In Occident exista o enorma literatura despre asa numita cultura gay. Se preda in facultati, etc. Cum threadul despre Homosexualitatea in ziua de azi nu a insistat deloc pe aceasta latura a homosexualitatii, deschid acest thread pentru cei interesati de teatru, film, carte in general si de cultura gay in particular. Parte din mesaje vor fi linkuri catre siteuri sau carti relevante pentru gay studies & queer theory. Totusi incep cu niste observatii preliminare despre cultura gay - preluate de pe net.


GAY CULTURE – The Politics of Sexual Diversity

The love that dare not speak its name. Oscar Wilde.

The love that won't shut up. Mike Nichols.



Semiotics Gays need a repetoire of signs because, unlike race and gender, gayness doesn't show.

Issues:
Dress code: may be only a part time activity, not for street, workplace or even the home.

Discourse: woman's interest in mechanics or sports, man's in arts or domestic life.

Hollywood used pale skin, hooded eyes and 'sadness' as correlatives of sickness.

Roles: threatening lesbian, woman's gay male best friend, etc.

Classical v. 'natural' (Magnus Hirschfield's 'third sex')

Sex Roles Despite 'butch' and 'fem' sterotypes, the sex roles that primarily structure all male-female relationships are absent for the most part in gay relationships. Moore and McDonald (1978) found that gay males held more positive and egalitarian attitudes towards women and their roles than did heterosexual males.


Masquerade A key concept in both gay studies and feminism has been that of androgyny and cross-gender writing: 'You're born naked. After that it's all drag' (Ru Paul). From the 'female cabin boys' of folk songs to Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928) and Dame Edna, gender has always been unstable. Both Marcel Proust and E. M. Forster admitted that their 'heroines' were really men. Drag queens 'turn' stereotyped images of women for comic purposes to show the imitative structure of gender itself. In the 1970s David Bowie and Mick Jagger made androgyny acceptable for working class males. However, men can also move into the female sphere to reassert their dominance, men acting being better women than women themselves (Tootsie, 1982).



Gay and Popular Culture The popular icons of the dominant culture are taken over or appropriated for use by the subgroup. The gay community made a heroine out of Judy Garland by disfiguring her image of the all-American girl-next-door and reworking her as a sign of the masquerade necessary to the social experience of gays before sexual liberation. Some gays, however, recognise that their opposition to the social order is so radical that its cultural resources and values are unusable and new cultural forms must be developed and used within gay society. In such cases they become a kind of radicalised folk culture. These in turn may be appropriated by 'straights'.

– 'Every time a person speaks about some group that he or she has little or no contact with or no first-hand knowledge of, that person presents a group stereotype' – James A. Doyle, p. 252.

Physical Relationships and Sexual Practices Masters and Johnson (1979) found that gays are less obsessed with reaching orgasm than heterosexuals. Gay males (like straight males) are less likely to remain monogamous in their relationships than lesbians or heterosexual women, suggesting that this is more an aspect of their maleness than their sexual orientation. For example, both gay and straight women also placed greater emphasis on having equal relationships, having a supportive group of friends, sharing similar political attitudes, and each having their own career, than men. Many gays have heterosexual fantasies.

1939-45 Europe: Hundreds of thousands of 'pink triangle' gays sent to concentration camps.

1969 USA: Police raid on Stonewall bar, New York, leads to setting up of Gay Liberation Front.

1973-4 USA: American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations remove homosexuality from their list of mental disorders.

1980 Worldwide: spread of AIDS fundamentally changes gay praxis.

Click aici pt. a citi un ABC al culturii gay...cate un concept pt. fiecare litera a alfabetului

Unul dintre filmele clasice ale culturii gay - Maurice: povestea a doi tineri aristocrati studenti la Cambridge la inceput de secol 20 (rigida Anglie edwardiana). Cei doi isi dau seama de same-sex attraction tarziu...pe masura ce relatia lor de prietenie se adanceste (prea) mult...In cele din urma, unul dintre ei neaga sentimentele gay de teama presiunilor sociale (origine nobiliara, etc), lasandu-l pe celalalt distrus emotional. Unul dintre actori e Hugh Grant...in tinerete... Daca nu reusiti sa vedeti filmul, incercati macar sa procurati romanul cu acelasi nume al lui E. M. Forster. Mai jos cateva detalii despre film.


