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Bi What Means: Paratextual and Filmic Representations of Bisexuality in Contemporary Cinema

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Bi What Means: Paratextual and Filmic Representations of Bisexuality in Contemporary Cinema BI WHAT MEANS: PARATEXTUAL AND FILMIC REPRESENTATIONS OF BISEXUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA CHLOE BENSON This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Faculty of Education and Arts Federation University PO Box 663 University Drive, Mount Helen Ballarat, Victoria 3353 Australia Submitted in November 2016 ABSTRACT The question of how bisexuality, which is predominantly nonvisual and lacks a coherent cinematic code, can be represented in film remains a consistent concern within bisexual cinema studies. Scholars have tended to approach this problem by concentrating on the ways that the film text itself codes bisexuality or encourages a bisexual reading. This approach can offer important insights into the potential for and problems of screening bisexuality. However, this thesis argues that in order to more fully explore how bisexual meaning is constructed, critical attention must extend beyond the confines of the film text to engage in what Jonathon Gray describes as a form of “off-screen studies” (7). By developing a sustained engagement between paratextual theory and bisexual cinema studies this project develops a new methodological approach to filmic representations of bisexuality. Two samples of bisexual films and the official entryway paratexts - such as posters, trailers, and festival program notes - used to promote them are examined. These samples comprise films screened in the period from 2012-2014 on either the Melbourne general release circuit or at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival that have been identified online by viewers as incorporating bisexual meanings. Considering these texts in relation to their exhibition contexts, the thesis demonstrates that bisexual films can be found in diverse settings. It also establishes the impact that these settings have on the ways the films are framed paratextually. Close textual readings illustrate that paratexts can function as discrete texts that circulate bisexual meanings, as well as framings with the potential to prime viewers’ receptivity to on- screen bisexuality. The thesis reveals that the promotional impetus of paratexts can lead to the amplifying or subduing of bisexual readings across exhibition contexts and argues that an understanding of filmic bisexuality must acknowledge this. In sum, the thesis proposes that paratexts play a formative role in the production and circulation of bisexual meanings both on screen and off, within the niche realm of the queer film festival and on the general release circuit. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Lesley Speed and Dr. Linda Wight for the guidance, support and invaluable insights that they have provided as my supervisors. My thanks are also extended to the wonderful staff at Federation University Australia who have stimulated and inspired me throughout my studies at the institution, from an undergraduate to a postgraduate level. Finally, I must acknowledge the tremendous support that my family, friends and partner have granted me throughout the duration of my candidature. iv CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Statement of authorship ..........................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................iv Contents ................................................................................................................................... v List of figures ......................................................................................................................... viii List of tables .............................................................................................................................ix INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 1 Bisexuality and its discontents ................................................................................................ 5 Representation matters .........................................................................................................14 Centring the periphery: bisexuality and paratextuality ............................................................18 i. Text selection ...........................................................................................................20 ii. (Para)textual analysis ..............................................................................................21 Chapter outline ......................................................................................................................22 Chapter one: HOW WE HAVE TENDED TO GET BI IN CINEMA STUDIES ...........................26 Understanding bisexuality: a history ......................................................................................26 Resistance to representation .................................................................................................45 Bisexual film studies ..............................................................................................................52 Chapter two: MEANING FROM THE MARGINS: PARATEXTUALITY AND BISEXUAL REPRESENTATION .................................................................................................................60 Defining the paratext .............................................................................................................60 v To domesticate or titillate: negotiating paratextual visibility ....................................................67 Framing on-screen bisexuality ...............................................................................................78 Chapter three: PARATEXTUAL BISEXUALITY ON THE GENERAL RELEASE CIRCUIT ....86 Identifying the sample ............................................................................................................86 Posters ..................................................................................................................................93 Still images, fluid possibility: the poster as bisexual representation .............................94 Posterbi: bisexual displays and queer pleasures ....................................................... 100 Obstructing bisexual potential: domestication, convention or both? .......................... 107 Trailers ................................................................................................................................ 110 They always show the best bits: bisexual representation in trailers ........................... 111 Obstructing bisexual potential: domestication, convention or both? .......................... 119 Chapter four: FRAMING BISEXUALITY: CLOUD ATLAS, THE HANGOVER PART III AND SIDE EFFECTS ...................................................................................................................... 122 Disrupting boundaries: Cloud Atlas ...................................................................................... 123 Characterising the margins: The Hangover Part III .............................................................. 136 Prescribed reading: Side Effects.......................................................................................... 151 Chapter five: IS THERE A ‘B’ IN MQFF? BISEXUALITY ON THE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL CIRCUIT ................................................................................................................................. 165 Language matters: QFFs and sexual identity discourse ...................................................... 166 The MQFF as a context for bisexual reception .................................................................... 174 Text selection ...................................................................................................................... 179 Program notes ..................................................................................................................... 185 vi Chapter six: FRAMING BISEXUALITY: FLOATING SKYSCRAPERS, SUBMERGE AND THE SEX OF THE ANGELS ................................................................................................... 197 Getting over coming out: Floating Skyscrapers .................................................................... 198 Bi its own admission: Submerge .......................................................................................... 215 “Sometimes passion has no boundaries”: The Sex of the Angels ........................................ 227 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 240 APPENDIX 1 .......................................................................................................................... 246 Select examples from the general release circuit text selection process .............................. 246 APPENDIX 2 .......................................................................................................................... 250 General release posters ...................................................................................................... 250 APPENDIX 3 .......................................................................................................................... 263 Short films and documentaries
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