Between the Gothic and Surveillance: Gay (Male) Identity, Fiction Film, and Pornography (1970-2015)
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Between the Gothic and Surveillance: Gay (Male) Identity, Fiction Film, and Pornography (1970-2015) Evangelos Tziallas A Thesis In the Department of The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Moving Image Studies Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada October 2015 © Evangelos Tziallas, 2015 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis is prepared By: Evangelos Tziallas Entitled: Between the Gothic and Surveillance: Gay (Male) Identity, Fiction Film, and Pornography (1970-2015) and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy (Film and Moving Image Studies) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final Examining Committee: Chair Amy Swifen Examiner John Mercer Examiner Ara Osterweil Examiner Juliann Pidduck Supervisor Thomas Waugh Approved by Chair of Department of Graduate Program Director 2015 Dean of Faculty Abstract Between the Gothic and Surveillance: Gay (Male) Identity, Fiction Film, and Pornography (1970-2015) Evangelos Tziallas, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2015 In this thesis I make the case for rethinking fictional and explicit queer representation as a form of surveillance. I put recent research in surveillance studies, particularly work on informational doubling, in conversation with the concepts of the uncanny and the doppelgänger to reconsider the legacy of screen theory and cinematic discipline in relation to the ongoing ideological struggle between normativity and queerness. I begin my investigation in and around the Stonewall era examining the gothic roots and incarnation of gay identity. I then trace the formation and development of identity through cinematic and pornographic representation taking critical snapshots of four identifiable epochs organized around a seismic socio-political disjuncture: after Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign in the late 70s and early 80s; during the AIDS crisis between the mid-80s and mid-90s; after the AIDS crisis in the late 90s when family politics took centre stage; and in the midst of the “bareback crisis” in the new millennium. I argue that in order to understand the crisis in contemporary queer cultural politics heavily influenced by the rupture in uniform safer-sex practices we must trace the lineage of figurative identity through fiction and hard core film back to its post-Stonewall incarnation. It is my ultimate contention that the strategic deployment of homogeneous identity via social, personal, and sexual identification with the image double became a way to control the streets without having to be on the streets. Mainstream(ed) representation became, and remains, a brilliantly insidious form of social engineering and not a path toward liberation and freedom. iii Homosexuality exists outside the field of the visible, but the gay and queer do not. I argue that through film and porn metaphysical identities were strategically manufactured which queer individuals were and are compelled and convinced to identify with and mimic, culminating in an ideological and representational schism in the twenty-first century whose effect on lived experience has had significant consequences. iv Acknowledgements and Dedications Special thanks to my mom for believing in me when I stopped believing in myself and to Catherine Russell for her support and feedback throughout my time spent at Concordia. A very special thank you goes to my supervisor Dr. Thomas Waugh for his tenacity, insight, rigour, and friendship without which this thesis would have never seen the light of day. v Table of Contents Chapter 1) Introduction HIV: From Visible to Invisible to Spectral………………………………… 1 Surveillance, Film, Doubling………………………………………………. 16 Chapter Summaries………………………………………………………… 27 Research Methodology…………………………………………………….. 32 Literature Review Surveillance and Surveillance Studies……………………………………... 38 Film Studies Surveillance (and) Cinema………………………………………… 45 Film Theory and Identification……………………………………. 49 Empathy and (Gay) Identification…………………………………. 54 Queer and Explicit Representation Visibility and Stereotypes………………………………………….. 57 Queer Theory’s Uncanniness………………………………………. 61 Pornography and Porn Studies…………………………………….. 67 Chapter 2) The Gothic and Stonewall: (Auto)Ethnography and the Emergence of Identity Authorship, (Auto)Ethnography, and Performativity Authorship…………………………………………………………. 74 (Auto)Ethnography………………………………………………… 77 Performance/Performativity………………………………………... 80 The Queer Uncanny…………………………………………………………83 The Neo-Gothic and Pre- and Post-Stonewall Representation: Case Study: The Boys in the Band (1970)…………………………. 89 Gothic Hard Core………………………………………………………….. 