QUEERABLE SPACES

This book seeks to read contemporary films as symptoms of the societies they are made in.Films represent their own subject matter in terms of symbolic, encoded scenes. The decoding for the films I chose occurs through a use of very specific, heavily coded spaces as visualisable shorthand for a complex of homophobic reactions. The first chapter, Geographies of Cruising, analyzes the representation of streets and the leading character’s cruising on the streets in Eyes Wide Shut. The second chapter, Geographies of Effeminacy, concentrates on the denial of space to non-masculine men exemplified in The Talented Mr. Ripley. In the third chapter, Geographies of Exclusion, the representation of a cellar in Mystic River serves to display the links between paedophilia and homosexuality. The fourth chapter, Geographies of Abuse and Rape, is an exercise on “out of placeness” and examines the connections made between male/male rape and homosexuality in I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. The last chapter is an extended reading of Brokeback Mountain, in which the tension between closed spaces and wild spaces leads to a discussion of contemporary representation of homosexuality.