TITLE: Maurice
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: U.K.
DIRECTOR: James Ivory
CAST: James Wilby, Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott
AVAILABLE ON VIDEO: Yes



"Any other man might have reported me to the Dean...or the Police!" -- Clive Durham (Hugh Grant)
If you read this E. M. Forster novel, you find you must do some reading between the lines to extract the story that the Merchant/Ivory team have brought to the screen in Maurice. But it is there. In this film, set in the early 1900's, unfolds a remarkable story of gay love and some larger than life characters who are everything good movie characters should be. Maurice Hall (James Wilby) is a man who, in spite of his early resistance to his true feelings, decides that he must take some risks if his life is to be worthwhile. Especially his love life.

While attending Cambridge, Maurcie meets Clive Durham and as their friendship grows, Durham eventually admits his love for his school chum. Maurice is appropriately shocked and brushes the advance off as 'rubbish' which sets Durham on the defensive about his sexuality, especially when Maurice finally comes around and attempts to undo the rebuff. For a time, the relationship flourishes and, while they are unaware of the homosexual nature of the boys' friendship, their families become close also. Maurice and Clive spend a great deal of time together at Pendersleigh Park (Durham's country manor) and at Hall's family home in London.

Shortly after another school mate, Vicount Risley, is prosecuted and convicted for attempting a sexual encounter with a militiaman, and is ruined by scandal, Durham, of aristocratic stock himself, decides he must change. Maurice is devestated by this but the friendship remains intact. Maurice also decides to try to change and even undergoes hypnotherapy in the effort. But it is to no avail. He falls for Durham's game keeper, Scutter, a scruffy but handsome lad who is very to the point about his intentions and his feelings.

This film is everything you'd expect of a Merchant/Ivory project. It's a period piece, high drama, but adventurous and not starchy, as British drama often tends to be. It even has some wonderful humor, albeit, low-key. Maurice is very bold in it's depiction of gay men attempting to be themselves at a time and in a culture where the very whif of 'immoral' behavior could cost one everything as is witnessed when Risley is convicted and stripped of his title and property. It examines in great detail, the excruciating emotional turmoil that gay men and women of the period endured and makes us realize that we are certainly far better off some 80 years hence. It is a powerful story of the loves in Maurice Hall's life and how he chooses his love over his material world.

Maurice is an enjoyable film especially as a study of gay people's lives early in the 20th century as it exposes where and how deeply rooted homophobia lies in western culture yet tells us that there were probably many who held hope that gay people would, one day, be able to live their loves with pride. Definite collector material.

hei, Nicodime, ce muzica prefera Homosexualii, sau ce piese sunt consacrate ca fiind pentru gay?? De ex. Gloria Gaynor-I will survive, am auzit ca e cea mai reprezentativa! si la fel si Sheryl Crow - Soak Up The Sun. Si de atunci nu le mai fredonez in public

Un film care pune problema persoanelor gay si a drepturilor lor mi se pare a fi "Philadelphia",cu Tom Hanks.

Failure, e o diversitate la fel de mare ca si in lumea straight. Iti spun asta dupa ce am vizitat cluburi gay in cateva tari occidentale si dupa ce am discutat despre preferinte muzicale cu o gramada de tipi gay. Chiar nu exista un stil gay.

Totusi, intr-un club gay e destul de probabil sa auzi din cand in cand chestii clasice gay gen:
YMCA
Madonna - Like a virgin
Abba - Dancing queen

Dar predomina muzica dance...ceea ce e bine...

