Blue Is the Most Sexual Color: A Rhetorical Analysis

If you were to go around asking people on the street what their favorite film trope is, do you think that any of them would say food? Before sitting down to analyze Blue Is the Warmest Color I was vaguely aware of the way that food could be used in film, but the examples that …

Them fronts? That car? Who is you Chiron?

There's much to be said about Barry Jenkin's Moonlight. The film's score, cinematography, color palette, and narrative are all worthy of individual analysis and discussion, but since I only have a single blog post to work with at the moment I'll be generally looking at how these elements work together to make up this unique film, …

Shot By Shot Analysis of Blue Is The Warmest Color

A detailed breakdown in a shot-by-shot fashion of how a single scene in Blue Is The Warmest Color portrays several of the film's themes, metaphors, and problems.

Open Plot, Insert Lesbians.

There are so many films out there that have something interesting and progressive to say, but that have their overall message bogged down various issues with the delivery of said message. To me, The Kids Are Alright is a prime example of this rather unfortunate concept. The Kids Are Alright is a comedy/drama film that was released …

Come As You Are

Identity can be an incredibly complex thing, especially when we're dealing with the intersections between marginalized groups. I found Pariah to be particularly interesting, because it firmly forced the audience to engage with the complex intersection of black identity and gay/lesbian identity. The story follows Alike (Adepero Oduye), a young black lesbian living in Brooklyn with her …

The Politics of WEEKEND: Liberation and Normativity

It never fails to amaze me, how often films with the most simplistic plotlines are frequently the ones that have the most to say. The 2011 film Weekend definitely displays this quality, because despite the film only taking place over the course of a somewhat uneventful weekend it manages to explore a variety of concepts and philosophies …

The Diversity of Masculinities in BOYS DON’T CRY

Discussing masculinity from the perspective of Queer Theory can be an incredibly tricky subject, and the very definition or identification of masculinity can change drastically depending on the context of the discussion. When discussing masculinity, people usually first think of the standard concepts of masculinity that we can find within our (Western) societies such as having …

Media Making Memories: How MILK Contextualizes History

When engaging with media that claims to be a window to the past, it's important to be aware of what kind of media we're dealing with, and why that particular piece of media exists. Nobody produces media without some sort of goal in mind, and even in situations where the goal is simply to "tell a …

Beyond Binaries: How Hedwig Transcends Gender and Sexual Limitations

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a film overflowing with ambiguity, from the unclear gender identities of its cast, to song lyrics with varying interpretations, to its entire message overall. The film is completely unapologetic in its ambivalence towards concepts of gender, sexuality, and identity, and refuses to provide any easy footholds for the audience to grasp …

Realism and Trope Deconstruction in Carol

The history of queer cinema has been an endlessly frustrating one, full of denouncement from misguided moralists, suppression by invasive legislative guidelines, and nitpicking from every other source of busybodiness imaginable. These intrusions into content production, in combination with regressive historical views of gay identities and individuals have produced a number of unfortunate tropes that still …