Books & Films Our Classmates Presented

    Most of our lovely classmates did a presentation on a book or a film for their midterm.  We asked them to give a brief description/quote & review of the material they covered so we could add it to our site.
    By doing this, we want to give our site visitors a look at lots of other interesting books & films to review.  We're hoping you'll choose to read some of the books and watch some of the films to help form your own definition of 'queer' and 'queer lit.'
    In addition to giving their own reviews, our classmates were asked to rate their materials on a 'queer scale.'  In the movie industry, stars measure the entertainment value of a film.  That's not what's going on here.  This scale simply provides an idea of how queer the material is,and not necessarily how good it is.

  =   This is material that is absolutely, positively, undeniably queer.  This rating is reserved    for materials which could be considered extreme or radical.

= This is fairly standard queer material.  You look at it and you think "Hey, this is queer."

=  Hmmm. . .queer or not queer?  This rating is for all of those materials that might be considered queer, but aren't necessarily queer.

   = This rating is reserved for those completely mainstream materials that were rumored to be queer.
 
 

    Books, Plays, & Collections of Stories or Poems

 -  "Angels in America"     A Play by Tony Kushner
              presented by Thomas Harris
                   What Tom says about the play:   "The issues covered by the play, while they have queer resonance, and deal with queer issues, are essentially universal ones... truth and lies, and how one fits (or doesn't fit) into one's social environment. -- I think that's why "Angels"  was  such a huge success with the  mainstream (i.e. non-queer) community."

-  "Diving into the Wreck"    A Collection of Poems by Adrienne Rich 
               presented by Jennifer Fellebaum
                    A Quote from the Poems:"Poetry can bring together those parts of us which exist in dread and those which have the surviving sense of a possible happiness, collectivity, community, a loss of isolation."

-  "A Place I've Never Been"    A Collection of Short Stories by David Leavitt 
           presented by Debbie Kuzawa
                     Debbie's Favorite Story in the Collection: "My Marriage to Vengeance definitely gets a 3 on the queerness scale!"

-  "Ammonite"    A Sci-Fi Novel by Nicola Griffith 
          presented by Amelia Kridler
                     A Quote from Nicola Griffith:  "How can anyone expect a label to apply to a living, changing human being for more than five minutes?....it seems to me that lots of people just fall in love with the person, and worry about what sex they are later."

-  "Boys Like Her"   Transfictions by Taste This 
          presented by Amy Kay
                   A Quote from the forward of the book (by Kate Bornstein):  "My God...they're talking like that, and they're writing it all down!"
 

-  "PoMoSexuals"    A Compilation of Queer Rants & Raves by Various Authors 
          presented by Krista Thomas
                  Two of Krista's favorite quotes from the book: "It's bad enough feeling like you're living a lie if you allow straight people to assume you're totally straight and gay people to assume you're totally gay.  But having to think about all this when you're not even getting laid has to be the most depressing thing of all."  -Katherine Raymond
                  "Sex is not about the body parts.  It's about the erotic energy that happens between two people."
                                                          -David Harrison, "The Personals"
 
 

-  "Trash"  A Collection of Short Stories by Dorothy Allison
           A brief summary:  "A self-proclaimed 'cross-eyed working class lesbian addicted to violence, language and hope' even her fiction smacks of the truth.  The essay in TRASH are a first-hand account of a woman growing up in South Carolina and coming to terms with her sexuality as an adult through old-fashioned story telling."

-  "My Secret Garden"   by Nancy Friday
           A quote from the author herself: "Writing about sex gave me the chance to be myself for the first time in my life."

-  "Queer & Loathing:  Rants & Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone"  by David Feinberg
           Some quotes from the author: "I've been straddling the line between fiction and fact for quite some time now...There is no literal truth, of course.  Truth is a philosophical invention one can only approach."
            "Once you joke about something, you appropriate it, you attain a certain amount of control over it."
 

   Films

-  "Fire"    a film by Deepa Mehta 
          presented by Autumn Smigill, Heather Moyer, & Tina Bonacci
              The three of us think this film is pretty queer, but here's what Deepa Mehta said about it:  "I wish people would believe me when I say that this film is not about lesbianism...it is not the definitive film about lesbianism.  In fact, one of the thing that detract from the film is that the film is really not fair to lesbians, because it shows that perhaps women turn to each other if only their marriages are really bad."

-  Andy Colopy & Scot Gerding did their presentation on stereotypes within the gay community...so they used clips from 2 films, a TV show, and a book.  Here's how they rainbow rated their choices:

       MOVIES:          "Jeffrey" 
                                    "Torch Song Trilogy" 
       TV:                    "Will & Grace" 
       BOOK:              "Growing Up Gay"  by Jeff Cohen, Danny McWilliams, & Bob Smith 

-  Sera Hussain, Kelly Francis, & Elizabeth Bridgman also used clips from several different films for their presentation entitled "A Trip to the Movies with Joe & Holly Hetero."  Here's how they rainbow rated their films based on how the films contribute to stereotypes (we've included Sera, Kelly, and Elizabeth's creative responses by Joe & Holly Hetero too!):
      "Chasing Amy" 
               What Joe Hetero would say about this film:  "Dude, that's so true!  I always see those dykes with their shaved heads talking shit about men.  All lesbians need is a good deep dicking."
               What Holly Hetero would say about the films:  "I see them looking at me all the time.  It's obvious they want me, but it's too bad, because I like boys!"
       "Bound" 
                Joe Hetero:  "Sweet!  Hot chicks having sex together!  Count me in!"
                Holly Hetero:  "Ooh, boys like that!  I can't wait to make out with my girlfriends at the kegger this weekend!"
        "The Birdcage" 
               Why they gave this film two rainbows:  "Though the delivery of the movie was manifested through definite stereotypes, there were definite issues at hand that pertain to queer issues. (i.e. the problem of having two men as parents)."
               Joe Hetero:  "Ugh!  Homos!  It figures that one owns a nightclub and the other is a drag queen."
               Holly Hetero:  "Hee hee, gay men are funny!  Why are all gay men good looking?  Aw look, he's dressing up as a woman!"
 
 

AND FINALLY....other films that were presented on but we didn't receive a rainbow rating for:

-  "Heavenly Creatures"  a film by Peter Jackson

-  "Les Biches"  (an average French film from the late 60s)

-   "Bastard Out of Carolina"  the book & film are both by Dorothy Allison