Forged around sexuality and intimacy, and hence forms of privacy and invisibility that are both chosen and enforced, gay and lesbian cultures often leave ephemeral and unusual traces. In the absence of institutionalized documentation or in opposition to official histories, memory becomes a valuable historical resource, and ephemeral and personal collections of objects stand alongside the documents of the dominant culture in order to offer alternative modes of knowledge.
~Ann Cvetkovich1
This week, we are talking about how a nerd version of Alice’s Chart would perfectly show the interconnectedness of the queer art and ideas we’re engaging with.
Uma Paciência Selvagem me Trouxe Até Aqui / A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here (2021) by Érica Sarmet. We can see, less than two months into this project, a consistent throughline in queer art that speaks to and manifests queer desire. Sarmet’s short film, featuring an all-queer cast, actively roots itself in a lineage of lesbian thinking, activism, and art. Uma Paciência not only is focused on queer desires, but also kicks down queer generational divides, which is needed more and more these days. As two Gen X dykes, we sometimes get caught up in mourning what we didn’t and/or couldn’t have when we were young queers… so, we paid attention when the film’s Gen X protagonist speaks of being young and queer in “another time” and a younger character immediately responds, “Isn’t this your time?” Touché. After you watch this fantastic short, read Sarmet’s thoughtful essay in which they introduce the film and speak to queer collaboration, forgotten queer histories, and how best to capture a group sex scene. Until then, we will patiently await our guest passes to join this Brazilian poly pod.
The Queer Bible: Essays edited by Jack Guinness. As Guinness writes: “The book you hold in your hands is a love letter to the queer community. Each essay is by a personal hero of mine, in which they write about a queer figure who has inspired them, illustrated by a queer or ally artist.” From Elton John writing about Divine to Paula Akpan writing about Black British Lesbians, this book lovingly covers a wide range of queer creators by a wide range of queer creators. You could learn a lot about us by knowing that one of us beelined to read Paul Flynn’s loving essay about George Michael and the other jumped ahead in the book to read about Mae Martin’s connection to Tim Curry (we’ll let you guess who did which). Of note: there are essays not included in the book on the Queer Bible website (plus there’s a free newsletter).
“What I Want” by MUNA. One of our favorite humans, Ms. Shady Pines, sent us the Song Exploder episode in which the members of MUNA, along with the song’s co-writer Leland, discuss how this buoyant ear worm of a bop came to be. Behind the infectious electropop precision of “What I Want” is a beautiful story of queer collaboration, pleasure, joy, and exuberance—and definitely makes us wish we could be dancing in the middle of a gay bar. This song captures the queer experience of a “second adolescence” in which we queers unabashedly embrace our wants and desires, messiness and all, as a form of queer liberation. (The “second adolescence” is a common queer experience for those of us whose first adolescence unfolded while we were embedded in cisheteronormative family units and institutions that discouraged, suppressed, and/or punished our queerness.) Since a song like this was unimaginable when we were young, we appreciate it as unapologetically queer adults who embrace our ongoing queer adolescence. We will always want the fireworks and the chemistry.
Heather
Les démons de Dorothy / The Demons of Dorothy (2021) by Alexis Langlois. If you listened to our first Roundtable discussion about Knife+Heart, you already know that I have a soft spot for films that hit the Triple Crown of being a film about filmmaking, featuring films-within-the-film, and depicting film exhibition. The campy horror short Les démons de Dorothy not only secures this imagined Triple Crown (henceforth the Golden Vulva in homage to this film) but also gets bonus points for directly referencing the queer director’s challenges in securing funding to make queer art (aka, art not watered down for the mainstream). I see a great deal of my young self in the Dorothy character: a dyke filmmaker decked out in her Hole t-shirt surrounded by her leopard-print walls adorned with photos of women who she loves, such as Judy Garland, Judy Holliday, Irma Vep, Gloria Swanson, Slyvia Rivera, and Daisy Earles. Dorothy just wants the funding and freedom to bring to life her Glittercore film Biker Chicks in Love about “revolutionary, lesbian terrorists taking out every heterosexual man alive.” Don’t we all just want the funding and freedom to bring our queer art to life?!?
