From the early 1990s onward, the theoretical reflection on gender identities and non-binary sexuali-ties (Butler 1990; Sedgwick 1990; Koyama 2003) has increasingly challenged the assumption of hegemonic paradigms of heteronormativity as totalizing categories of gender identities and sexuali-ties. In the last few years, critiques of heteronormativity have moved forward from the analysis of contemporary cultural products to the proposal of new paths of historical inquiry, which are gaining currency under the label of “queer historicism” (McCabe 2005).
In this context, Italian cinema historiography—which only recently has been able to incor-porate the perspectives of feminist film studies (Cardone 2009; Pravadelli 2012; Hipkins 2016; Dall’Asta 2008)—has remained so far reluctant to apply transfeminist (Koyama 2001) and queer ap-proaches to the representation of gender and sexuality. And yet, destabilizing forms of gender repre-sentation and non-normative modes of reception can be found through the history of Italian cinema since its origins. From Fregoli and the farcical performances of comedians like André Deed (Cret-inetti), Raymond Frau (Kri Kri) and Gigetta Morano, to a unique film of its kind like Filibus (1915), the use of crossdressing to display unconventional gender roles was more than familiar to Italian film audiences.
The popular “forzuti” of the 1910s introduced a model of a hypertrophic (although basically asexual) virility that stimulated both male and female gazes for generations, well beyond the 1960s (Dyer 1997). The popular genres that flourished in the 1950s, such as the spaghetti west-erns and horrors, have nurtured the fantasies of international queer audiences with images of duels imbued with homosexual desire, rebellious dancing witches and ambiguous vampire beauties. The 1950s and 1960s saw film theatres become meeting and cruising sites for queer communities, and this not just in big cities like Rome, Milan and Florence, but also in many provincial towns (Pini 2011). More generally—and similarly to the experience of other queer audiences living in different geographical and historical contexts (Russo 1981; Doty 1993; Dyer 2001)—the ritual of collective film consumption offered non-normative subjectivities an opportunity to develop and express origi-nal forms of spectatorship and cinephilia (Santi 1954). Detecting and collecting the feeble traces of such ephemeral experiences is a critical task for the methodology of queer archiving (Przybylo and Cooper 2014).
Based on these premises, this special issue of Immagine aims to assess the viability and productivity of a queer approach to the archive of Italian film history, from the origins to the 1960s, taking a chance to discover evidences that can trouble the established picture provided by traditional male and heteronormative accounts. The ambition is to contribute to the methodological reflections inspired by queer historicism, keeping in mind that queer theory is obviously in dialogue with both postcolonial and intersectional approaches to gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity (Dominguez-Ruvalcaba 2016; Giuliani 2017). In particular, a queer approach to Italian film history challenges static notions of national cinema, encouraging the adoption of transnational and transcultural per-spectives (Schoonover and Galt, 2017).
We welcome methodological reflections that interrogate the criticalities of queer histori-cism, and specifically of the notion of “queer anachronism” (Rohy 2017): Is it reasonable to detect queerness in films that were produced at a time when non-binary subjects did not identify as queer yet? How can queer historicism integrate and/or dialogue with other approaches, such as those de-veloped in the related fields of feminist, gay and lesbian film historiographies (Gledhill and Knight 2015; Benshoff e Griffin 2006; Giori 2017)? How can it help understand certain eccentric projects, born outside of the mainstream of Italian film styles, such as those developed by Aldo Braibanti and Carmelo Bene? And finally, to paraphrase Heather Love’s reflections (2007), what is the meaning for us, today, of a history in which queerness and isolated queer figures emerged from a film culture that fostered homophobia and stigmatized queer bodies?
Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Border-crossing heteronormative conventions in popular genres
- Queering the Cult: subcultural practices and fandom inspired by actors and stars
- Home movies
- Queer performances: Gender bending, drag and masquerade
- Queer temporalities: Anachronisms, queer historicism, queer archives, anti-futurity
- Eccentric film styles and projects
- Film theaters as cruising sites
- Queer film criticism
- Transnational and transcultural dialogism
- Italian auteur cinema and the queer gaze
- Documentaries and non normative sexuality
- Archiving the history of queer cinema and spectatorship
- Disability and queerness
- Melodrama, sexuality/asexuality and romance
Abstracts, either in Italian or English (max. 250 words), will have to be submitted no later than 20 December 2019 to: dmissero@brookes.ac.uk, micaela.veronesi@gmail.com
Notification of acceptance by 7 January 2020.
Articles (5-6,000 words max.) can be submitted in Italian or English, by 14 June 2020.
Final publication is expected by December 2020, after the conclusion of a double bind peer review process.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario