Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Cultural Crossovers
- 2 LGBTQ Film Festivals and their Audiences
- 3 LGBQ Themes and Responses
- 4 Trans Issues
- 5 Audiences and Critics: Dialogue and Disagreement
- Conclusion
- Appendix I: Standard Questions for Respondents
- Appendix II: Project Web Page
- Filmography
- References
- Index
2 - LGBTQ Film Festivals and their Audiences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Cultural Crossovers
- 2 LGBTQ Film Festivals and their Audiences
- 3 LGBQ Themes and Responses
- 4 Trans Issues
- 5 Audiences and Critics: Dialogue and Disagreement
- Conclusion
- Appendix I: Standard Questions for Respondents
- Appendix II: Project Web Page
- Filmography
- References
- Index
Summary
Je vais au festival ‘Des images aux mots’ depuis 3 ans. Et vois tous les films. Je ne participe pas aux gay pride. Voisins, entourage savent que je suis lesbienne. Je tiens la main de ma pétite amie maghrébine depuis 20 ans. Et l'embrasse dans la rue [depuis] avant le PACS.
(I have been going to the Des images aux mots festival for three years and I watch all the films. I do not participate in the gay pride. [My] neighbours and entourage know that I am lesbian. I have been holding my Maghrebi girlfriend's hand for twenty years. And I have been kissing her in the street since before the PACS (civil partnership)) (Daphne, 40-year-old French female, volunteer with WWOOF International, on the LGBTQ film festival in Toulouse)
I've visited all 27 LLGFF festivals! (Malcolm, 65-year-old British white retired male, attender at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, March 2013)
The above responses are testament to the resolute investment of some of our participants in their ‘local’ LGBTQ film festival. Declarations of longstanding patronage are utilised by the second of these respondents as proof of his commitment, while the first cites her consistent presence over a shorter period as a marker of her self-affirmation as lesbian. This particular respondent makes a series of illuminating suggestions in which attendance at the LGBTQ festival is aligned with broader political acts in her life (longstanding openness about her sexuality to her peers and the people she encounters in her everyday life, and habitual public displays of affection for her partner, which predate the formal legalisation of same-sex partnerships). Gay Pride emerges, via implication, as enabling a much less committed display of lesbian identity than a film festival, given her apparent keenness to deny any participation in that particular event.
Daphne's response, though, may also be said to paint a certain picture of the ‘typical’ LGBTQ film festival-goer as having a strong sense of LGBTQ political identity and community affiliation. As such, her remarks could illustrate the point that we made in the introduction that our use of festivals as principal sites of recruitment for our research may limit the breadth and diversity of viewers that we access and consult.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- French and Spanish Queer FilmAudiences, Communities and Cultural Exchange, pp. 41 - 67Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2016