Abstract

In analyzing the regimes of taste and films cultures that condition the circulation and cultural currency of queer cinemas, Chapter 2 aims to reconceptualize the notion of festival circuits. It locates queer cinema at the intersection of two regimes of cultural value – identity and cinephilia. Through a Bourdieusian approach to taste-making and cultural production, I highlight how both festivals and scholars negotiate these conflicting cultural values. Film traffic relies on a symbolic economy that is based on and fosters differentiated cultural discourses on queer cinema. In analyzing the strategies of both European and American film distributors, I underscore how this interplay between queerness and cinephilia is strategically mobilized so as to assert a film's legitimacy and authenticity.

Keywords: queer cinema; Bourdieu; distribution; symbolic capital; queer relays; film traffic

‘Meanwhile, straight critics actively stifled gay discourses around these films, either through homophobic panic, liberal tolerance (“I’m so matter-of-fact and cool that sexual orientation doesn't have to be mentioned”), or allegorical exegesis (“This film is not about gayness, it's about fill-in-the-blank”).’

‘[A] comment Richard Dyer made in Amsterdam echoed in my memory. There are two ways to dismiss gay film, he pronounced. One is to say, “oh, it's just a gay film”, while the other is to proclaim, “Oh, it's a great film, it just happens to be gay.”‘