner men who possess a compartmentalised identity constructed from notions of nationalism, puritanism, patriarchy and homophobia. Oliver Hermanus's Skoonheid casts its main character, Francois van Heerden, as the archetypal disenfranchised white Afrikaner man, whose repressed homosexuality amplifies the anxiety and disempowerment he experiences in a post-apartheid world. His masculine identity is constantly under threat from racial and sexual 'Others', who highlight the hypocrisy and constructedness of the outmoded model of patriarchy that he reveres. The goal of this critique is ultimately to position such representations of 'ideal' Afrikaner masculinity (and its problematic relationship with homosexuality) in popular visual culture as indicative of related sociological issues that permeate the South African landscape. The article, for example, also briefly considers virtual or 'online' communities such as Kaalgat 24 (Buck Naked 24) that exist on the peripheries of mainstream culture and serve to facilitate connections among white, 'heterosexual' Afrikaner men who have sex with men (MSM). Ultimately, the author sets out to illustrate that for men like Francois homosexual behaviour is categorically disconnected from gayness, whether in terms of a commercial 'lifestyle' or sexual orientation: The act of having sex with men, in no way suggests belonging to the gay community or buying into any particular lifestyle. Homosexuality (or stereotypical, imagined ideas surrounding it) is still treated contemptuously in certain contexts, resulting in acts of expulsion and violence that re-inscribe the stigmas associated with 'faggots' in traditional Afrikaner, heteronormative rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the representation of female homosexuality in the newly born erotic Spanish cinema of the 1970s, questioning the political and social implications of these first representations of lesbianism which contributed to shaping the first democratic discourses around women's sexuality. In order to do so, it looks at some of the most relevant films of the genre (most of which have never been studied before) and examines their portrayal of lesbian sex, focusing later on the figure of Ignacio F. Iquino and his filmThe Maskas the main representative of this genre in order to prove how the narrative construction of the eroticizing lesbian was largely based upon fascist conceptions of homosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian feature films featuring gay male characters have consistently defined the inner-city - and particularly the inner-city of Sydney - as a gay space. This article examines a range of such films within the historical context of the emergence of gay male community and culture in Sydney. While this history reveals the complex and contested nature of gay men's connections to the city, on-screen depictions have tended to mask such complexity in favour of a simplistic urban/gay versus rural/straight divide. By repeatedly exploring gay life in inner-city spaces through the eyes of heterosexual, rural visitors, Australian films have developed and replicated discourses that have seen Sydney defined as the 'true' home of gay male community and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two parodies have recently been made of the OSS 117 films originally released during the mid-60s, based on Jean Bruce's secret agent novels. Both were very successful in France, but some spectators were uncomfortable with the ethical implications of some of the parodic devices these « postmodern » films use, especially those related to religion or gender. Traces of the polemic can be found in the archives of the French web site AlloCiné, where the main concern appears to have been the use made by the new OSS movies of a « third degree of communication », which differs from the usual « second degree » of parodies in that it seems very close to the « naïve » first degree. Discussion revolves around the extent to which these two supposedly ironic films might be « critical » of the ideological subtext of the 1960s films. The purpose of this article is not to establish a « true reading » of the two films, but to explore how such discussions demonstrate the culturally constructed nature of film meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the 2007 Indonesian film Coklat Stroberi and its accompanying novel and pop video. The novel by Christian Simamora was based on the film script. The song 'Di sini untukmu' was written especially for the film, in which the band Ungu made a cameo appearance, and the accompanying pop video features numerous scenes from it. While in recent years quite a number of Indonesian films have featured gay characters, this film is notable for the fact that it puts a gay relationship at the very centre of a romantic comedy, and is clearly aimed at a young (17--25) audience. Coklat Stroberi is undoubtedly trying to show same-sex relationships in a progressive light. Nonetheless, the representation of the characters and the film's final outcome highlight an ambivalent attitude towards homosexuality that is common in many Indonesian films. This article pays particular attention to those ambivalences and explores how our understanding of them is enhanced by analysing the transformation of the film into the genres of novel and pop video. Attention is also paid to an apparent mismatch in the filmic imagination of gay characters and the reality of gay lives as they are lived in Indonesia today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the depiction of the Italian LGBT community in the film "Le fate ignoranti," directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. It describes how the film influenced the cultural attitudes towards sexuality and sexual identities in Italy. It describes the plot of the film, and says the film shows the mutual intersection of heterosociality and homosexual desire. Ozpetek, in an interview, says this film is not only about gay people but also about families, love and intimacy.

Many critics refused Broke-back Mountain's narrative image as "the gay cowboy movie," challenging both its "gayness" and its status as a Western. Using genre theory, popular criticism, and the work of Frederic Jameson, this article explores the progressive work accomplished by the film's genre classification as a Western. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 20–25 years, cinematic representations of homosexualities have become more numerous and diversified than ever. Key figures of an emerging French gay cinema, Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau have developed a rich and original body of work combining an interest in contemporary social issues with non-miserabilist depictions of gay characters/experiences and a lightness of tone reminiscent of the films of Jacques Demy. This article focuses on Olivier Ducastel and Martineau's least discussed work, the second film of their gay trilogy: the fake home movie/video diary Ma vraie vie à Rouen/My True Story of My Life in Rouen (2003). Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between two distinct types of language: on the one hand, the alternative film language developed by this mock amateur film and, on the other hand, the young protagonist's own language usages which are inadequate for the expression of same-sex desires. I will also discuss the ways that the film language (developed thanks to the use of an obsessive and intrusive camcorder) partly succeeds in compensating for the protagonist's linguistic limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of the DVD release of the motion picture "Bedrooms and Hallways," directed by Rose Troche is presented.

