Amid the post–World War II baby boom, 1940s–1950s suburban America projected an idyllic image of the nuclear family: suburban homes with white picket fences, father as breadwinner, stay-at-home mom. This image and its performative American-ness became the target of parody and critique by dissidents, filmmakers prime among them. One manifestation of such dissent came to be known as camp.
Camp is an aesthetic that privileges poor taste, shock value, and irony, intentionally challenging the traditional attributes of high art. It is often characterized by showiness, extreme artifice, and tackiness—such as the popular pink flamingo lawn ornaments from which John Waters’s iconic film takes its name. Although largely ironic, camp can also devolve from earnestness gone awry, as in attempts at profundity that fall absurdly short of their targets. Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls (1995) and Steven Antin’s Burlesque (2010) exemplify the latter. In “Notes on ‘Camp,’” the cultural critic Susan Sontag suggests that nothing in nature can be campy (figure 10.4).[15]
Since the 1960s, the camp cinema of John Waters has delighted some audiences while repulsing others. Pink Flamingos (1972), Polyester (1981), and Hairspray (1988) lampoon the strictures and hypocrisies of the suburban United States, featuring the drag queen Divine and innumerable acts of subversion. Divine’s influence went far beyond Waters’s films, too. Legend holds Divine to be the inspiration for the villainous sea witch Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1992). More recently, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch’s comedy series GLOW (2017–) has embraced the campy 1980s phenomenon of the same name, giving fictional life to the erstwhile women’s wrestling venture full of caricatured personae and self-consciously over-the-top storylines.
New Queer Cinema
The rise of independent film festivals such as Sundance and Telluride in the 1970s and 1980s spotlighted smaller productions that lacked the financial backing of major studios, from avant-garde work to indie narrative cinema. Following the liberation-oriented activism of the 1970s–1980s and then the HIV/AIDS crisis, a movement of unconventional, experimental, and unapologetic films emerged in the early 1990s. Rich termed this movement “New Queer Cinema,” describing it as one “favoring pastiche and appropriation, influenced by art, activism, and such new entities as music video. . . . It reinterpreted the link between the personal and the political envisioned by feminism [and] restaged the defiant activism pioneered at Stonewall.”[16]
New queer cinema films such as Gus van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Derek Jarman’s Edward II (1991) featured overtly queer content, often focalized through outsider characters. Many also engaged with or alluded to the AIDS crisis, including Richard Fung’s 1991 Chinese Characters, Marlon Riggs’s 1989 Tongues Untied, Todd Haynes’s 1991 Poison and 1995 Safe, and Gregg Araki’s 1992 The Living End.
Cheryl Dunye’s (figure 10.5) mockumentary The Watermelon Woman(1996) calls out the erasure of Black lesbians in Hollywood and the persistence of racist film tropes over the years. The film follows Dunye’s character as she stages interviews with both fictitious and real-life lesbian activists, including Sarah Schulman and Camille Paglia. Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (1990) documents New York City ball culture, foregrounding Black and Latinx lives and communities involved in the dance vogue scene. Iconic as it has become, scholars including bell hooks and Judith Butler have questioned the film’s racial politics. Livingston, who is white and from a privileged background, arguably profits off a marginalized community and the unambivalent celebration of drag as a means of subversion and liberation. Critiques notwithstanding, Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk, and Ryan Murphy joined forces to create Pose (2018–), an FX series that draws from Paris Is Burning in its fictionalized representation of the same ballroom culture. Livingston has contributed in directorial and production roles to that production as well.
Mainstream Gay?
Whereas new queer cinema was defined largely by the queer-identified directors, writers, and producers creating its films, LGBTQ+ films began to enter bigger markets in the early years of the 2000s. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), for example, featured the (straight) A-list stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as covert lovers. Subsequently, films such as Julie Taymor’s Frida(2002), Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right(2010), Ryan Murphy’s The Normal Heart (2014), Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game (2014), and Barry Jenkins’s (figure 10.6) Moonlight(2016) have all featured well-known (and disproportionately straight) actors and achieved mainstream prominence, including major award nominations.
Figure 10.6. Barry Jenkins, the director of the 2016 film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. (CC-BY-SA Jared Eberhardt.)
Television and Streaming Media
LGBTQ+ TV
Actress, comedian, and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres (figure 10.7) is now an internationally recognizable figure who regularly appears on the Forbes annual World’s 100 Most Powerful Women lists, but her success required the resuscitation of a career that went virtually comatose from 1997 to 2003. DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian on her sitcom, Ellen (1994–1998), in 1997. The show returned for one more season but was subsequently canceled. Many speculate that the final season’s poor ratings owed to network ABC’s refusal to risk alienating conservative audiences by promoting it.
