Rendering Identity: Normativity in Conventional Contemporary Queer Documentary

Abstract

Depictions of queer subjects in documentary filmmaking predominantly emphasize the promotion of queer visibility and activist rhetorics. Limited research and discourse has been executed, practically or academically, to explore documentary form as holding potential to contribute to subversive renderings of contemporary queer experience. The following thesis outlines possible basis for reconsidering contemporary queer filmmaking through the disposition of current documentary production limitations. This includes synthesizing tenets of queer theory and film theory to support the potential applications of queer documentary and recommending a premise for subversive documentary principles to better express contemporary queerness. The primary issue confronted is the capacity in which filmmakers seeking to create queer content, and more specifically content that embodies queerness' radical fluidity, within the confines of a formulaic medium.Keywords : documentary, queer, LGBTQ, film production practices, homonormativity, film formalism QUEERING DOCUMENTARY 3 Documentary as a subversive film form is not a consideration widely explored --or, frankly, explored at all --in filmic academia (Nichols, 1991). While queer content and the rendering of queer narratives has held a significant status within the academic community, the predominant areas of focus surround queer narrative cinema, experimental works, and to a lesser extent documentary. While nonfiction works have been considered within the larger lexicon of queer film analysis, the exploration of the form is limited to the functions of documentary filmmaking as a tool of advocacy for queer communities, and reclamative potential for queer histories; the medium has not been explored in regards to its potential to serve subversive ends by intentional, fundamental use of film elements. Investigations of queer documentary are primarily concerned with the uses of documentary towards pseudo-journalistic ends in order to present the concerns and experiences of the community in manners that are authentic, unifying, and often aimed to appeal to hegemonic sympathies. That, even in queer communities, align with neoliberal, bourgeoisie validations of subjectivity. While documentary filmmaking is not understood as a soley promotional tool, the common historic and contemporary utilizations of the medium follow very specific, activist driven angles. Films such as the 1990 documentary touchstone, Paris Is Burning , and its contemporary, Kiki (2016) , exemplify these positions. Both films explore the culture of the New York City Ball scene, a performance community composed primarily of queer people of color and individuals of trans experience. While both films are centered around queer subjects, the intended audiences are not necessarily queer.While the methods of the traditional model of queer-centered documentary filmmaking may be effective and powerful tools in gaining equitable power politically, socially, and culturally, the potentials of the form outside of its established ...