Bright Lights Film Journal :: Articles

» 73

Green Hornet Makes America Bossy Bottom: Who's Topping Who?

by L. Andrew Cooper

"Britt looks like the top as he bends Kato over and as he barks orders at his employee, but as every physical confrontation in the film demonstrates, Kato is the stronger man in both mind and body."

Crafting Community: The 2011 QDoc International Film Festival

by Gary Morris

"It's encouraging to see how articulate and unafraid many of the kids in Put This on the Map are in deciding who they want to be, how they want to live, and even what they want to be called: 'Very gay,' 'an ally,' 'dating an FTM,' 'not straight, gay, bi, anything.'"

» 72

Male Bisexuality in Current Cinema: Images of Growth, Rebellion and Survival

by Justin Vicari

Reviewed by Robert von Dassanowsky

» 70

"Unique (and Just a Little Queer)": Camping with James Bond

by Rob Faunce

"We want to be Bond; we want to fuck Bond; we want to be Bond fucking."

Between a Rock and a Soft Place: Queering/Queered Heterosexuality in "Career Girl" Films of the 1950s and '60s

by Lorrie Palmer

"Perhaps Hollywood, in trying to engage in queer possibilities for its narratives and with its audiences, could only put up a resistance to the binaries in the dominant culture through humor."

» 69

History, Herstory, Our Story: The 2010 QDoc International Film Festival in Portland, Oregon

by Gary Morris

"She had a lot of action inside!"

Multiple Senses: Tom Ford's A Single Man

by Vlad Dima

"Ford creates a unique cinematic experience in which the visual, the aural, and even the olfactory mix to produce a powerful synesthetic experience."

» 68

"Fucking Queer": Eastern Promises and the Traditions of Noir

by Peter Forster

"The filmmaker, having scrupulously established the world of film noir, queers it by shattering the categories – both narrative and cinematic – of the world itself."

The Irish Queer vs. the IRA Macho: The Subversive Tranny in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto

by Sara Villa

"The transvestite's camp humor is here used to stress the unsustainability of the military discourses on which the justification of IRA terrorism is based."

» 67

Monster Queen: The Transgressive Body of Divine in Pink Flamingos

by Lindsay Hallam

"Divine is as unstoppable as nature, destined to repeatedly transgress, destroy, and create."

» 66

Contagious Homosexuality: Cruising and Sodom and Gomorrah

by Rob Faunce

"In both Sodom and Gomorrah and Cruising, homosexuality — and its alternate currents — is caught with a glance."

Far from Elementary: Debra Chasnoff's Straightlaced: How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up

by Gary Morris

"I told him, 'I'm not gay. My neck was cold.'"

Lucky 13: The 2009 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

by Gary Morris

Getting out of the ghetto

» 65

Little Stabs of Queer Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old School Cinema

by Gary Morris

"A seemingly average person continually surprises and unsettles us by doing something strange and following it up with something even more spectacularly strange."

» 64

Retro Virus: Did AIDS perform Nensha?

by Mark Adnum

"Be aware: there are forces at work here of which we have no knowledge." — Queen Elizabeth 2

» 63

Oh Mary, Don't Ask: The Boys in the Band on DVD

by Matthew kennedy

"In the ensuing post-Stonewall civil rights struggles, The Boys in the Band became crazy Aunt Betty locked in the attic when guests came over."

Little Stabs of Homo Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent Queer TV and Cinema

by Gary Morris

"Heterosexual brides-to-be are one of the demographics that arrive by the busloads to partake of Darcelle's mad mix of risqu� zingers, over-the-top musical routines, and mother-hen reassurances."

» 62

Queer Angles: The 2008 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

by Gary Morris

Feisty orthodox Jewish dykes, globe-trotting ladyboys, fascistic Armani queens — you know, the gang

What's Up, QDoc? Portland's 2008 Queer Documentary Festival

by Gary Morris

Seeing queer lives from the U.S. and Canada to South Africa and Iran

» 61

Little Stabs of Homo Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent Queer TV and Cinema

by Gary Morris

"The gays — they make too much big crazy!"

