1st Edition
Straight Skin, Gay Masks and Pretending to be Gay on Screen
Straight Skin, Gay Masks and Pretending to Be Gay on Screen examines cinematic depictions of pretending-to-be-gay, assessing performances that not only reflect heteronormative and explicitly homophobic attitudes, but also offer depictions of gay selfhood with more nuanced multidirectional identifications.
The case of straight protagonists pretending to be gay on screen is the ideal context in which to study unanticipated progressivity and dissidence in regard to cultural construction of human sexualities in the face of theatricalized epistemological collapse. Teasing apart the dynamics of depictions of both sexual stability and fluidity in cinematic images of men pretending to be gay offers new insights into such salient issues as sexual vulnerability and dynamics and long-term queer visibility in a politically complicated mass culture which is mostly produced in a heteronormative and even hostile cultural environment. Additionally, this book initially examines queer uses of sexuality masquerade in Alternate Gay World Cinema that allegorically features a world pretending to be gay, in which straights are harassed and persecuted, in order to expose the tragic consequences of sexual intolerance. Films and TV series examined as part of the analysis include The Gay Deceivers, Victor/Victoria, Happy Texas, William Friedkin’s Cruising and many other straight and gay screens.
This is a fascinating and important study relevant to students and researchers in Film Studies, Media Studies, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Sexuality Studies, Communication Studies and Cultural Studies.
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Fabricated Screens: Sexual Authenticity, Flamboyant Masquerade,
and the Queer Epistemology of Pretending-to-be-gay Films.
Acting Gay, Mediating Stereotypes
Faking Faggotry, Negotiating Perversities
Strange Bedfellows and Their Melodramatic Straightness
Flamboyant Deceivers in a Performative Thirdspace
Chapter 1
Staging Effeminacy: Screening the Perilous Pleasures of Pretending to be a Sissy
Popularity Breeds Contempt: Extravagant Homosexuality and Its Perilous Effeminate Pleasures
The Gay Deceivers Enjoying a Slice of Festive Life
Victorious Diva and Defeated Old Queen
Perilous Heterosexual Pleasures and the Politics of Homeovestism in Homo Land
Metrosexual Straightness, Theatricalized Heteronormativity, and Straight Eye for the Queer Guys
Masculinist Straightness, Theatricalized Homophobia and Campy Guilty Pleasures
The Power of Fantasy: Football, Balls and Mirror Balls in a Pinky Macho Land
Saving Straight Loves: Phallic Anxieties, Promiscuous Gay Deceivers and Authentic Closets
Straight Drama Queens, Flamboyant Machismo and Gay Infatuation in a Deceptive Fashion
The Fabricator's Heart Belongs to Fabric in a Queer Fashion
Towards Effeminate Authenticity
Chapter 2
Take It Like a Man: Cruising Machismo in Leatherland
Cruising the Controversy
A Voyeuristic Disguise and a Voracious Gaze of Cannibalistic Culture Industry
Undisguised Demonization of Gay Sadomasochistic Pleasures
Disguising Sexual Authenticities and Subversions
The Gay Dungeon as Stimulating Cabinet of Curiosities
Reclaiming Authentic Disguise in Interior. Leather Bar
Chapter 3
Pretending to Be Allies? Straight Women, Their Pretending-to-Be-Gay Admirers and Sexual Authentication
Fag-hagging (and Hugging) Sedgwick's Angst
The Sexual Pleasures of the Fag Hag and Her Gay Partner
From Fag Hag to Fag Fuck: Unmasking Authentic Desires
The Queer Hypersexualization of the Pomosexual Latina
Lessons in Effeminacy, Faggotry and Fag-Haggery
The Real Man and His (Un)masked Heteronormative Desire
The Joy of Gayness and the Fear of Homosexuality
Pretending-to-Be-Gay Inside and Outside the Patriarchal Order
Gay Performativity and Mimetic Desire
Working Like a Proustian Homosexual in the Fields of Heteroflexibility, Intercorporality, and Inter-pretense
The Fag Hag as Director and Moderator of Sexual Authentication
Chapter 4
Odd Couples, Queer Partnerships and Gay Marriages in Pretending-to-Be-Gay Films
Teaching Faggotry, Learning to Flame
Two Erics, One Faggotry
Dropping the Soap in a World of Disguise and Disgust
Grotesque Masquerade and Ludicrous Authenticities
Flamboyant Gayness and Grotesque Homophobia
Dis/played Intimacy between Real Men and Their Absent Gay Kiss
Straightforwardness for the Straight Eye
Chapter 5
Screening Compulsory Homosexuality: The Perilous Pleasures of Parodying Heteronormativity and Fantasizing a Topsy-Turvy
Martyrdom
Voracious Carnivals and Cannibalistic Masquerades
Realistic Gay Bashing and Surrealistic Salvations
Pretending-to-be-gay as Perilous Parody
Straights Don't Cry and Heterosexualities Are Never Queer?
Delusive Happiness and New Martyrdom in a Perfect Gay World
Unmasking the Particularities and Subtleties of Queer Martyrdom .
Hopelessly Devoted "Heteros" and Their Gay Tormentors
The Guilty Pleasures of Screening Dichotomized Alternate Gay Worlds
Afterword
When Gay Masks Gaze at the Deceiver's Straight Skin:
The Grotesque Screening of Deceptive Horrors and Delights
Deforming Mirrors and Sincere Anxieties
The Terrorizing Mask and Its New Erotic Pleasures
References
Filmography
Index
Biography
Dr. Gilad Padva is a film, popular culture, men’s studies and queer theory scholar. He is the author of Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture (2014) and co-editor of Sensational Pleasures in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture: The Phallic Eye (2014), Intimate Relationships in Cinema, Literature and Visual Culture (2017) and Leisure and Cultural Change in Israeli Society (2020). He also publishes extensively in international academic journals, international collections and international encyclopedias. He currently teaches men’s studies and popular culture at the Program for Women and Gender Studies with the NCJW at Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
