This video was originally released in December of 2020, but due to a copyright issue it had to be removed.
That issue has since been fixed. This is the updated version.
A look into what Film Theory is… what Queer Theory is… and why it does matter, actually.
Patreon: www.patreon.com/jamessomerton
Twitter: @je_somerton
@ntherrgott
This video contains copyrighted material. The use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making this material available in my efforts to further bring to light the history of LGBTQ+ representation in film and television. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
00:00 Introduction
01:10 What is Film Theory?
08:00 What is Queer Theory?
14:33 Yes. We are looking for it.
23:58 Erasure
28:19 Achilles was a bottom
32:13 The Big Gay Lie
38:45 Queering History
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Great essay. Well done. Thank you.
“Replacing the queer agenda with a straight agenda does not mean there is not an agenda”
I love this line so much
Alan Turing's homosexuality came to light in 1952, after his code-breaking work. He was chemically castrated in lieu of prison time.
He did propose to Joan Clark, his Hut 8 co-worker (who was unfazed), but decided he couldn't go through with it.
I know queer theory intimately (me being queer and a historian and theory head). I do NOT know film theory. Closest I come is Socialist critical theory. Society of the Spectacle is the closest I come to specifically film theory, and that’s more about art and society in general.
Edit: never mind. I know very well Laura Mulvey’s ideas of the Male Gaze so I do know SOME explicitly film theory.
What I find so interesting about Achilles and Patroclus is that in the actual myth Achilles specifically takes on a grieving that was associated with Greek women, after the death of Patroclus. My fiancé (who’s working on a degree in Mediterranean and Near Eastern studies) expressed that Achilles even shares interesting elements of gender ambiguity in the roles he played throughout the myth as well, aka dressing as a women and weaving with women.
Fun fact. In my English major capstone class, we examined a number of short stories through thr lense of different literary theories. At the beginning of the semester we each chose two and each week we would look at each of those stories and examine them through those theories. As the only afab and queer person in the class, I took it upon myself to present feminist and queer theory.
Absolutely incredible, James!!!!!
Thank you, Mr Somerton, for making this video. It answered so many questions for me about homosexuality and Christianity. It truly was a eureka moment for me!
I convert fictional straight characters to be gay for fun, it’s like “conversion therapy” in reverse 💀😂🏳️🌈
Is it any coincidence that Sailor Moon made "cousins" a gay codeword until the end of time? In the case of Achilles and Patroclus… well yes, but still.
love how much patreon support u get but these credits are out of control my guy /lh
Nice. We need a Tchaikovsky biopic now.
On another note is this our Christmas video? Because I was wondering if there is a queer Christmas series or movie I can show the family.
Tokio godfathers and good omens count?
Because of the hints of ancient cultures being sex-positive, I wouldn't be surprised if they viewed same-sex relationships as what you did if you wanted to have sex but didn't want to have a kid with the other person. There wasn't any effective birth control, and 1 in 4 women died in childbirth, so if sex was a normal part of life and you wanted some, just go to someone who can't get pregnant or get you pregnant.
Also concerning lincoln. His BFF Walt Whitman was gay and wrote the homo exotic poems of Camulus. One of which was about Lincoln
You have become my new desire.
It’s funny cause I saw a great play about Alan Turring which focused on his secret contribution to the war but also on his sex life, his childhood crush and his social isolation. And just after that, I hear of the movie that hid his gayness under the carpet.
That part about the dog being called "Sapphos" legitemately made me laugh out loud.
😮 what movie is 3:22 from?
Queerness in Norse history is especially important, as so many white nationalists seem to worship Norse roots they themselves usually don't even have, extolling them as some ideal of white heteronormative culture.
Queer native history 101: for Greenlandic and some Canadian Inuit, the 1st humans where…a MAN and a MAN! They where best friends and hunters, but one of them fell pregnant. Seeing his lover struggle to birth a child out of a non-existent exit, he shouted out for a miracle. The miracle was delivered and his lower body transformed. Thus the lover became the first woman and the baby and she survived.
I bet you those same ppl think capitalism is liberating and advertising is about enhancing their lives.
Ever hear of Boots Malone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_Malone also you might want to read Queering Teen Culture and We Boys Together for shocking, eye opening films and TV shows before WW2 and after the Cold War?
Achiles refused to fight because of a girl.Also Achiles may or may not have shared a tent with anyone.
