How Does One Responsibly Represent a Filmic Queer Reality?

Content Creator Goh Cheng Hao questions the portrayal of queerness within film.

   With the shift to a more politically aware consumption of media, discourse over the ethics of representing queerness in film has become more contentious. While global perceptions of queerness have undeniably become more progressive, films have not updated these changing views. Many films rely on hackneyed tropes centering queer suffering and trauma as foundations for representing queerness, evident in the pathologisation and self-annihilation of trans-ness in Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, and the abject assault of Brandon Teena in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry.

Left: Trans woman Lili Elbe and her wife Garda Wegener in the biopic The Danish Girl (2015); Right: Brandon Teen in the biographical dramatisation Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

Netflix series Heartstopper (2022), adapted from Alice Oseman’s series of the same name.

   Although the treatment of queerness in these films is complicated by their fidelity to their non-fictive sources, as well as the illiberal views of their times, their portrayal of queer trauma remains problematic. The deliberate omission of historical details (for example, in TDG, where Gerda’s sexuality was historically fluid, or in BDC where Brandon’s criminal record is excluded) and the complete fictionalisation of other scenes (where Lili was harassed and beaten up by two strangers) results in their characterisations being one-dimensional, martyr-like, with suffering being their only defining characteristic. On the contrary, more optimistic portrayals of queerness as in the series Heartstopper are in my opinion just as vapid, portraying easily resolved and superficial depictions of the myriad adversities of queer existence as if for an infantile cishet audience.

   A quandary then arises in queer representation, when we reject sensationalised depictions of violence as one-dimensional, and also reject idealistic portrayals of queerness as overly saccharine. Is there then a responsible way to treat queer trauma and more realistically represent queerness – where queer characters are fallible, complex, and nuanced? 

   Queer trauma indisputably has roots in establishing queer representation in film, and many believe that violence cannot be decoupled from queer history. Queer films in the 90s were highly politicised: incensed by the traumatic AIDS epidemic and voicing outrage against the pathologisation of the community. The trope of queer trauma hence developed as a strategy in independent filmmaking of the New Queer Cinema (coined by B. Ruby Rich). Queer trauma film became a platform to convey the suffering of queers usually rendered politically invisible: depicting queer existence as vulnerable to inordinate brutality, helplessly subjugated by societal structures. These archetypes of violence: disease, poverty, drugs, sex, seen in the films of Gregg Araki, Paris is Burning, etc., address their relevant contemporary issues, and were a social necessity to spotlight despite their graphic and transgressive natures.  

   I feel these archetypes are anachronistic when depicted in contemporary queer films, clichéd and retrospective rather than insightful. Despite this, the current incompatibility of queer violence perhaps signals the progression of society past the need for blatant attestations of queer injustice. Given the widening acceptance of queerness, there is perhaps a growing desire for healing and normalisation, to counter the fatigue of queer trauma rather than its continued rehashing. However, this does not mean that we should portray queerness only inoffensively, nor be satisfied with family-friendly queer representation. As Loist mentions: “‘queer’ cinema is not the expression of an identity, but instead of a history” (Loist 160), there is still a need to acknowledge violence as integral and formative of queer histories, reflecting the discrimination queer individuals still face today. 

   Perhaps then we should focus on the ‘queering’ of the cinema, as where “[queer representation] aims at identitarian… often ‘positive’, representation, [queer cinema] searches for new ways of expression…” (Loist 160). Representation without further insight (as if to meet social obligations) is therefore facile and unproductive, and there is a need to challenge heteronormative, cisgendered tropes of mainstream film, and move away from presenting queerness as spectacle. A film that I think explores the idea of going beyond simple representation is Barry Jenkin’s 2016 film, Moonlight.

A still from Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight (2016).

   Violence meted against the protagonist Chiron is not just contrived but comments on Loist’s “[histories]”. The film challenges the depiction of violence against queers as simply irrational and mindless. Rather than queer trauma being the singular spectacular takeaway from the film, it also reflects on historically informed norms of compulsory hyper-masculinity due to black disenfranchisement; how oppression can result in self-perpetuating cycles where racism begets homophobia and black-on-black violence. Chiron’s eventual conformity (at least outwardly) to these ideals of masculinity shows his fallibility as a character – his choice in self-preservation rather than rejecting these ideals explores ideas of adaptation and accommodation, a middle ground that challenges binaries of normativity and deviance. 

   Additionally, instead of only diametrically rejecting pejorative tropes of queerness, Moonlight comments on the intersectionality between race, sexuality, and masculinity. These themes are often not privileged by their contemporaries – where queer coming-of-age films are often from a white, privileged lens – in doing so, reaching a minority audience often neglected by these blockbuster and commercially successful queer films (Call Me By Your Name; Love, Simon, etc.). 

   In all, our discomfort with dated depictions is a hopeful sign that perceptions of queerness are becoming more liberal, and perhaps it is counterproductive to define a ‘correct’ queer representation, for its parameters are constantly changing. The more important question is what we do with these narratives – rather than take them at face value – but instead being informed of their historicities and contexts, the onus then falls on us to make our own meanings and understandings. 

ADAPTED FROM AN ESSAY CHENG HAO WROTE FOR HIS CLASS, Introduction to Gender and Diversity (HQ5010)

Works Cited

Loist, Skadi. Queer film culture: Performative aspects of LGBT/Q film festivals. Diss. Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky, 2014.