Maryam Keshavarz's film Circumstance (2011) uses a scene of film consumption to expose the international fault lines of politics and sexuality. The film is set in con temporary Tehran and centers on two young Ira nian women, Atafeh and Shireen, who are in love but are compelled to hide their relationship. With their friends Joey and Hossein, the women visit a back-room video store to buy Western movies (figure I.1). They come across Gus Van Sant's Milk (2008) and begin to discuss its politics. For Joey and Hossein, Milk matters primarily not as a story of gay rights but as a story of po liti cal activism and an inspiring example of grassroots organ izing for the youth of Iran. Thus, Joey proclaims, "This film is not about fucking. It is about human rights!" to which Atafeh responds, "Fucking is a human right. " The question of how to read a film such as Milk and what a "gay" film might signify internationally is explic itly played out in this exchange. If fucking is a human right, then queerness takes its place on a certain kind of
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