The Affective Potential of Queer Shame on Screen
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THE AFFECTIVE POTENTIAL OF QUEER SHAME ON SCREEN By Dávid Baqais Submitted to Central European University Department of Gender Studies In partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Arts in Critical Gender Studies Supervisor: Eszter Timár Second Reader: Hyaesin Yoon CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2019 Abstract This thesis explores the potential of shame as intersubjective affect through three filmic representations of queer shyness in widely divergent cinematic texts: Tom Ford’s high-profile US film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man (chapter 1); Alain Guiraudie’s French erotic thriller L’Inconnu du lac, an art house exploration of queer desire, sex and death (chapter 2); and a Brazilian short film directed by Daniel Ribeiro, entitled Eu Nau Quero Voltar Sozinho, an coming-of-age narrative of a blind teenage boy (chapter 3). These ideas are rehearsed against the theoretical backdrop of Leo Bersani’s and Lee Edelman’s antirelational queer theory, José Estaban Muñoz’s work on queer potentiality, relationality and hope as articulated in Cruising Utopia in opposition to antiutopian antirelationality, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s affective turn (in particular her theorizing on shame and her concept of paranoid and reparative reading). The analyses in the first two chapters gesture toward a displacement of antirelational queer theory’s overinvestment in the radicality of strategically embracing cultural fantasies of male homosexuality as psychic negativity or erotic self-annihiliation. In contrast to these tropes, a vision of queer relationality grounded in the relational dynamics of shame is forwarded, drawing on Sedgwick’s work on shame inspired by Silvan Tomkins’s affect theory. The shy queer man thus comes to figure as a counterpoint to the figure of the death-driven queer subject enraptured by jouissance. The third chapter, in turn, moves from such a contrastive “anti-antirelational” engagement to a closer exploration of Tomkins’s theory of shame, combining it with phenomenological film theory and Sara Ahmed’s work on queer phenomenology, arguing that the short film’s climactic moment allows us to think shame as utopian potentiality as conceived by Muñoz. Finally, the conclusion suggests a conception of shame as reparative affect in contrast to routinized habits of thought in paranoid antirelational queer theory. CEU eTD Collection i Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is the result of original research; it contains no materials accepted for any other degree in any other institution and no materials previously written and/or published by another person, except where appropriate acknowledgment is made in the form of bibliographical reference. I further declare that the following word counts for this thesis are accurate: Body of thesis (all chapters excluding notes, references, appendices, etc.): 23,893 words Entire manuscript: 25,941 words Signed ________________________ Dávid Baqais CEU eTD Collection ii Table of contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................... i Declaration .................................................................................................................................................... ii List of figures ............................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Queer antirelationality and its discontents.............................................................................. 2 The potentiality of shame ......................................................................................................... 8 Queer theory, film theory........................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 1: Reparation and Shame in A Single Man ................................................................................ 16 Paranoid tendencies in No Future ........................................................................................... 16 Sinthomosexual/spiritual .......................................................................................................... 19 Adaptation/fashion .................................................................................................................. 26 “Flushing”, looking, affect, desire.......................................................................................... 29 “…and just like that it came” ................................................................................................. 34 Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 38 Chapter 2: Queer Sociability and Shame in L’Inconnu du lac ................................................................. 40 Sociability, the gay outlaw and sinthomosexuality ................................................................. 40 Cruising as sociability .......................................................................................................... 41 Gay outlaw and sinthomosexual .......................................................................................... 42 Anticommunitarian community ............................................................................................. 44 No feeling, pure drive .............................................................................................................. 48 The incessant return of the s(h)ame ...................................................................................... 51 Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 55 Chapter 3: The Way He Looks: Tactility, Shame, and Queer Disorientations ..................................... 57 Toward a “crip” queer film phenomenology ....................................................................... 57 Directionality and lines ............................................................................................................ 60 Textural intimacy ...................................................................................................................... 63 Leo’s queer disorientations ..................................................................................................... 66 Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 68 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 70 References ................................................................................................................................................... 73 CEU eTD Collection iii List of Figures Figure 1. Shot of George’s face in the film’s default desaturated color scheme ................. 31 Figure 2. Carlos’s lips, the object of George’s gaze ................................................................. 31 Figure 3. The reverse-shot of George’s face, now also flushed ............................................. 31 Figure 4. Smog-filled LA sky....................................................................................................... 32 Figure 5. Kenny's glance .............................................................................................................. 36 Figure 6. George's shame ............................................................................................................ 36 Figure 7. Michel ............................................................................................................................ 50 Figure 8. Franck and Henri ......................................................................................................... 52 Figure 9. Haptic visuality ............................................................................................................. 64 Figure 10. Gabriel revealed ......................................................................................................... 64 Figure 11. Leo feeling around ..................................................................................................... 67 Figure 12. Leo’s ecstasy ............................................................................................................... 67 CEU eTD Collection iv Introduction “Remember the fifties?” Lily Tomlin used to ask. “No one was gay in the fifties; they were just shy.” – Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick This thesis explores the potential of shame as intersubjective affect through three filmic representations of queer shyness in widely divergent cinematic texts: Tom Ford’s high-profile US film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man (chapter 1); Alain Guireaudie’s French erotic thriller L’Inconnu du lac (Stranger by the Lake), an art house exploration of queer desire, sex and death (chapter 2); and a Brazilian short film directed by Daniel Ribeiro, entitled Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho (I Don’t Want to Go Back Alone), an adolescent coming-of-age narrative (chapter 3). These explorations emerge in the theoretical context of Leo Bersani’s and Lee Edelman’s antisocial