» 57

Glancing, Staring, Cruising: Queer Ways of Looking

by Nicholas de Villiers

Ecce homo

Close to Home: The Films of Su Friedrich on DVD

by Tom Sutpen

Autobiography sometimes trumps art in these uneven works

Closing the Closet: QDoc: The 2007 Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival

by Gary Morris

"We couldn't figure out how to divide the cat."

» 55

Janet Gaynor

by Gary Morris

If she was forced, like so many actors, to live a closeted life, she at least did it as much on her own terms as she could in those tricky times.

» 53

Genet Meets Fassbinder: Sexual Disorientation(s) in Querelle

by Frank Episale

"Why is Fassbinder allowed this aesthetic duplicity in the melodramas but not in Querelle?"

» 52

Camping out with James Bidgood: The Auteur of Pink Narcissus Tells All

by Sean Fredric Edgewood

"I don't live in a harem either, but well, God, I did for awhile."

Speaking Out: Pioneering Doc Word Is Out Turns 29

by Gary Morris

Assimilate this

Drive S/He Said: Felicity Huffman in Duncan Tucker's Transamerica

by Alan Vanneman

The odd couple takes it on the road

» 51

Inside the Dreamboat Factory: The Fairy Godfather of Hollywood

by Robert Keser

"He won't be gay when I get through with him!"

Men in Love: On Brokeback Mountain

by Matthew Kennedy

Ang Lee expertly limns the catastrophes of the closet

Toto, I Don't Think We're in the Grand Tetons Anymore: Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain

by Alan Vanneman

Queens in Jeans?

More Fun in the New (Queer) World: The 2005 Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

by Gary Morris

Out of the closets and onto the screens

» 49

The Kid Behind the Camera: Chatting up Darren Stein

by Gary Morris

Put the Camera on Me's queer wunderkind speaks

The Rage from Nowhere? Arthur Dong's Licensed to Kill Interviews Murderers of Gays

by Gary Morris

"I'm bad, but I'm locked up."

Private Rituals Made Public: The Lost Erotica of Fred Halsted

by Gary Morris

"The whole world wears a jockstrap!"

Bobby Abate

by Gary Morris

Naked rough trade, sleepy rimmers, a man licking a modem — these are some of the denizens of Abate's sensual, skewed world

» 48

Tears for Queers: Different from the Others, Michael, and Sex in Chains on DVD

by Matthew kennedy

Kino's unusual series spotlights German silent gay-themed cinema

» 46

Defending the Deviates: Evelyn Hooker Documentary Changing Our Minds on Video

by Gary Morris

"It had something to do with my sexual intercourse"

» 45

"I Changed My Socially Constructed Sexual Identity!" Jenni Olson on The Queer Movie Poster Book

by Gary Morris

"The butler did it . . . to everyone!"

» 44

Commodifying Desire: Sexual Dependency

by Dorna Khazeni

Where is the love?

» 43

Twelve-Tone Cinema: A Scattershot Notebook on Sexual Atonality

by Andrew Grossman

Is queerness an angry chord or a beautiful harmony?

Capturing the Beauty of the Beast: Aileen Wuornos, Charlize Theron, and Monster

by Edward D. Miller

The "monster" Wuornos and why she won't go away

» 42

Keep on Truckin': An Interview with Joe Gage

by Gary Morris

A gay-porn pioneer speaks

Wheeler & Woolsey Queered

by David Boxwell

The downright peculiar pleasures of pre-Code Wheeler & Woolsey

O Captain! My Captain!

by Alan Vanneman

Master and Commander wants to raise your mast

Angela's Lashes: Charles Busch's Die Mommie Die

by Matthew Kennedy

Stage vet Charles Busch does glam for camp movie

» 41

Fists and Feathers: Madame Satã Reviewed

by Gary Morris

Don't mess with Madame

Glen or Glenda: Psychiatry, Sexuality, and the Silver Screen

by Tanfer Emin-Tunc and Nichole Prescott

Normalizing "deviant" genders and bodies is just one of many tropes in Wood's complex camp classic

» 40

Sex in Shangri-La: Wakefield Poole on DVD

by Gary Morris

"No top. No bottom. Just two men discovering each other."

