Camps and Shifts

I teach African America cinema, curatorial politics, and new media history at Emory University. Since founding the Women of Color Film and Video Festival at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1992, I have worked in distribution, programmed at the Mill Valley Film Festival and the Pacific Film Archive, among others, served on numerous festival juries and funding reviews, and consulted on film/video curriculum development. Recently I have also been working in sound art for installation and performance.

I would argue that scholarly work has less immediate impact on festivals, in relation to audience reception, than writings by critics and programmers—for example, film reviews, program guides, press releases. Despite increased film festival scholarship, its reception outside the academy is unclear. ¹

For me as a scholar, it is depressing to see artists disappear after making a few interesting shorts and to see young or emerging filmmakers create the same conversations on identity that were in circulation three, five, or even ten years ago. This state of affairs is indicative of three things: missing knowledge of queer cinema legacy, lack of documentation, and lack of funding. Are historically innovative queer films and videos, particularly shorts, being screened at media arts programs and organizations, queer or not, that hold regular screening series? When is the last time you saw a screening of the shorts When You Name Me (Scott Beveridge, Canada, 1994) or I Never Danced the Way Girls Were Supposed To (Dawn Suggs, United States, 1992)? ²

Those of us academics concerned with U.S. cinema who have not written about early 1990s U.S. queer film and video artistry have done queer cinema and ourselves a disservice. Such writings are part of the circuitry influencing holdings in university libraries, university-based public screenings, and artist residencies. These holdings support the development of curriculum and of artists studying in university settings. The loss to queer cultural production is apparent in the lessened presence of work by marginalized queer artists: queers of color, transgenders and transsexuals, and those portraying marginalized queer sexuality. After all, critical documentation made a profound difference in the careers of such "marginals" as Cheryl Dunye, Sadie Benning, and Vaginal Davis, albeit within the academy and an arguably rarefied avant-garde art world.

One place where scholars can make an impact is in the classroom. Students should not have to get two or three degrees—in film, ethnic, and gender/sexuality studies—to gain access to a fully representative film history. I like to think that having critically examined the work of earlier filmmakers in a cinematic context, especially those concerned with identity, newer filmmakers would push forward and deepen the cinematic conversation instead of creating another iteration.

Crudely put, from the beginning of the 1990s, there emerged in U.S. festivals two camps in relation to the absence of LGBTQ representation. One prioritized political and thematic content over form, and the other desired at least the meeting of the two if not wholly prioritizing the latter. This change was evident post-1995, specifically after Jeffrey (Christopher Ashley, United States, 1995), a primarily white gay male audience favorite that paired classic screwball romantic comedy-fantasy structure with AIDS sex politics. By 1998 a third element was evident in the second camp: a concession to audience desire for traditional feature-length narratives, particularly romantic comedies built on classic Hollywood formulas. But these new films were often first-time outings missing the implicit social critique and skilled writing of their predecessors from the studio era like Ruth Gordon and Donald Ogden Stewart. A focus on European and European American gay male–centered narratives reflected the gender realities of access to the means of production, and who was and is primarily perceived as driving the box office. ³

Many festivals moved from the first to the second camp as they evolved from grassroots organizations to more stable institutions able to attract larger grants and sponsors, in a process of professionalization. After fourteen years, my appreciation of content and politics prioritized over slick cinematic production does not eradicate the desire to see aesthetic skills...