In recent decades, male bisexuality has become a recurring topic in international cinema, as filmmakers and their works challenge our ideas about sexual freedom and identity. In all of these films, more than a dozen of which are covered here, bisexuality is treated both as an actual practice and a complex metaphor for a number of things, including the need to adapt to changing environments, the questioning of rigidly traditional male roles and identities, the breakdown and regeneration of the structures of families, the limitations of monogamy, and the stubborn affirmation of romantic love.
Often disguised in public discourse by terms like "gay," "homoerotic," "homosocial," or "queer," bisexuality is strangely absent from queer studies and virtually untreated in film and media criticism. Maria San Filippo aims to explore the central role bisexuality plays in contemporary screen culture, establishing its importance in representation, marketing, and spectatorship. By examining a variety of media genres including art cinema, sexploitation cinema and vampire films, "bromances," and series television, San Filippo discovers "missed moments" where bisexual readings of these texts reveal a more malleable notion of subjectivity and eroticism. San Filippo's work moves beyond the subject of heteronormativity and responds to "compulsory monosexuality," where it's not necessarily a couple's gender that is at issue, but rather that an individual chooses one or the other. The B Word transcends dominant relational formation (gay, straight, or otherwise) and brings a discursive voice to the field of queer and film studies.
Over the past several decades, mainstream films have gradually featured queer content and characters. Depicted covertly at first, these characterizations have become much more prominent in recent years, most notably in such films as Philadelphia, Boys Don't Cry, and Brokeback Mountain. In Queer Males in Contemporary Cinema: Becoming Visible, Kylo-Patrick R. Hart explores both latent and manifest representations of queer males in noteworthy cinema from the mid-20th to the early 21st century. Hart examines films pertaining to bisexual, gay, and transgender men, as well as transsexuals, transvestites, queer people with HIV/AIDS, queer teens, and others. Throughout, this book continually reminds readers that both mainstream and independent films communicate, reinforce, and perpetuate culturally pervasive notions of "normalcy," "deviance," and "social otherness," in ways that frequently have real--and sometimes detrimental--effects on actual people. Covering a range of films, including From Here to Eternity, The Boys in the Band, Saturday Night Fever, Cruising, Point Break, The Doom Generation, Boys Don't Cry, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kinsey, Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica, and Shortbus, this book shows not only how much has changed since the mid-20th century, but also how much has remained the same. Queer Males in Contemporary Cinema provides perceptive insights for students and academics interested in film history, cultural studies, gender studies, media studies, popular culture, and LGBTQ studies.
Nicolas Winding Refn has emerged as a uniquely talented international filmmaker with an eye for visceral, iconic images. A 21st century mythmaker from his cult Pusher trilogy to the award-winning Drive and Only God Forgives, Refn infuses a sophisticated avant-garde sensibility with the grit of exploitation cinema. This book relates Refn's films to the ideas of Nietzsche, Canetti, Blanchot and others, and to aesthetic theory in general. It also asks why the West has become a largely artificial society, unable to generate new communal mythologies. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
A moving and pioneering celebration of the male bisexual self that addresses biphobia in our society In today’s sexual world, both straight and gay and lesbian communities still often refuse to accept the reality of bisexuality. Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way confronts head-on the limiting views that bisexuality is a transitional phase of sexual evolution or a simple refusal to accept being either homosexual or straight. This pioneering collection of moving personal essays by bisexual men and those who love them explores what it means to be bisexual in today’s monosexually oriented society. The millennial shift in sexual perspectives draws more and more men to come out as being attracted to both women and men. Bisexual and bi-curious men will find comfort and camaraderie in these stories about coming out, its impact on family and marriage, evolving perspectives on bisexuals within the LGBT community, and the building of acceptance and affirmation for bisexuality and polyamory. The nearly three dozen essays in Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way are told in the honest words of bisexuals, confirming the validity of their place in the world while illustrating that there are more bi men than anyone ever realized. These diverse and pioneering men’s stories reveal a long-disguised and unconventional truth—that bisexuality is a valid lifestyle that does not threaten either sexual camp. Each contributor to this collection affirms the innate fluidity of self, sexuality, family, and community, and proclaims that sexuality is truly diverse in its predispositions and creativity. Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way separates its essays into four parts: coming out and personal realization of bisexual nature bisexuality’s effects on family and marriage an examination of the shifting viewpoints of bisexuality within gay communities ways in which bisexuals can affirm and respect their own desires and celebrate their sexual selves These intimate stories address: biphobia monosexual prejudice the impact on marriage family issues coming out to self, spouse, and family political and community issues religious and spiritual concerns Bi Men: Coming Out Every Which Way is a vibrant, reassuring call to bisexuals, the bi-curious, or anybody who knows and loves a bisexual/bi-curious man, to read and more completely understand the unique issues of being bisexual while providing the ultimate affirmation of bisexuality’s existence.
