Knock, Knock– Let Us In, Banging on
the Celluloid Closet, Justine Barda, Seattle Weekly
Queer film seems to be in a sorry state these days. According to
Justine Barda, writing in the Seattle Weekly, ‘It’s
self-involved, it’s didactic, the plots are trite, the production
values low.’ But not necessarily on its own accord, because queer
film is shaped by homophobic society from production to theater
release. Barda writes that almost all queer film falls into several
categories: the earnest coming-out story, the sexless romantic
comedy, and the wacky mistaken-identity farce. The current
condition reflects the economic realities of making films. American
features about gay men with a budget of over a million dollars are
produced 10 times more often than features about gay women. Barda
concludes, ‘Queer film won’t really have arrived until a film’s
queerness is no longer a bar to its commerical success.’
–Maria Opitz
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