Unintentional Camp and the Image of Will Smith

by Seth Nesenholtz

Camp — and coded queerness — finds a surprisingly happy home in the films in Will Smith

"Fabulous Gowns but No Pussy!" An Interview with Holly Woodlawn

by Gary Morris

A superstar talks Trash and papayas

Homo Varieties: Some Recent Queer and Near-Queer Movies

by Gary Morris

Hits and misses from the arthouse to the grindhouse

» 38

Of Horny Hunchbacks and Stitch Bitches: Le Cinema Milligan

by Gary Morris

If you thought his films were bad, wait till you see his life

Boys on the Side: A Survey of Adult/Youth Relationships in Movies and TV

by Gary Morris

Surprise — it could be worse

Being a Kid Is a Drag — Onscreen

by Steve Stewart

There are drag queens and then there are drag princesses

Chained Girls — A Twilight Tale of the Third Sex

by Melissa Sky

Who is that comely, vicious gal plotting mayhem from the shadows? Why, the dyke of 1960s pop culture, of course

» 37

Diamonds in the Toilet: The Chelsea Girls

by Gary Morris

Warhol's trashy, timeless "girls" come a-callin'

The Revolution Starts with Glitter! The Cockettes

by Gary Morris

The legendary campsters of the counterculture take a bow in this diverting documentary

» 36

All Is Fair in Love and War Videos: GLBT Men and Women in the Military

by Steve Stewart

Don't ask, don't tell, but do watch

» 34

Mondo Tranny: Monika Treut's Gendernauts

by Gary Morris

This love letter to San Francisco's tranny community is a little too loving

» 33

Hand Me That 14-Inch Willy! The Puppet Artistry of Barry Purves

by Gary Morris

This brilliant Brit's artistry breathes life into wood and wire

» 32

George Cukor: The Valor of Discretion

by Joseph McBride

An affectionate look at one of cinema's still undervalued masters

Private Eye: Abigail Child in Brief

by Gary Morris

Child's compulsive visual collages are visual and aural legerdemain

» 31

Poor Queen: Giorgios Katakouzinos's Angel

by Gary Morris

Giorgios Katakouzinos's 1982 feature is one of the most acclaimed and popular Greek films ever. This in spite of the fact that it's a luridly, not to mention openly, queer story about a homosexual soldier who is forced to become a transvestite prostitute by his macho, domineering lover.

» 30

Fall 2000's Queer Films: Preview!

by Gary Morris

The tortured queens and killer dykes of yesteryear make way for more rareified queer types this season

Brief Candles: The Films of Warren Sonbert

by Gary Morris

The work of an avant-garde master now restored

» 29

Raging and Flaming: Jack Smith in Retrospect

by Gary Morris

New York's pioneering campmeister

Home Movies from Hell: The Films of Luther Price

by Gary Morris

The master of Super-8 cinema takes us into the cave of the unknown, with extraordinary results

Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour

by Brett Elizabeth Westbrook

The 1960s brought back Hellman's lesbian who vanished three decades earlier in These Three. But why is she dead?

» 28

The Lesbian Vanishes: These Three

by Brett Elizabeth Westbrook

Lillian Hellman's 1936 film adaptation of The Children's Hour erased the lesbianism from her play.

» 27

Laughing Pan: James Broughton

by Gary Morris

Ecstasy for all! says the pied piper of queer experimental film.

Hell in the Heartland: Boys Don't Cry

by Gary Morris

This powerful film is based on the short unhappy life of the now notorious "sexual misfit" Brandon Teena — aka Teena Renae Brandon of Lincoln, Nebraska — who was born a girl but saw herself increasingly as a boy. She convinced most of those she met, including a string of lovesick girlfriends, that she was who she wanted to be: a heterosexual male.

» 26

The Day the Bronx Invaded Earth: The Life and Cinema of the Brothers Kuchar

by Jack Stevenson

Major figures in the American Underground film movement of the 'sixties, George and Mike Kuchar are the acknowledged pioneers of the camp/pop aesthetic that would influence practically all who came after them, from Warhol and Waters to Vadim and Lynch.