Beloved, controversial, influential, the creator of such fascinating and award-winning films as My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Elephant, and Milk, Gus Van Sant stands among the great international directors, equally at home in Hollywood and the avant-garde. Examining his films thematically, this book finds consistency of vision in Van Sant's unique approach to cinema, which deploys postmodernist techniques such as appropriation, nonlinear narrative, and queering--not in the service of the chic but to apply an all-inclusive viewpoint to ageless tales of life, love and death. Van Sant's films are viewed through a multi-genre prism, including the work of Bruce Weber and Derek Jarman, the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, the music of the Velvet Underground and Nirvana, the fiction of Sam D'Allesandro, and especially the "cut-up"/collage practice of intertextual authorship pioneered by William Burroughs.
This study provides new insights into the link between masculinity and jealousy through a study of representations of male jealousy in modern Hollywood cinema. It argues, through examples of films and their reception in the press, that male jealousy has played a key role in the psychocultural shaping of Western masculinities and male fantasy.
Framed by a comprehensive review of international research, literature, and film, this book is an intimate journey into the experiences and insights of 79 Australian women in relationships with bisexual men. It takes us into the daily lives, sexual intimacies, and families of MOREs (mixed-orientation relationships) that span the gamut from extremely oppressive experiences with bi-misogynist men to extremely liberating with bi-profeminist men. Aged 19 to 65, the women are in monogamous, open, and polyamorous relationships with bisexual-identifying and/or bisexual-behaving men. The women themselves are bisexual, lesbian, heterosexual, while others refuse to categorize their own sexualities. The book addresses the discovery or disclosure of the man's bisexuality, how the relationships work and where they flounder, how the partners negotiate and establish 'new rules' and boundaries to maintain their relationship, and the impact of class, rural/urban setting, ethnicity, indigeneity, race, religion, and education on these relationships. But this book isn’t only about MOREs. The research, revelations and reflections in this book tell us much about current and shifting global constructions and understandings of intimate relationships, sexual desires and love, and the socio-cultural representations and labeling of genders and sexualities.
Provides an introduction to the products and context of the new Australian film industry which arose toward the end of the 1960s. Traces the development of Australian film, in terms of prominent directors and stars, consistent themes, styles and evolving genres. The evolution of the film genres peculiar to Australia, and the adaptation of conventional Hollywood forms (such as the musical and the road movie) are examined in detail through textual readings of landmark films. Films and trends discussed include: the period film and Picnic at Hanging Rock; the Gothic film and the Mad Max trilogy; camp and kitsch comedy and the Adventures of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert. The key issue of the revival (the definition, representation and propagation of a national image) is woven through analysis of the new Australian cinema.
This three-volume set is a rich resource for readers in any discipline interested in understanding the global, regional, and domestic experiences of LGB people. This interdisciplinary set makes a vital contribution to understanding how LGB rights are progressing—and in some cases, regressing—around the globe. The three volumes look at the lived experiences of LGB people from varied perspectives and provide comprehensive coverage on a wide variety of topics ranging from LGB youth and LGB aging to the approaches to LGB people of different religions, including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Chapters focus on topics including the ongoing criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct and how international human rights law can be used to improve the lives of LGB people. Particular attention is paid to the rights of bisexuals, a group often ignored in works focusing on sexual orientation. Volume 1 focuses on history, politics, and culture relating to LGB people; Volume 2 focuses on the laws—domestic and international—governing LGB people; and Volume 3 provides snapshots of the current state of LGB experience in countries worldwide, presented by geographical region: Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific region.