Ellen DeGeneres holding an Emmy statue at the 1997 Emmy awards.
Figure 10.7. Ellen DeGeneres. (CC BY, Alan Light)
Thanks largely to Ellen’s milestone pronouncement, late-1990s and early-2000s television saw a spate of LGBTQ+ characters, personalities, and plotlines. Long-running NBC sitcom Will & Grace premiered in 1998, ended in 2006, and rebooted in 2017. It features a gay male lead as well as a prominent gay supporting character. Although the show was groundbreaking and put (some) gay issues on a national stage, its characters played into many stereotypes and offered an almost exclusively white, cisgender, and normative representation of homosexuality.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Eric McCormack and Debra Messing, the stars of "Will & Grace" at the rehearsal for the 1999 Emmy Awards. (CC BY; Alan Light via Wikimedia)
Ron Becker contextualizes the 1990s spike in LGBTQ+ (mostly “G” and “L”) programming in terms of increasingly segmented markets.[17] The representation of certain safe forms of nonheterosexuality appealed to straight audiences among growing discourses of liberal tolerance. As commercial productions, the existence—or at least distribution—of film and TV shows is always to some extent a business decision. Media studios and companies are unlikely to take a chance on something they don’t believe will prove profitable. The 1990s marked a point at which many companies began to view sexual identity groups and queer-friendly audiences as viable marketing demographics. This trend continues in various venues, such as corporate Pride sponsorships, mass-market rainbow merchandise, and lifestyle networks such as LOGOtv and Here TV.
Showtime’s Queer as Folk (2000–2005) made a splash in 2000, a groundbreaking Americanization of a British series that had premiered the year before. The show, shot chiefly in Toronto, Canada, followed a group of friends and lovers through their lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Even though it was predominantly white, middle-class, and cismale, Queer as Folk was pioneering in terms of promoting safe sex and portraying healthful, happy characters living with HIV. The show also thematized prominent issues often associated with gay male communities, for better or for worse, such as polyamory, body dysmorphia, drug and alcohol use, and homophobic discrimination in the workplace and beyond. The L Word (2004–2009), considered by many the female version of Queer as Folk, premiered on Showtime in 2004. It achieved slightly greater diversity than its predecessor, featuring several characters of color, interracial relationships, a trans character, and a deaf character.
With a racially diverse cast, ABC’s The Fosters (2013–2018) has established long-term success among a mainstream audience for which shows such as Glee (2009–2015) and Modern Family (2009–2020)helped pave the way. The Fosters explores an array of issues specific to LGBTQ+ people, such as transitioning and bullying, as well as more universal themes related to relationships, family, and the challenges of puberty (figure 10.8). More recently, the animated series Bojack Horseman (2014–2020) broke ground with its portrayal of asexual Todd Chavez, including his coming out and navigation of ace relationships.
Figure 10.8. Sherri Saum (left) and Teri Polo (right) play wives and foster parents on ABC’s The Fosters. (CC BY, Greg Hernandez.)
Artist and Activist Spotlight: RuPaul Charles
A major contemporary queer icon, RuPaul Charles (figure 10.9) gained fame in the early 1990s as a drag performer, actor, supermodel, musician, and all-around entertainer.[18] He has appeared in iconic LGBTQ+ films including Jamie Babbitt’s But I’m a Cheerleader(1999) and Beeban Kidron’s To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!,Julie Newmar (1995). RuPaul also produces, hosts, and judges the hit reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race, in which he mentors competitors pursuing a cash prize and the coveted title of America’s Next Drag Superstar. Although massively popular, the show’s use of offensive terms and RuPaul’s suggestion—for which he later apologized—that trans contestants possessed an unfair advantage over cis contestants have drawn criticism.
Figure 10.9. RuPaul Charles (second from left) at Dragcon 2019. (CC BY, DVROSS.)
Streaming Services
Some lament the fall of the brick-and-mortar video rental store with the rise of digital video services, but the latter has proved a boon to LGBTQ+ film and television and many consumers who search for that content. The impersonality—not to say anonymity—of these platforms removed the stigma, perceived or real, that might prevent interested audiences from renting or purchasing queer movies in person. These new delivery options (and, later, streaming, a service Netflix began offering in 2007) opened veritable floodgates of viewership, especially in conservative cities, rural areas, and other environs where queer media was difficult to come by. Digital platforms such as Prime Video, Hulu, Hoopla, and Kanopy have further extended the reach of mainstream, indie, and international film, often at little or no direct cost to viewers.