» 25

David DeCoteau

by Gary Morris

The auteur of Petticoat Planet and Retro-Puppetmaster weighs in with his kinky leatherboy arthouse epic Leather Jacket Love Story.

» 24

Behind the Mask: Sadie Benning's Pixel Pleasures

by Gary Morris

Sadie Benning has been a cause celebre in the queer community for almost a decade. An iconoclast even as a teen, she employed the infamous "Pixelvision" camera in most of her early work and continues to use it.

» 23

Queer Horror: Decoding Universal's Monsters

by Gary Morris

The all-pervasive, barely disguised, downright queerness of classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and Dracula's Daughter.

The Sissy Gaze in American Cinema

by Ray Davis

The cinema sissy is now as rare as rain in the Gobi — but it wasn't always so.

Cultural Makeovers: San Francisco's Tranny Fest

by Gary Morris

Trannies of every stripe — drag queens and kings, transsexuals, intersexuals, etc. — have traditionally had even less say in constructing their cultural identities than gay people have in creating theirs. Fortunately, trannies are not taking this lying down, as evidenced by San Francisco's daylong Tranny Fest film festival.

Primal Gross-Out: Pink Flamingos Restored

by Gary Morris

For the few who haven't memorized every nuance of this seminal camp work, Pink Flamingos follows the adventures of Babs Johnson (Divine), a fat, style-obsessed criminal who lives in a trailer with her mentally ill mother Edie, her delinquent son Crackers, and her traveling companion Cotton. Their little dream life of shoplifting, egg-sucking, and chicken-fucking is threatened when an eccentric couple try to seize Dawn's title of "filthiest person alive" by sending her a turd in the mail.

» 21

Dark Angel: R. W. Fassbinder

by Gary Morris

The homely, jowly face, dictatorial blatherings, and ragged leather chaps masked one of the great makers of modern cinema.

Bugis Street

by Gary Morris

A bittersweet look at the daily lives of the tranny whores of a legendary red-light district of 1960s Singapore — with free make-up tips!

» 20

Gregory Markopoulos: Seconds in Eternity

by Gary Morris

How does it happen that a filmmaker once lauded as "the American avant-garde cinema's supreme erotic poet" vanishes entirely from the cultural landscape?

Queer Kisses

by Gary Morris

What is it about the sight of two men kissing that drives Americans insane?

» 19

Sexual Subversion: James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein

by Gary Morris

No institution — society, religion, marriage, or heterosexuality — was safe from the penetrating queer eye of James Whale. Make way for the homosexual creator!

A New Kind of Tranny: Different for Girls

by Gary Morris

In a cinema crowded with self-conscious transgressions, Kim offers the real article when she strips to show her straight boyfriend the thrilling secrets of the altered body.

Hong Kong's "Who's the Man?" Series: Bending the Gender Till It Breaks

by Gary Morris

Hong Kong's gender-benders are the stuff of legend; director Patrick Chan adds two key works to the canon in these 1996 bookend satires of fame, pop music, and orbidden kisses.

» 17

The Church of Camp

by Gary Morris

A brief history of San Francisco's Castro Theatre

"An Oasis of Glamor in a Universe of Mediocrity": Vegas in Space

by Gary Morris

John Waters, Zsa Zsa Gabor, The Bad Seed, Supermarionation — drag queen diva Doris Fish trawled through the lowest depths of culture for her homemade camp fairy tale.

"There Was No Before!": The Queen

by Gary Morris

This grimy, exciting artifact from the '60s shows how important beauty contests were to the queens who ruthlessly — and kind of sadly — mimicked their straight counterparts.

» 16

The Birdcage

by Gary Morris

Seemingly respectable filmmakers are eagerly repackaging homosexuals as whining, pathetic drag queens for a culture disturbed by sex plagues and nose-ringed militants. If To Wong Foo led the charge, The Birdcage delivers the body blow. This is understandable in a sense. Society longs for the pre-AIDS homosexual, and even more for the comic-pathetic caricatured Drag Queen. And there are plenty of "artists" all too happy to deliver this image.

It's an Ed Wood World After All!

by Gary Morris

The "world's worst director" never apologized for wearing women's clothes, though many have questioned his taste in sweaters.

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