Queer

2023 - 3 - 5

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Image courtesy of "LGBTQ Nation"

This classic queer movie changed the way LGBTQ+ people speak ... (LGBTQ Nation)

Jennie Livingston's 1990 (nearly 20 years before Drag Race) documentary debut, Paris is Burning, is the film that brought ballroom culture to the mainstream and ...

It’s a film that celebrates the breadth of the queer community and our extraordinary ability to find and support one another, no matter the circumstance. Fast-forwarding to 1989, there’s a sense that the ballroom scene is shifting and that something has been lost. The most compelling is Venus Xtravaganza, who sits in her bedroom, an aching sense of loneliness conveyed through the sparse nature of the room. That sense of loss is literalized through the devastating reveal that Venus Xtravaganza, last seen talking about how she wants nothing more than to live an everyday, happy life and be appreciated for who she is, was murdered. Thanks to their unique settings, the interviews in the film have a real sense of intimacy that allows them to feel as if we’re at home with friends. Most modern documentaries film these scenes as straightforwardly as possible, with no distractions, simply a person in the center of the frame. The dark, moody colors in Dorian Corey’s place give a sense of foreboding like time is slipping away. It’s a different story for Pepper LaBeija, whose talking heads are often peppered with her house children in the background, enforcing the power of queer community. But in the film’s best moments, in a full-blown celebration of ballroom culture, these beautiful individuals stifled by societal pressure are entirely uninhibited. It’s best described by one of the many people interviewed in Paris Is Burning, who says, “It’s like crossing into the looking glass. As Dorian Corey explains in the film: “In a ballroom, you can be anything you want. your peers, your friends, are telling you you could be an executive.” But balls deliver something impossible to find in the 70s, 80s, and 90s for queer and marginalized people, and that’s a sense of community and belonging.

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Image courtesy of "Gay Times Magazine"

What Gen Z really think about the term 'queer' (Gay Times Magazine)

We ask young voices of the LGBTQ+ community what the 'Q-word' means to them and if it can truly be reclaimed.

Queer people don’t announce themselves as queer through the word itself, but through an array of visual indicators, [which] is why fashion and personal style play a big part in queer culture.” From my own perspective, ‘queer’ is a label that I, for a while, used while mindful that I didn’t endure the belittling and abuse that previously came with it. The modern result of this conversation around the use of ‘queer’, for younger generations, has strayed into a new direction — one that debates both language and presentation. A Queer Dilemma, the debate over the term ‘queer’ has marked a “process of boundary-construction and identity negotiation”. “In the same way, the word ‘gay’ was used to berate a lot of LGBTQ+ people of my generation, it’s no surprise that we have found comfort in a less traumatic term.” Queerness, and the label itself, challenges the “norm”, as well as pre-existing categories, and attempts to incorporate an inclusive common identity. “We understand the different connotations that come with the use of the word depending on age and personal experience, but I don’t think that should stop LGBTQ+ individuals from claiming it,” he says. And seemingly, the discourse (and its affiliated areas of queer theory) has carried over into today’s society. “It means breaking down the harmful values of heteronormativity and creating a sense of safety and belonging with other people like you.” The choice of the label ‘queer’, Josh explains, has allowed him to navigate gender and identity on his own terms, and not be held back by the confines of a label. [Queer Nation](http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/queer_nation_S.pdf), an LGBTQ+ activist group armed with non-conformist forms of expression and a political manifesto of fighting prejudice and homophobia, came into the spotlight. However, the idea of queerness, or the term ‘queer’ itself, isn’t a brand new Gen Z-ified concept.

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Image courtesy of "Collider.com"

10 Best Queer Couples From Disney Movies, Ranked (Collider.com)

While it may have been a slow process full of controversy and backtracking, Disney has finally begun putting LGBTQ+ characters at the forefront of their ...

It's been nearly a decade since this Good Luck Charlie episode aired, yet Susan (Desi Lydic) and Cheryl (Lilli Birdsell) remain an iconic couple for being the first queer couple to appear in a Disney Channel series. Gals, became the first queer couple in the Disney Channel animated series In 2021, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally introduced its first-ever gay superhero, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), and he wasn't alone. A groundbreaking couple for both Pixar and Disney, the short conveys the love between Greg and Manuel on its limited timeframe. Part of the Disney+ shorts series SparkShorts, the short simply titled Out was both Pixar's and Disney's first work to star a gay character. [Disney](https://collider.com/tag/disney/) has finally begun putting LGBTQ+ characters at the forefront of their films and TV shows, and allowing their subsidiaries [Pixar,](https://collider.com/tag/pixar/) [Marvel](https://collider.com/tag/marvel) and [Lucasfilm](https://collider.com/tag/lucasfilm/) to do the same.

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Image courtesy of "Apt613"

Paul P. explores the secret language of queer art in NGC's Amor et ... (Apt613)

Drawing this way provided new means of looking, a way he could see and understand more. Within the pages of gay erotic magazines, he says he saw heroes similar ...

P. Amor et Mors also includes works from James Abbott McNeill Whistler and lovers Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. says the precise codes of these artists were difficult to pin down, “but they are those things that allowed the work to be accepted and not destroyed, given safe passage.” These artists would pull on threads from well-respected ancient Greece and mythology. Solomon’s ink drawing is included in the exhibition and depicts two figures embracing one another; the first is next to a hooded figure by the word “death” and the other beside a winged figure beside the word “love.” Artists like Solomon, who was later arrested for homosexual acts, could share expressions of homosexuality in such veiled ways. It wasn’t always the same for the artists displayed next to 30 of his works in the National Gallery of Canada (NGC)’s latest Paul P. Within the pages of gay erotic magazines, he says he saw heroes similar to himself and queer men he knew; many were depicted before the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

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