About the Book
The first book to focus on the connections between sexuality, activism, and documentary film.
From film festivals to university campuses, from private homes to first-run theaters, people everywhere are viewing and discussing gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender films and videos. Between the Sheets, In the Streets considers these videos and films, testifying to the unavoidable connections between sexuality (the sheets) and activism (the streets) for all who identify as gay, lesbian, or queer in the 1990s.
This first collection of essays to focus exclusively on queer, lesbian, and gay documentary argues that documentary films and videos speak with a sense of political and social urgency, acting as testaments to the importance of reclaiming history and asserting the importance of these points of view. Among the topics discussed are representations of young queers on such shows as MTV’s The Real World; pre-Stonewall films; portrayals of lesbians and aging; video activism in Oregon and the South; and the works of Derek Jarman, Su Friedrich, Cheryl Dunye, and Sadie Benning. A range of films and videos is examined, including Strangers in Good Company, Paris Is Burning, Juggling Gender, Silverlake Life, and Without You I’m Nothing.
Tracing an exhilarating range of perspectives and subject positions, Between the Sheets, In the Streets is an essential guide to current developments in queer, lesbian, and gay documentary.
Contributors: Chris Cagle, Brown U; Linda Dittmar, U of Massachusetts, Boston; Lynda Goldstein, Pennsylvania State U, Wilkes-Barre Campus; Ronald Gregg, Drake U; Janet Jakobsen, U of Arizona; Lynda McAfee, New York Public Library; Kathleen McHugh, U of California, Riverside; Beverly Seckinger, U of Arizona; Marc Siegel, UCLA; Chris Straayer, Tisch School of the Arts; Erika Suderburg, U of California, Riverside; Thomas Waugh, Concordia U, Montreal; Justin Wyatt, U of North Texas.
Table of Contents:
Markers queer representation and Oregon's 1992 anti-gay ballot measure - measuring the politics of mainstreaming, Ronald Gregg; imaging the queer south - southern lesbian and gay documentary, Chris Cagle; Real/young/tv queer memories, Erika Suderburg; of hags and crones - reclaiming lesbian desire for the trouble zone of aging, Linda Dittmar; documentary that dare/not speak its name - Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures", Marc Siegel; walking on tippy toes - lesbian and gay liberation documentary of the post-Stonewall period 1969-1984, Thomas Waugh; marriage and mourning when autobiography meets ethnography and girl meets girl - the "dyke docs" of Sadie Benning and Su Friedrich, Chris Holmlund; love, death and videotape - "Silverlake Life", Beverly Seckinger and Janet Jakobsen; autobiography, home movies and Derek Jarman's history lesson, Justin Wyatt; mirrors getting into lesbian shorts - white spectators and performative documentaries by makers of colour, Lynda Goldstein; "Hard to Believe"- reality anxieties in "Without You I'm nothing" , "Paris is Burning", and "dunyementaries", Cynthia Fuchs; transgender mirrors - queering sexual difference, Chris Straayer; irony and dissembling - queer tactics for experimental documentary, Kathleen McHugh; film and videography, Lynda McAfee.
About the Author :
Chris Holmlund is associate professor in the Department of Romance and Asian Languages at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Cynthia Fuchs is associate professor of English/film and media studies at George Mason University.