No you're very clearly reading into things that aren't there. It's a ridiculous thing gays do, thinking something is gay and then getting mad when the two straight white guys don't get together and kiss and use words like "queer baiting", which doesn't exist. Just because you want something doesn't mean you'll get it, especially from something that never said you were going to get it to begin with.
the main thing i get here is how much better the world mightve been had christians not taken it over mercilessly
"The most intellectual way to call a bitch basic" whheeeeeze im crying 😂
Most of my best friends growing up shared the same bed…we also fucked 😹😹
If I had only seen the Cordelia poster and you hadn't explained it was for a horror movie, the closest I would have thought is "ooo is it more sexy vampires?"
It definitely looks to me like a poster for a romance movie rather than for a horror movie
I'm constantly astonished that Christians need to have their heroes straight when Jesus was known for keeping company with a bunch of guys all the time, with the occasional female whore as the exception.
Your favourite movie is also Kill Bill!!?!!!,!!??!??
I don't mean to be rude but I find your interpretation of The Imitation Game as "pro government" and how it shied away from Turing's death very strange. I didn't know anything about Turing's personal life before the movie and I still was able to pick up on how his chemical castration led to him taking his own life. I do understand how depicting him as "too heartbroken to love again" instead of portraying his actual relationships could be kind of dumb though.
This video was excellent! I have been furious about what happened to Alan Turing for years, and will likely remain so until the day I die.
Shades of grey – The Iliad starts with Achilles going into his bitchy sulk about have his war booty female slave taken off him, Alexander the Great seems to have had a child by a female prostitute and Persepolis was burned down at the end of a particular wild party with female prostitutes. My guess is they were both Bi … oh and I'm guessing the Troy film didn't have their hero throw a hissy fit about not being able to enslave and rape war captives either …. I studied archaeology and classics and have a particularly take on this : girls were married off at puberty in arranged marriage to significantly older men.There were probably a LOT of "seperate lives under the same roof" type loveless marriages The patriarchy didn't want men f**ing other men's wives- so for opposite sex sex partners outside of a loveless marriage that meant slaves and prostitutes. If you actually wanted a loving relationship, a sexual partner on your own social level, of your own choosing, that meant same sex relations. In Phaedrus Plato pretty much defines love as between two men of the same age and social status, because that's pretty much all society allowed. And so for any man or woman even slightly on the Bi-Curious end of the scale same sex relations are a major part of your love life. And that also explains why it's SO much more common than the 5-10% gay.
S L A Y!
Rhabk you on your read of RENT– so annoyed me when it came out and as a highschooler I wanted a gay character and though they where suposed to be queer i did not relate nearly as much as I did to fontine in les miz—- BUt surprised you didn't touch on Brian Larsen's plagerizing the charachters and basic story elements from a more overtly queer and politically edgy novel by lesbian esseyist Sarah Sullman,
Turing was Epsteined by the English government.
✨Friends!✨
i enjoyed this video the first time it was uploaded and i am enjoying it again now
Your stuff is great, really. And while I can understand that being gay, you might not always feel comfortable discussing bisexuality, you regularly are able to touch on trans and women's parallels. A whole lengthy discussion of Greek and Roman attitudes, essentially describing a modern view of bisexuality, and you forget to bring it up… And then to go on and talk about gay erasure later, when you had been doing such a good job of using the more inclusive queer – which I think you meant as "erasure of same-sex attraction" which I understand, but by erasing same-sex attraction in societies and people that valued different-sex attraction as highly, the bisexuality of those societies and people are also being erased… Again, I think your stuff is great, I've been listening to you for years, but I think this is one small area that would be great to improve on.
I was so excited to see you talk about Achilles and Patroclus!! <3 my icon is taken from Patroclus' icon in the game Hades
There was a viking cult that worshipped a horse dildo. Maybe vikings were cooler with the gay than nazis like to think
See, it's extra frustrating with people denying queerness in media when the author either was full homo or said a thing was explicitly gay. I was told in high school and college that I was reading too much into picture of Dorian Grey and mod a wheel of time group. People insist the Canon bis from the book were charged for the show even though they're explicitly the example of lesbian lovers
Can anyone tell me what the movie at 3:16 (the clip with the giant moon) is?
"You are very valid, you straight-washing, gay-erasing mother-"
Listen, it's a valid interpretation that they're friends. I would do that with my friend. Gazing longingly at her stop our bed, stroking her soft cheek. Kissing in the dark, my breasts pressed against her breasts. Friend stuff. That's a friend thing that friends do right? Plenty of friends wish to live forever with that one friend, to share their every moment, to grow old and at the end, die in each other's arms. Like best buds.