Dar chestia asta cu barbatul metrosexual de unde provine?

metrosexual - practic e vorba de raspandirea apucaturilor gay si muieresti in randul barbatilor straight. Isi cumpara creme de fata, strugurel pentru buze, isi vopsesc parul, merg la shopping, isi fac coafuri sofisticate, etc. exemplul celebru e David Beckham. Mai jos explicatii detaliate

(met.roh.SEK.shoo.ul) n. An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.
—metrosexuality n.

Example Citation:

At dinner the other night, my date listed the calorie count of the main entrees, raising an eyebrow at my chicken Alfredo selection after he had ordered a salad. I saw him check his reflection in the silver water pitcher three times. During dessert, he looked deeply into my eyes and told me he thought what we have together is very special. It was our third date.

It was then that I realized why my dating life has been as mysterious as the Bermuda Triangle since I arrived in Washington. This city, unlike any other place I've lived, is a haven for the metrosexual. A metrosexual, in case you didn't catch any of several newspaper articles about this developing phenomenon (or the recent "South Park" episode on Comedy Central), is a straight man who styles his hair using three different products (and actually calls them "products"), loves clothes and the very act of shopping for them, and describes himself as sensitive and romantic. In other words, he is a man who seems stereotypically gay except when it comes to sexual orientation.
—Alexa Hackbarth, "Vanity, Thy Name Is Metrosexual," The Washington Post, November 17, 2003



Notes:
A metrosexual is a clotheshorse wrapped around a dandy fused with a narcissist. Like soccer star David Beckham, who has been known to paint his fingernails, the metrosexual is not afraid to embrace his feminine side. Why "metrosexual"? The metro- (city) prefix indicates this man's purely urban lifestyle, while the -sexual suffix comes from "homosexual," meaning that this man, although he is usually straight, embodies the heightened aesthetic sense often associated with certain types of gay men.

Mark Simpson invented this term in 1994 (see the earliest citation, below), and it drifted slowly from one media source to another throughout the rest of 1990s and early 2000s. Then Simpson wrote another article about metrosexuals in the online magazine Salon.com on July 22, 2002, and the term took off. Since then it has been picked up by thousands of media outlets, has made numerous TV appearances, has spawned at least a couple of books, and has been dropped in untold numbers of cocktail party conversations. There is no escaping the metrosexual.

The second example citation gives Simpson's succinct description of the metrosexual type from his Salon.com article.


Example Citation #2:

The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis — because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays, sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male vanity products and herpes, they're pretty much everywhere.
—Mark Simpson, "Meet the metrosexual," Salon.com, July 22, 2002


Earliest Citation:

The promotion of metrosexuality was left to the men's style press, magazines such as The Face, GQ, Esquire, Arena and FHM, the new media which took off in the Eighties and is still growing (GQ gains 10,000 new readers every month). They filled their magazines with images of narcissistic young men sporting fashionable clothes and accessories. And they persuaded other young men to study them with a mixture of envy and desire.

Some people said unkind things. American GQ, for example, was popularly dubbed ''Gay Quarterly''. Little wonder that all these magazines — with the possible exception of The Face — address their metrosexual readership as if none of them were homosexual or even bisexual.
—Mark Simpson, "Here come the mirror men," The Independent, November 15, 1994

Iata si niste informatii despre filmul clasic pe care l-ai mentionat...

Title: Philadelphia
Director(s): Jonathan Demme
Actor(s): Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington
Publisher: Columbia/Tristar Studios
Cinema release date: 23 December, 1993
DVD release date: 03 September, 2002
Media: DVD




background information
Philadelphia wasn't the first movie about AIDS (it followed such worthy independent films as Parting Glances and Longtime Companion), but it was the first Hollywood studio picture to take AIDS as its primary subject. In that sense, Philadelphia is a historically important film. As such, it's worth remembering that director Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs) wasn't interested in preaching to the converted; he set out to make a film that would connect with a mainstream audience. And he succeeded. Philadelphia was not only a hit, it also won Oscars for Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Streets of Philadelphia," and for Tom Hanks as the gay lawyer Andrew Beckett who is unjustly fired by his firm because he has AIDS. Denzel Washington is another lawyer (functioning as the mainstream-audience surrogate) who reluctantly takes Beckett's case and learns to overcome his misconceptions about the disease, about those who contract it, and about gay people in general. The combined warmth and humanism of Hanks and Demme were absolutely essential to making this picture a success. The cast also features Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas (as Beckett's lover), Joanne Woodward, and Robert Ridgely, and, of course, those Demme regulars Charles Napier, Tracey Walter, and Roger Corman. --Jim Emerson

