GLR March-April 2023

Baker introduced the first rainbow flag at a San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. The final section, “Colonizing,” explored how the arrival of “the homosexual” in Europe coincided with the advance of colonialism , a European expansionist ideology that used Dar winism to justify racism, military expansion, and even genocide. A pernicious side effect was that Western ideologies on homosexual ity were imposed on conquered lands, many of which respected same-sex relations or at least didn’t condemn them, and homophobic laws were written into their legal codes. In re sponse to these attitudes, Sri Lankan artist David Paynter created in L’après midi (1935), a ravishing male version of Gauguin’s allur ing female portraits. Taken as a whole, the exhibition under scored the extent to which sexuality is not an eternal phenomenon but a historical one that’s subject to cultural definitions and prescrip tions. This extraordinary exhibition closed in Chicago on January 28th, but another oppor

David Paynter. L’Apres Midi , 1935.

tunity will present itself in 2025, when 250 works will be as sembled at the same museum for Part II. This major exhibition will then travel internationally, accompanied by a comprehen sive catalogue.

term “homosexual” obscures the distinction between sexual ori entation and gender identity, which has come to the fore as part of the trans revolution unfolding around us. On display was one of the first self-consciously trans images, Gerda Wegener’s 1929 portrait of her spouse as she understood herself: the woman Lili Elbe. Lili appears before having gender-affirming surgery, but Gerda portrays her as her fully actualized in her womanhood, posing as an odalisque with a cigarette, an emblem of women’s liberation. Their tumultuous relationship was the basis for the novel and film The Danish Girl . The sixth section, “Desire,” highlighted the differences be tween Western and Eastern imagery. While Western art has rarely depicted sexual penetration in a fine arts context, such has not been the case in Asia, where sex is understood not as something shameful but as a natural part of life. I was struck by a Japanese painted scroll from the mid-19th century that chron icles a young man’s coming of age as he moves seamlessly be tween women and men, dominance and submission. “Public/Private” showed how homosexuality has been forced into the shadows, rendered invisible, stigmatized, and seen as dangerous. Some artists challenged this dynamic by pushing ho mosexuality into the realm of public life. A beautiful example is Charles Demuth’s Eight O’clock (Early Morning) (1917), a provocative “morning after” scene with three young men. A melancholic figure, probably the artist himself, is addressed by a man in underwear as another nude man washes himself in the bathroom. “Past and Future” showed how the exclusion of homosexual representation continues today. In the past, the threat of erasure forced homosexual artists to use historical or mythical themes to legitimize their work. Baron von Gloeden’s photographs showcase naked youths with a Greek backdrop, evoking a Clas sical world in which same-sex desire was recognized as a part of life. In the premonitory painting Landscape with a Rainbow (1915), by gay Russian artist Konstantin Somov, a rainbow rep resents absolution and acceptance—63 years before Gilbert

Still Tragic...

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so much a comedy as a scramble of uneven scenes. Its only orig inality lies in those meta-moments when the script departs from dramedy conventions. Michael, for example, writes for TV Guide and imagines himself as the child star in his own sitcom. At one point, he rewinds the scene and recasts Kit with an entirely dif ferent actor. Michael has long suffered from low self-esteem and, during their first sexual encounter, tells Kit: “I’m an FFK ... for mer fat kid. I have some body issues.” Kit’s use of cannabis and Michael’s drinking both complicate their relationship, but it’s Kit’s cancer diagnosis that tests their love. In the role of Kit’s mother Marilyn, Sally Field is the steely mama bear who guards her son’s hospital bedside like it’s the Hope Diamond. This is fa miliar territory for Field, as she played essentially the same part in the camp classic Steel Magnolias (1989). My Policeman and Spoiler Alert could not be more dissimi lar in tone, but they both portray men in love as dismally doomed from the get-go. Neither challenges the cultural script that male relationships must end disastrously, though My Po liceman does offer the two principles some redemption as old men. Both of these bummers left me with the dispirited sense that queer love stories with happy endings remain unavailable for mainstream audiences. In this respect, Spoiler Alert is no spoiler at all, as audiences have been watching gay men lose at love and die prematurely for decades. Where are our love stories unblemished, unspoiled by imprisonment and drawn-out scenes of disease and dying? This is not a starry-eyed plea for fabulism but a reminder that if representation matters, the Movie-Indus trial Complex keeps serving up an extremely bleak view of what it means to be LGBT both in the past and today.

March–April 2023

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