LGBTIQ Representation in Film
There's alot of research out there on this topic, going back a few decades and analysing film right back to the beginning of the C20th - yes , there have been GLTBIQ representations for more than a century! The first major study of gay and lesbian representation ifn film was The Celluloid Closet, published in 1981 (all the uni libraries have it). It was made into a documentary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLLLZV7ibJA] in 1995. Opening the Celluloid closet is a quick overview of what's changed [http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/08/13/20-years-since-the-celluloid-closet-has-queer-representation-in-film-change.
Dillon shane's very simplistic overview of the issues [https://storify.com/Drebock/lgbt-representation-in-television] includes examples of social media responses. LGBT Character protrayal in the media [http://www.lgbt.co.uk/leisure/lgbt-character-portrayal.htm] gives slightly more information and compares TV/film with more pisitive online comic represenations. The comments on this Is the TV portrayal of gay and lesbian people fair? [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/07/is_the_tv_portrayal_of_gay_and.html] present a range of views, both tolereant and homophobiac, about media stereotyping.
GLAAD's 2015 Studio Responsibility Index [http://www.glaad.org/sri/2015/introduction] is an extensive survey of GLTBIQ represenation. Pay special attention to the metholodogy [http://www.glaad.org/sri/2015/methodology] including the Vito Russo test (based on the feminist Blechdel test) for non-tokenism.
Inequality in 700 popular films (2007-2013) [http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Inequality%20in%20700%20Popular%20Films%208215%20Final%20for%20Posting.ashx]
is a massive statistical analysis of Hollywood represenations of diversity with some fabulous infographics.
Dillon shane's very simplistic overview of the issues [https://storify.com/Drebock/lgbt-representation-in-television] includes examples of social media responses. LGBT Character protrayal in the media [http://www.lgbt.co.uk/leisure/lgbt-character-portrayal.htm] gives slightly more information and compares TV/film with more pisitive online comic represenations. The comments on this Is the TV portrayal of gay and lesbian people fair? [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/07/is_the_tv_portrayal_of_gay_and.html] present a range of views, both tolereant and homophobiac, about media stereotyping.
GLAAD's 2015 Studio Responsibility Index [http://www.glaad.org/sri/2015/introduction] is an extensive survey of GLTBIQ represenation. Pay special attention to the metholodogy [http://www.glaad.org/sri/2015/methodology] including the Vito Russo test (based on the feminist Blechdel test) for non-tokenism.
Inequality in 700 popular films (2007-2013) [http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Inequality%20in%20700%20Popular%20Films%208215%20Final%20for%20Posting.ashx]
is a massive statistical analysis of Hollywood represenations of diversity with some fabulous infographics.
Theoretical Background
Key Definitions:
Heteronormativity [http://misrepresentationofwomen.weebly.com/heteronormativity.html] includes video and short ananysis as examples.
queer Cinema [http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/diversity-media/queer-representation/queer-representation-film-television]
Anneke Smelek has an excellent overview of different theoretical approaches to studying GLBTIQ cinema [http://www.annekesmelik.nl/Criticism0001.pdf], including theories that concentrate on stereotypical representations, authurial intention, the role of the spectator, masculiniity studies, queer studies/camp/transgression, constructivism and psychoanalysis (Notable absence - feminist theory!).
Inside Out [http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1156&context=artspapers] uses queer theory to critique the suggestion that we just need more and better representations of GLTBIQ identity - what we need is an entirely new non-binary way to look at the entire concept of sexuality.
Heteronormativity [http://misrepresentationofwomen.weebly.com/heteronormativity.html] includes video and short ananysis as examples.
queer Cinema [http://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/media-issues/diversity-media/queer-representation/queer-representation-film-television]
Anneke Smelek has an excellent overview of different theoretical approaches to studying GLBTIQ cinema [http://www.annekesmelik.nl/Criticism0001.pdf], including theories that concentrate on stereotypical representations, authurial intention, the role of the spectator, masculiniity studies, queer studies/camp/transgression, constructivism and psychoanalysis (Notable absence - feminist theory!).
Inside Out [http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1156&context=artspapers] uses queer theory to critique the suggestion that we just need more and better representations of GLTBIQ identity - what we need is an entirely new non-binary way to look at the entire concept of sexuality.
Race and LGBTIQ identity
Queering Hindi Cinema [http://literophile.org/?p=78]
Gays and Lesbians in Indian cinema [https://www.ideaindia.com/gays-and-lesbians-in-indian-cinema/p/1818/]
Christina Fonthes criticiseses the London Gay and Lesbian film festival for it's stereotypical representation of race [https://mediadiversified.org/2014/04/23/the-diversity-test-is-the-london-lgbt-film-festival-a-white-only-affair/] in the choice of films, referrign specifically to "the white saviour complex [which] allows the white LGBT community to view black queers not as equals facing homophobia but as an ‘other’, an oppressed people who need to be saved."
