Bike boys, drag queens & superstars : avant-garde, mass culture, and gay identities in the 1960s underground cinema / Juan A. Subarez.

Suâarez, Juan Antonio.. Bike boys, drag queens & superstars : avant-garde, mass culture, and gay identities in the 1960s underground cinema / Juan A. Suâarez. [025332971X (cl : alk. paper)] Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1996.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.E96 S82 1996

    Chapter 4 “Pop, Queer, or Fascist? The Ambiguity of Mass Culture in Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising” highly regards Kenneth Anger’s film. The objective of the author is to minimize the influences of Scorpio Rising that many associate with European cinema such as the works of Banuel and Eisenstein, and instead to focus on its involvement with popular American youth culture. The ambiguity of the film’s stance on the pop culture is carefully examined as it simultaneously celebrates the freedom of subversion and condemns the life threatening danger and fascist identification that can arise from egocentric pleasure seeking.
    Three approaches the text uses to analyze the films ambiguity are homosexuality, mass culture, and totalitarianism. Though the bikers in the film were not gay, the author contends that Anger clearly presents them as objects of homosexual desire. This is supported by the emergence of the biker aesthetic becoming associated with S&M practices in gay popular culture. The overabundance of masculinity and macho poses blur the line between patriarchical dominance and homosexual fetishism. The concept of overabundance also ties into the rise of mass culture as opposed to high culture. This is accomplished by the juxtaposition of the clips of Marlon Brando and James Dean with films of Jesus which can be interpreted as elevating or diminishing the figures of each. The film also addresses the similarity between totalitarianism and a public subscribing to a uniform iconography through prevalent Nazi imagery and violence; the mimicry the bikers practice is correlated to following fascism.
    Unveiling the homoerotic as well as the connection between eroticism and violence which are subdued in conventional youth culture is one of the more overt effects of Scorpio Rising. On the other hand, the more ambiguous elements of the film can only be resolved though subjective interpretation.

From the Bedroom to the Bijou: A Secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema

Stevenson,J . "From the Bedroom to the Bijou: A Secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema" Film quarterly [0015-1386] 51.1 (1997).

    Stevenson’s article contends gay cinema is one of the few subgenres of independent film to flourish in America, especially at a time when mainstream Hollywood ideals and style dominate. The relatively recent acceptance of gay film has been achieved after decades of struggle for the right to create, distribute and have use of homoerotic images, and finally with the right to watch these images in the public setting of the movie theatre.
    Beginning around 1915, gay images first appeared with the first stag films. Male homosexuality in the films was almost nonexistent, and this can be attributed to the lack of an organized homosexual market to sell the product to. Access to gay sexual imagery after WWII became simpler with more affordable, available movie equipment as well as an increase in gay liberalization as seen in openly circulated gay magazines
    The gay cinema of Kenneth Anger and his contemporaries marked the beginning of the American gay underground Avant-Garde movement which was dedicated to the exploration of a deeper psychosexuality. Because homophobia was still widespread throughout society and censorship was rampant, it was difficult for these films to access a larger public, and these films were distributed underground to a small circuit of film clubs and societies. The idea of film as an artistic personal expression struggled to be accepted in a time when film was primarily seen for commercial value.
    In the early 60’s, the gay underground merged with the New York centered Underground movement and the provocative film, Scorpio Rising, produced a huge impact. This work of cinematic art was disguised as porn and distributed in the commercial sexploitation market. The trial in which Scorpio was ruled obscene brought the film great publicity, and increased its reputation, and it finally came to be praised by the mainstream press. The success of Scorpio helped to reveal the fact that there was an audience for artistic gay film, and this helped to separate it from commercial sexploitation pornography.
    The last of the barriers were broken with the arrival of gay hard-core pornography in 1969. Today, gay film-makers are no longer classified as gay liberation activists, and can be considered as creative artists producing movies, that are not necessarily gay films, for a wider audience.

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Bike boys, drag queens & superstars : avant-garde, mass culture, and gay identities in the 1960s underground cinema / Juan A. Subarez.

From the Bedroom to the Bijou: A Secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema