Running head: QUEER POESIS ! 1
Queer poesis
Queer poesis especially lesbianism in the society has received lot of opposition, and
people do not want to associate with people who are heterosexuals. Lesbianism has indeed
received mixed reaction and in film making industry, those practicing lesbianism rarely access
the platform of acting. Therefore, they are discriminated. This work therefore evaluate some of
the techniques that have been used discriminate those practicing queer poesis. The paper will
compare and contract Nitrate Kisses and Watermelon Woman in their films.
In the nitrate kisses film, explores eroded as well as images for lost vestiges of gay and lesbian
culture as directed by Barbara Hammer. Hammer decides to put in context a forbidden and
invisible history of marginalized people through sexual activities of both lesbian and gay
couples. The society has indeed resisted association with gay and lesbian culture. People do not
want to even imagine that lesbian and gays existed in the society especially lesbian of color. In
filmmaking, they are denied to the opportunity in acting. According to Gever et al. (1993) the
audiences of the film expects heterosexual acts in the film and when they see the homosexual
acts like lesbianism, they are disappointed. The film industries have also refuted or even refused
to showcase lesbian or gay content. Those characters that act, as lesbian and gay do not receive
lot of length is the film. In fact, film companies like Hollywood do not perceive the content as
lesbianism. It is depicted far from the intentions of the actress or artists. . Barbara indicate that
lesbian cinema are indeed invisible on screen. It is quite difficult to see lesbian representation in
cinema. Moreover, they carried out in invisible lines throughout and heated by projector lamp.
QUEER POESIS ! 2
Therefore, the audiences do not see the vivid real acts of lesbian and gay (Rich et al. 1993).
According to authors involved in production of homosexual content in early 1970s, they faced
lot of problems since there were no images for lesbians. They were even termed as feminists
semioticians with essential meaningless ideology. Through nitrate kisses film, the author is said
to be forcing people what they have for long time avoided. Moreover, there existed restriction
that censorship ruling had against lesbian and gay arts in cinema. It is quite clear that the study
depicts the problems faced by artists as well as directors in charge of homosexual content. The
society was not very interested in their content and Barbara for instance was in the move of
making history, which attracted the political resistance from the society across the world.
The watermelon film on the other hand was the first film to feature made by black woman. The
film receives lot of problems due to lesbianism content. Racism also comes in since it involves
the people of color. There is primary tension in the film since it involves intersection of race as
well as sexual orientation, politics as the movie addresses black-white lesbian relationship.
According to Cheryl Dunye the voices of black women had been missing from the dominant
cultural production and it is time at this century to address the elision. The content or the image
of black women has been coined to be harmful as well as inaccurate stereotyping. Stereotyping
has been as major technique to blow out lesbian content in film production. Additionally, they
have been termed as sexually deviant, which therefore goes against the norms of the society
since the society, which is largely occupied by heterosexuals. A large section of US community
do not confirm to sexual gratification, which involve use of objects. Therefore, they reject all
content that do not promote heterosexuals and therefore such lesbians content has not attracted
QUEER POESIS ! 3
audience like other movie which involve heterosexual acts. Nevertheless, watermelon content
has attracted the curiosity of the audiences and according to Sullivan (2007), the watermelon
film does provoke the curiosity of the audiences and they find it simply fascinating as they
follow up when cheryl as deterctive looks for clues regarding the unknown black actress. The
actress indicate that there has been discrimination of black women for long time since their
stories have never been told. The voices of black women has been absent especially in the
dominant cultural production of content especially text and film. In fact, prominent film
production companies like Hollywood have depicted black women as domestic servant and
recently as welfare mothers. Therefore, black women in the film has always been assigned
insignificant role and the main reason for such practice is discrimination and negative
stereotyping. The discrimination and form of hatred has even made the producers to even ignore
listing of black women in the credits. Racism ha really led to demeaning and devaluing of black
women in the filmmaking industry (Sullivan, 2000).
Additionally, Sullivan claim that black lesbian women have not been active in the production
since they have been denied equal chance of participating in the mainstream media. According to
Jewell Gomez, black lesbians are few visible group in both fine arts and popular media and to
make matter worse lesbian of color should not even exist. Black women involved in homosexual
rarely receive the chance to appear before camera.
In conclusion, women have really been discriminated in the society for long and despite the
milestone they have made in fighting for equity, equality and freedom; the film industry has not
yet accepted women role participation fully. Additionally, the practice of homosexuality
QUEER POESIS ! 4
especially lesbianism has really been rejected by not only those involved in production of film
but also the audiences. The black females are the most affected and the women spearheading the
production of lesbianism have been criticized and termed as feminist seek for political
recognition.
QUEER POESIS ! 5
References
Rich, B. R., Gever, M., Parmar, P., & Greyson, J. (1993). Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian
and Gay Film and Video.
Sullivan, L. L. (2000). Chasing Fae: The Watermelon Woman and Black Lesbian
Possibility. Callaloo, 23(1), 448-460.