Streaming and Visibility
Retail giant Amazon broke ground with Jill (now Joey) Soloway’s Transparent (2014–2019), the first show produced through Amazon Studios and aired on its streaming platform, Prime Video. Transparent follows Maura, newly out, and her family through their lives in Los Angeles. Cis actor Jeffrey Tambor won a Golden Globe for his performance in a show that presents many challenges trans populations face in society, including bathroom policing, transphobic violence, and trans-exclusionary versions of so-called feminism.
Breaking through in Jenji Kohan’s Netflix series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019), which explores the experiences of a diverse group of women in prison, Laverne Cox (figure 10.10) has emerged as among the most prominent trans performers in the world. Her role as Sophia Burset sheds light on the particular barriers and forms of dehumanization that trans individuals face in prison, because—in addition to transphobic harassment from guards and inmates alike—their access to medically necessary materials may be curtailed.
Also on Netflix, Lena Waithe cowrote and starred in an episode, “Thanksgiving,” of Aziz Ansari’s comedy series Master of None (2015–2018, 2021). The episode, which depicts the seldom-represented experience of a Black lesbian coming out to her family, won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
Figure 10.10. Laverne Cox. (CC0, Luke Harold.)
Comedy Specials
Streaming video has also benefited comedians, providing ready access to audiences who live far from—or can’t afford—urban-centric standup circuits. The vibrancy of queer women in comedy has been a revelation for many in recent years. In addition to performers with established reputations (Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Wanda Sykes, and Margaret Cho), a new set has taken viewers by storm, thanks largely to streaming platforms. As with film and television, some LGBTQ+ comedy content expressly addresses aspects of queer identity—for example, Cameron Esposito’s viral clip about her so-called lesbian side mullet.[19] Some, such as Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special Nanette (2018), upend the genre, critiquing misogyny and homophobia and the bound-up ways the two structure the art world, comedy, and everyday life.
What do you think Gadsby meant when she said that with Nanette she wanted to “break comedy”?
How do you think streaming media contributed to Gadsby’s career skyrocketing after she claimed to “quit”?
Tig Notaro became famous for her standup in the mid-2010s, including a filmed set in which she lifts her shirt to reveal a chest that has undergone, as part of her breast cancer treatment, a double mastectomy. She would later write, produce, and star in One Mississippi (2015–2017), an autobiographical comedy that aired on Amazon Prime and costarred Notaro’s real-life spouse, the writer and actor Stephanie Allynne.
Check Your Knowledge
Contributed by Has Arakelyan, Rio Hondo College
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. According to Susan Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp,’” which of the following would NOT be considered camp? A) A drag performance parodying suburban life
B) Pink flamingo lawn ornaments
C) An earnest attempt at profundity that becomes absurd
D) A naturally occurring phenomenon
2. The rise of New Queer Cinema in the early 1990s is most closely associated with which of the following characteristics? A) Strict adherence to mainstream narrative conventions
B) Pastiche, appropriation, and a blending of art and activism
C) Avoidance of political themes
D) Exclusive focus on heterosexual relationships
3. Critiques of Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning by scholars such as bell hooks and Judith Butler focus primarily on: A) the director’s privileged background and potential exploitation of marginalized communities.
B) the film’s lack of artistic merit.
C) its inaccurate depiction of ballroom culture.
D) its failure to win major awards.
4. The increased visibility of LGBTQ+ characters in mainstream television during the late 1990s and early 2000s is attributed in the chapter to: A) a sudden change in government policy.
B) the segmentation of media markets and the appeal to straight audiences.
C) the decline of independent film festivals.
D) the absence of corporate sponsorship.
5. The chapter suggests that the expansion of digital streaming platforms has impacted LGBTQ+ media consumption by: A) increasing the stigma associated with viewing queer content.
B) limiting access to international films.
C) removing barriers to access and increasing anonymity for viewers.
D) reducing the diversity of available content.
How does the aesthetic of camp challenge traditional notions of “high art” and what role has it played in LGBTQ+ media and culture?
In what ways did New Queer Cinema redefine the relationship between personal identity and political activism in film?
Discuss the ethical implications of privileged filmmakers documenting marginalized communities, as seen in Paris Is Burning. How should filmmakers navigate these challenges?
How have shifts in media marketing and audience segmentation influenced the representation of LGBTQ+ characters and stories in mainstream television and film?
What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of digital streaming platforms for the visibility and diversity of LGBTQ+ media, especially in conservative or rural areas?
Multiple-Choice Questions - Answers
1. D) A naturally occurring phenomenon
2. B) Pastiche, appropriation, and a blending of art and activism
3. A) the director’s privileged background and potential exploitation of marginalized communities.
4. B) the segmentation of media markets and the appeal to straight audiences.
5. C) removing barriers to access and increasing anonymity for viewers.
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Ellen DeGeneres holding an Emmy statue at the 1997 Emmy awards.