reviews

A very human story behind the courtroom drama
This 1993 film was the first major Hollywood movie with big name stars to deal with the topic of AIDS. As of now, with the exception of some independent films as well as some programs on television, it is the only one I know of. I don't know how it did at the box office but it did win a lot of awards and recognition, especially for Tom Hanks, who won an Academy Award for best actor.
Cast in the role of a lawyer in a prestigious Philadelphia law firm who is fired because he has AIDS, Hanks really took on the role wholeheartedly. He must have dieted to starvation because his weight loss is quite noticeable and with the aid of good makeup, we see his physical appearance change before our eyes. Denzel Washington is cast as a lawyer too, but he works independently, taking on small cases of personal injury, even advertising his services on television. He's happily married with a wife and small baby and hates homosexuals. However, in spite of his feelings, he takes on Hanks' case, never completely giving up his negative feelings towards gays, but yet understanding his client's very human feelings about wanting to live.

Joanne Woodward is cast as Hanks' mother and, even though her role is small, there are some very moving moments between them. Jason Robards is the partner in the law firm who expresses disgust at the fact that Hanks had the nerve to bring AIDS right into their office. Mary Steenburgen is the attorney for the law firm and she does an excellent job of very clearly bringing out some of the legal issues. And Antonio Bandaras is cast as Hanks' partner who has the unpleasant tasks of helping Hanks with his treatments. The whole cast does an excellent job. Every person seemed absolutely real under Jonathan Demme's very capable direction.

Mostly the film involved itself with the legal issues and this kept it from being maudlin. However, there was no way it could help bringing out the very human story behind the courtroom drama. It's a story that had to be told to the world. And "Philadelphia" does an excellent job of doing just that. Recommended.


Gripping And Compelling

"Philadelphia", based on a true story, is one of the best releases of 1993, starring Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Mary Steenbergen, Antonio Banderes, and more. Its production was extra crutial being that during the time of release, many were still severely fearing AIDS. The producers accomplish every scene wonderfully. The movie's portrayal of AIDS and its victims is very accurate to reality. The plot was written beautifully, though sad. It explores more than just AIDS; it explores discrimination against those who have it and against homosexuals. Such combination remains ahead of its time. The plot becomes more interesting as Andy Beckett's lawyer becomes more educated about such issues and begins changing his beliefs about them. Its emotional impact is intense, never held back for a second. It forces audiences to feel the events. The movie is more than entertainment; it's also educational.
Tom Hanks's Oscar winning performance as Beckett is heartwrenching. His every drop of heart and soul was poured through his performance. His previous hardcore research about the lifestyle, the disease, and the actual events is obvious. This is one of many movies that proves that Tom Hanks is one of the best actors in history. Denzel Washington's performance as Beckett's lawyer is beautiful. His acting skill proves very crutial in his character's personality and point of view. All other actors, major or minor, also perform their roles wonderfully. Everyone, including Hanks and Washington, offers their own useful emotional prospective to this movie.

Bruce Springsteen's Oscar winning song "Streets of Philadelphia" is a beautiful way to begin the movie. Its dark theme matches the plot perfectly. It also offers new prospectives to the movie. This song will be a classic in the following years. The original score was also composed beautifully(not by Springsteen), giving the movie more intensity and emotion.

The make-up team's research of AIDS and its victims proved highly crutial. Their work on Tom Hanks was highly accurate to reality. There were no flaws to the physical symptoms, ranging from skin tone, changing hair color, lesions, and eyes.

"Philadelphia" is a great movie for those looking for a powerdrama. This is sure to please audience for many years to come.