My queer Korea [http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue2/Berry.html]
Lesbian (mis)represenation
Very simple summary of 4 stereotypes about lesbians [http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/06/lesbian-and-bisexual-women-in-the-media/]
Daughters of Desire [https://books.google.com.au/books?id=F0fqDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=daughters+of+desire&source=bl&ots=N-s6ld7kyB&sig=yXKgQFonWHSqgv6I8_cXgZDMOxI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjg2sWu-c_QAhWLf7wKHSsJA8IQ6AEIKTAF#v=onepage&q=daughters%20of%20desire&f=false] uses psycholoananlytical film theory and (to a more lim ited extent) queer theories to analyse key lesbnioan texts and subtexts in films from the 60s and 90s. See me if you are interested in tehis one so I can get you some background theory.
The One-sided Mirror of the Movies [http://www.academia.edu/3855617/The_One_Sided_Mirror_of_the_Movies_The_mis_representation_of_the_lesbian_on_our_cinema_screens] focuses on three key lesbian stereoypes: vampire/predator, butch and eye-candy, and advocates a wide representation of lesbian identities.
McFadden explores how The L Word tackled problems of representation [https://muse.jhu.edu/book/31363] by using reflexivity as a strategy to make meaning, undertaking a complicitous critique of Hollywood, skillfully using a soap-drama format to draw in its audience, and ultimately creating its own complex representation of a lesbian community.
Daughters of Desire [https://books.google.com.au/books?id=F0fqDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=daughters+of+desire&source=bl&ots=N-s6ld7kyB&sig=yXKgQFonWHSqgv6I8_cXgZDMOxI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjg2sWu-c_QAhWLf7wKHSsJA8IQ6AEIKTAF#v=onepage&q=daughters%20of%20desire&f=false] uses psycholoananlytical film theory and (to a more lim ited extent) queer theories to analyse key lesbnioan texts and subtexts in films from the 60s and 90s. See me if you are interested in tehis one so I can get you some background theory.
The One-sided Mirror of the Movies [http://www.academia.edu/3855617/The_One_Sided_Mirror_of_the_Movies_The_mis_representation_of_the_lesbian_on_our_cinema_screens] focuses on three key lesbian stereoypes: vampire/predator, butch and eye-candy, and advocates a wide representation of lesbian identities.
McFadden explores how The L Word tackled problems of representation [https://muse.jhu.edu/book/31363] by using reflexivity as a strategy to make meaning, undertaking a complicitous critique of Hollywood, skillfully using a soap-drama format to draw in its audience, and ultimately creating its own complex representation of a lesbian community.
Transgender (mis)represenation
Nathalie Deney identifies the key issues in transgender representation [https://medium.com/@nathaliedeney/challenging-the-film-industry-to-save-trans-lives-841c40148e86#.kfek8j6iz]
Victims or Villains: 10 years of transgender images on Television [http://www.glaad.org/publications/victims-or-villains-examining-ten-years-transgender-images-television]
Trans women and the horror of mis representation [http://www.btchflcks.com/2014/10/trans-women-and-the-horror-of-misrepresentation.html#.WD-wk1V9670] idenitifies key stereotypes perpetuated in the horror genre
commodification and consumerism
Cashing in on queers [http://jqstudies.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/jqstudies/article/view/3286/1414] highlights and theorisises key evelopments inth e creation of GLTBIQ identity as a consumer or commodity for consumption
Narrowing your focus
Some ways to narrow your focus include:
- Looking at one aspect of LGBTIQ (eg lesbian representation) or how it intersects with other identities(eg black LGBTIQ repesentation)
- Looking at film from one genre (eg horror films) or one country (eg Australia) or one film tradition (eg Hollywood blackbusters)
- Theorising a particular problem of representation (eg the rise tokenism in the past few years)
- Analysing changes in representation compared to changes in the way we access films (eg the rise of small budget Netflix series)
- Critiquing the role of LGBTIQ film festivals or a particular film festival (Sydney Film Festival?)
- Analysing a particular film's impact (eg Brokeback Mountain)
- Analysing the (social) media around a particular film (eg Joss Wheedon's directorial interaction with social media discussions of Buffy)
- Analysing the commercialisation/commodification of LGBTI identity through film
- Applying one particular theorist (eg Butler) to the way people have responded to a particular film/genre
- Evaluating whether stereotypical misrepresentation is less damaging than invisibility
- Evaluate solutions: Is wide repressntation just perpetuating the hetereosexual/homosexual binary or does it offer a challenge?
NOT GLTBIQ
Ransdom other film stuff
Perry Hinton Represenstation on Japansese culture through Manga in England [http://www.necsus-ejms.org/representation-misrepresentation-british-media-japanese-popular-culture/]
rep[resenation of women in media [http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/feminista/2012/04/23/miss-representation-vancouver-women-leaders-challenge-sexism-media]
reopesenting makle dominance [https://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/]
Ransdom other film stuff
Perry Hinton Represenstation on Japansese culture through Manga in England [http://www.necsus-ejms.org/representation-misrepresentation-british-media-japanese-popular-culture/]
rep[resenation of women in media [http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/feminista/2012/04/23/miss-representation-vancouver-women-leaders-challenge-sexism-media]
reopesenting makle dominance [https://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/]