An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures by Ann Cvetkovich. An archive of feelings is a fluid queer method that uses material ephemera, fragmented memories, ordinary objects, and oral histories as repositories for the emotional connections and attachments queers have to people, places, and things, which leads to a better understanding of queer experiences and intimacies. Our queer histories have gone unwritten, unarticulated, hidden, and destroyed for far too long; thus, Cvetkovich argues in this text for creating queer archival space and methods by challenging the institutional norms that determine what counts as history and whose stories matter.
I’ve been reading Cvetkovich’s influential book, which is focused on trauma, for a chapter I’m writing about the queer horror community. One thing that strikes me is that one doesn’t need to read the book to “understand” the concept or “engage” with an archive of feelings (much like Judith Butler’s work on gender performativity). These theories have transcended and evolved beyond the works that first brought them to public consciousness—and the examples of how and to what they apply can evolve as society changes.
The feelings at the center of queer lives are ultimately paramount. For example, both MUNA’s song and Sarmet’s short film connect to the ever-relevant concept of “an archive of feelings” because, as they present ideas of queer desire and queer bodies in motion, they root in feelings and emotions. Indeed, the entire Queerest Year project itself is an archive of feelings. We are sharing and documenting what/who we love and how we think and what we feel. In turn, each of you have your own emotions and feelings about the things we share. It’s such a beautiful thing that each of us has our very own archive of feelings and that we can continue to queerly build our collective history.
Half a Life (2017) by Tamara Shogaolu. What happens when you can’t live freely in your country as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but leaving your country means giving up a different part of who you are? The protagonist in Half a Life confronts not being able to live his whole life as he’d want, where he wants. This animated short documentary incorporates newsreel/documentary footage and uses oral history to narrate a young gay Egyptian man’s road to activism as he grapples with whether or not he can reconcile his queerness with his love for Egypt, where being queer is a social taboo. Half a Life covers the emotional complexities of identity—yes, an archive of feelings—through first-person audio (note: there are graphic depictions of state violence, including sexual violence). That this film then reveals the, at times, painful nuances of sexuality, community, and nationality in 12 minutes has me convinced that most films are simply too long.
Amie
Diary of a Sista Grrrl Zine by Tobi. I feel like I am seeing more new zines from more perspectives and I am all about it, especially the energy and importance of new zines made by young queer people. I dove into Diary of a Sista Grrrl issues 002, 003 & 004 as soon as they arrived in the mail. This zine is by a dynamic and creative young Black lesbian with a clear lens who is into the punk and alternative scenes. I am inspired by the way they channel their vitality and express their artistry in community with others—and I deeply appreciate hearing their intersectional perspectives on music, the riot grrrl scene, and their authentic being. “i will be as loud as possible when it comes to the way i feel; my joy, my anger, both every negative and positive emotion. i hope it is scary and offputting and leaves a bad taste in your mouth. i love being an angry black grrrl.”
“Gay Is Good” excerpt by Martha Shelley, in The Stonewall Reader. A book of essays and excerpts is one of my favorite sources for a quick, potent read, and this collection drawn from the New York Public Library’s archives is perfect for my ongoing gayducation. This excerpt by Martha Shelley, a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, has a sharp confrontation that is necessary even today because we still don’t have the luxury of safety or assurance of bodily autonomy. Martha may not have a full intersectional understanding or perspective on queerness, but she gets to the crux of the matter in fighting for liberation (versus assimilation) in the face of “fake liberal smiles”: “We want you to be uneasy, be a little less comfortable in your straight roles. And to make you uneasy, we behave outrageously—even though we pay a heavy price for it—and our outrageous behavior comes out of our rage.”
Artist Eaton Hamilton. One of the things I most appreciate and admire about Eaton’s practice as shared on IG is their rhythm of practice and commitment to play. They are often creating works and studies that engage with different artists and styles, which is incredibly compelling and inspiring as a fellow artist. And, yet, Eaton clearly has their own voice, style, and queer lens that carries through. I particularly love their “Monocle Club” series, portraits of fictional 1920s lesbians from the famed Parisian lesbian club Le Monocle. These works are queer meaning making that connects us to a history that wasn’t fully documented but always existed—and always will.
From An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, p. 8.