Queer Romantic Comedy and the Festival Audience by RENÉE
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
DESPERATELY SEEKING REDUNDANCY? Queer Romantic Comedy and the Festival Audience by RENÉE PENNEY B.F.A. Fine Arts, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1988 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Film Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2010 © Renée Penney, 2010 ABSTRACT Historically speaking, the queer film festival is rooted in grassroots politics and it exists as a counterculture space. Conversely, genre cinema is associated with classical Hollywood and it is largely associated with mainstream, heteronormative value systems. The queer romantic comedy represents a major flashpoint as a crossover phenomenon: in its ability to infiltrate these diametrically opposed cultural systems, it is viewed as both traitor and arbitrator simultaneously. The response to this queered genre is directly related to critical debates surrounding the question of whether the queer film festival space has become or seeks to become redundant. Ironically, while the question of redundancy circulates, critical analysis of the queer film festival space has only recently begun to emerge, while the queer romantic comedy itself is virtually non- existent within genre theory. As such, I argue that the queer film festival and the queer romantic comedy are inextricably linked as sites of transgression, and that, neither are becoming redundant. To construct my analysis, I use the Vancouver Queer Film Festival as a blueprint for the selection of gay and lesbian romantic comedies. I cite a number of critical thinkers, however, key to my analysis are a series of forums on the queer film festival published in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, as well as Rick Altman’s genre theory and Bakhtin’s concept of carnival. In chapter two, I provide an historical overview of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival and outline my primary data for analysis. In chapter three, I draw from the GLQ forums to contextualize key debates surrounding the changing role of the queer ii film festival. In chapter four, I insert queer romantic comedy into the lexicon of genre theory to explore the use of self-reflexivity as a political tool. In chapters five and six, I compare the gay and lesbian romantic comedy collections, focusing on primary tropes, modes of address and media response to locate points of disruption within these ‘generic’ texts. In the concluding chapter, I consider the question of redundancy in relation to actual and authorized transgression within queer romantic comedy and the queer film festival space. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract...................................................................................................................ii Table of Contents ..................................................................................................iv List of Tables .........................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................vii Dedication............................................................................................................ viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: Coming Out and Crossing Over......................... 1 CHAPTER 2. Queerwood (Everyone’s Watching)............................................... 14 2.1. The Evolution of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival ....................... 14 2.2. Programming for the Community...................................................... 18 2.3. Professionalization and Corporate Infusion ...................................... 21 2.4. Defining Queer Romantic Comedy: Selection Process .................... 25 2.5. Audience Demographics and Representational Strategies .............. 30 CHAPTER 3. From Grassroots to Globalization.................................................. 36 3.1. The Double Bind of the Queer Film Festival..................................... 36 3.2. Global Debates: the GLQ Forums .................................................... 39 3.3. The Force of the Mainstream............................................................ 48 CHAPTER 4. Trouble with Tropes....................................................................... 61 4.1. (Queer) Romantic Comedy............................................................... 61 4.2. The Act of Queering Romantic Comedy ........................................... 69 CHAPTER 5. Gay (White) Muscle Boys.............................................................. 86 5.1. Gay Romantic Comedy and Assimilation Processes........................ 86 5.2. The Construction of a Monoculture................................................... 89 5.3. The “Gay Lifestyle” as a Site of Transgression................................. 94 iv 5.4. The Media Response to Trick......................................................... 105 5.5. Negotiating the Lifestyle in Boy Culture.......................................... 110 CHAPTER 6. Chocolate, Cheerleaders and Itty Bitty Titties ............................. 118 6.1. The Absence of Public Space......................................................... 118 6.2. Lesbian Romantic Comedy and Mode of Address ......................... 121 6.3. Youth Culture as Counterculture Space ......................................... 125 6.4. The Media Response to But I’m a Cheerleader.............................. 132 6.5. The Media Response to Itty Bitty Titty Committee.......................... 137 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION: Desperately Seeking Redundancy? .................. 146 Filmography....................................................................................................... 160 Works Cited ....................................................................................................... 162 Appendices........................................................................................................ 169 Appendix A: BREB Certificate of Approval ............................................ 169 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. OOS programming overview 1989-1996 ........................................... 18 Table 2. OOS programming overview 1997-2008 ........................................... 19 Table 3. OOS romantic comedy programming 1997-2008 .............................. 26 Table 4. Romantic comedy content: sexual demographics and casting .......... 31 Table 5. OOS 2006 survey results: descending audience demographics ....... 32 Table 6. Traditional obstacles to union vs. impact of social realism ................ 69 Table 7. Queer romantic comedy conventions ................................................ 74 Table 8. OOS 2006 survey results: descending audience demographics ....... 91 Table 9. Modes of address in gay romantic comedies..................................... 97 Table 10. Primary attributes of modes of address ............................................. 98 Table 11. Modes of address in lesbian romantic comedies ............................ 120 Table 12. Primary attributes of modes of address .......................................... 122 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as the University of British Columbia. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my Advising Committee: my Supervisor, Brian McIlroy, who has provided endless support and direction throughout my studies; and Ernest Mathijs, whose enthusiasm and passion have been extremely inspiring. I am grateful to Drew Dennis and Vanessa Kwan of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival for their contribution to this research. Thank you also to Lisa Loutzenheiser and Lisa Coulthard who were amazing professors throughout my graduate study, each one encouraging a rigorous engagement with ideas. I am forever indebted to my partner Maureen Varro for her ongoing support and patience; and I extend my heart to my parents, Pearce and Amy Penney, for making me the stubborn and passionate person that I am. vii This thesis is dedicated to Michael Weir 1966 - 2005 viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: Coming Out and Crossing Over At the Persistent Vision Conference 2006 in San Francisco, on the current state of queer media, the crossover film was a hot topic of debate.1 By crossover, I am referring to queer-themed films that have crossed over into the mainstream instead of, or in addition to, circulating through niche markets such as queer film festivals.2 The conference program guide proclaimed “not only are we featured, but we are being woven into the media quilt in all of our complexity” and proudly listed examples of the queering of popular media: the fame of lesbian icon Ellen Degeneres; the creation of queer television channels in the U.S., Canada, and France; the broadcast of queer television programs like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and The L Word; and the success of Oscar award-winning films such as Monster (Patty Jenkins 2003) and Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee 2005) (4). However, while several panelists argued that a doorway into the industry had finally been opened for queer filmmakers, the idea that queer images are becoming ubiquitous was not unanimously embraced or expressly desired. Throughout the conference, films like Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica (Duncan Tucker 2005) were frequently cited as inadequate or offensive representations of gay and transsexual experience, a judgment that has been hurled at Hollywood films for decades. Paradoxically, it is interesting