102 Case Study: The Boys in the Sand (1971)………………………….. 106 vi Case Study: Bijou (1972)…………………………………………... 114 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 124 Chapter 3) 1980: Hollywood’s First Hate Cycle: Four Case Studies Mimesis, Surveillance, Identification Heteromimicry………………………………………………………126 Cinematic Mimicry………………………………………………….129 Dressed to Kill (1980) and Evil Alter Egos…………………………………136 Windows (1980) and Lesbian Doppelgängers………………………………153 Cruising (1980) and the Dangers of Over-Identification………………….. 164 Interior. Leather Bar (2013): Uncanny Reconstructions…………... 183 Taxi Zum Klo (1980) and the Sousveillance of Explicit Sex………………. 188 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 205 Chapter 4) No Future: AIDS and (New) Queer Cinema Introduction…………………………………………………………………208 AIDS, Identity, Queerness…………………………………………………. 211 AIDS Activism, Media Activism, Porn Activism…………………………… 218 (New) Queer Cinema, Surveillance, Privacy………………………………. 229 Silverlake Life: The View from Here (1993)………………………. 236 Zero Patience (1993)………………………………………………. 242 New Queer Cinema and Hollywood’s Second Hate Cycle………………… 253 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 259 Chapter 5) Future: Cinematic Rebirths Learning How to be Gay: Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss (1998)…………. 263 vii Save the Gay Children The Cruel Optimism of Reproductive Futurity……………………. 271 Coming Out, The Queer Family, and “Queering” The Family……. 275 Case Study) Three Teen Coming Out Films……………………………….. 290 Get Real (1999)……………………………………………………. 293 Beautiful Thing (1996)…………………………………………….. 307 Edge of Seventeen (1998)………………………………………….. 317 Conclusion: “Born This Way” …………………………….……………… 326 Chapter 6) Feeling Positive; Feeling Negative Feeling Sex: Dystopia/Utopia Introduction: Retro AIDS Cinema…………………………………. 331 Descent (1999): Dystopia………………………………………….. 340 Shortbus (2006): Utopia…………………………………………… 349 Feeling Positive: Case Study) Treasure Island Media Dawson’s 20 Load Weekend (2004)……………………………….. 356 Measure B: Stopping the Spread……………………………………366 The Truvada Revolution: Poz vs. Neg……………………………... 372 Uncanny Archive: The Ghost of the Past Returns…………………. 377 Feeling Negative: Production Wars From Condom to Bareback: Lucas Entertainment…………………. 384 Focus/Refocus (2009): Death by Amateurism, Amateurism as Death………………………394 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..412 Conclusion: The Return of the Repressed Summary…………………………………………………………………… 414 Pornography: A Thriller (2009): Normativity and the Self Come Undone……………………………417 viii Coda: Sex, Apps, and Videotape: Future Research Paths………………….445 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………….. 450 Appendix A: Sample List of Adolescent Coming Out/Of Age/Romance Films...520 Filmography………………………………………………………………………. 525 ix Chapter 1) Introduction HIV: From Visible to Invisible to Spectral My project was inspired by a lingering personal observation: in spite of the “bareback crisis” that has left the porn industry, public health organizations, and queer community workers struggling to cope with gay men’s desire to see and have anal sex without condoms, there is a surprising lack of representation of people with HIV in both queer and non-queer media—save for a few television characters (Brothers and Sisters, Looking), many of whom appear on reality programs (Rupaul’s Drag Race, Project Runway). Despite the continual transmission of HIV among gay and bisexual men and despite the visual and carnal proliferation of the activity that is generally responsible for the transmission of the HIV virus, there remains a deafening silence around HIV/AIDS in mainstream(ed) media. Why? For some time now, HIV/AIDS has been reframed as a “third world” disease (Kagan 2009; 2015), something that is only a crisis in places such as Africa because in the privileged West a cocktail of medications has (supposedly) turned the virus into something benign and seemingly innocuous—for those who can afford it or have access to the luxury of universal or insurance-covered healthcare. Since the debut of the AIDS cocktail (HAART) at the 11th International Conference on AIDS in Vancouver in 1996, AIDS went from being a death sentence to something one manages—HIV is something one takes control of instead of something that controls you. But with the development of the AIDS cocktail and the sense that AIDS in the West has been “dealt with,” commitment to condom use has dramatically declined (Adam 2005; Escoffier 2011). A culture of barebacking (unprotected anal sex) developed in the mid- to late 90s (Rofes 1998) as a response to liberal-normative politics that largely depended on the surveillance of sex: the promotion of health and family (values) (Foucault ([1975] 1995; 1 Therborn 2004) and what some see