This article links recent trends in romantic comedy to the debate about same-sex marriage. By comparing contemporary heterosexual romantic comedies to same-sex romantic comedies, it argues that Hollywood colludes with efforts by the state and the conservative Right to ensure that heterosexuality remains the privileged mode of desire and marriage, the sanctioned form of bonding. The unarticulated anxiety over same-sex marriage is thus revealed to be the potential loss of marriage as a means of disciplining desire to a heterosexual end. Ultimately, romantic comedy is a genre about citizenship, impressing on viewers the form their desire must take for full citizenship to be granted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the motion picture "Brokeback Mountain," directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

This essay discusses the media reaction to Ang Lee's recent movie, Brokeback Mountain. Earlier cowboy films with same-sex themes and subtexts and reaction to the Best Picture Oscar selection are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses emotional sustainability in the queer films of Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek. The author examines the two films "Steam" and "The Ignorant Fairies," which focuses on a bisexual/bicultural game, with the three main characters experiencing emotional flux as they become psychologically intimate in honest and non-competitive ways. The films of Ozpetek are analyzed through the cultural theory of play by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga and the mathematical game theory of John Nash.

This study attempts to explore the representation of sexual and gendered Otherness in Pedro Almodóvar's cinema, with special emphasis on La ley del deseo/Law of Desire (1987). In fact in many of his films, the boundaries of sexuality and gender are not clearly delimited; these boundaries are only exposed as idealized cultural constructs that can be transgressed in the cinematic screen, and are used by Almodóvar to destabilize the fossilized cultural structures of tradition. Therefore, in Almodóvar's films a questioning of fixed sexual and gender identities is revealed as well as a forceful proposal for a fluid and flexible construction and expression of sexuality and gender. As I will demonstrate, the film's form elucidates the cultural and political implications of certain modes of discourse in transitional Spain, certain ways of thinking and certain ways of approaching social and personal problems. I will consider to what extent Almodóvar's own sexual identity is interlaced with the representations of homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender and other alternative sexual identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author investigates the history of negative representations of male bisexuality in Hollywood and foreign films and its impact on his personal development as a bisexual man. Arguing that bisexuality is everywhere in modern films but is never called bisexuality, the author asks whether it has become the sexuality that cannot speak its own name. Portions of this essay appeared previously under the title "Stereotyping Bisexual Men in Film," published in Journal of Bisexuality 1: 2/3, 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will consider recent developments in depictions of homosexuality in mainstream French cinema of the second half of the 1990s against, and as both reaction to and reflection of, a rapidly evolving social and political backdrop. Alongside contemporary political debates on gay rights, antidiscrimination laws and the PaCS, on-screen visibility of the gay community in France has developed from an apparent concentration on sexuality and sexual activity to a wider more accessible consideration and depiction of gay issues within mainstream French culturE, and society. Focusing on four films (Josiane Balasko's Gazon maudit, Alain Berliner's Ma vie en rose, Valérie Lemercier's Le Derriière and Gabriel Aghion's Belle Maman), this article will examine, on the one hand, representation of such 'gay interest' issues as gay parenting, the PaCS and questions of transgender and, on the other hand, the emergence of an apparent trend in recent French mainstream comedies to highlight, whether explicitly or implicitly, questions related to gender construction and gender identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kevin Smith's film Chasing Amy met with a great diversity of response among lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Some lauded the film as an honest and complex exploration of sexuality, while others castigated it for portraying what they took to be stereotypical, even homophobic characters. Hoping to understand these diverse reactions better, we collected multiple viewer responses to the film for analysis and interpretation. Ultimately, we argue that the reactions we found bespeak both competing and shifting attitudes about the nature of sexuality and its relationship to identity in our culture. Further, we discuss how reactions to the film cluster around certain identifiable and significant categories; for instance, some responses trouble the gay/straight dichotomy, others reassert that dichotomy, and still others explore possible images of self beyond that dichotomy, such as a bisexual or bierotic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines queer cinema and its questions on sexuality, identity and community based on philosopher Gilles Deleuze's time-image concept. Distinctions between queer cinema and gay cinema; Difference between Deleuze's concepts of movement- and time-image in cinema; Situational homoerotic desire based on the time-image concept; Community model based on the conveyed images.

Proposes that Cuban writer Senel Paz's novella 'El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo' is a gay story that articulates male homosexual desire. Basis of the film 'Fresa y chocolate,' directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea on the novella; Non-heterosexual technology of gender, society and writing; Paz's remapping of the city of Havana; Gay epistemology located in the so-called 'ciudad loca.'

Explores the means by which the movie `To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar,' conveys the `different but equal' message to its heterosexual American audience. Strategy of demonstrating the `virtual normality' of homosexuals; Drag queen as angel; Construction of drag queens and angels; Transformative acts in the movie.

Focuses on filmmaker Greg Araki and the popularity of gay films dubbed as the `Queer New Wave.' Gay films' domination of 1992 film festivals; Marketability of gay films; Subculture represented in Araki's films; Characters; Whites males as artists and subjects in the Queer New Wave; Absence of lesbian filmmakers.

Analyzes the homosexual expression in Hollywood films. Use of contradictory statements in carrying messages to the viewers; Portrayal of conflicts between acceptance into society and maintaining one's distinct identity; Impact of contemporary paradox on the audience.

Analyzes the depiction of male homosexuality in the motion picture 'The Full Monty.' Description of the scene on the beginning of the coupling of two main male characters; Suppression of the question of queer spectatorship; Limitation of liberal tolerance to the displacement of queerness; Strategies of containment.