Call for Papers for a panel entitled: "The Cultural Studies Closet:
Examining the Impact of Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet" at the NEMLA
Convention, March 31 - April 2, 2005, Cambridge, Massachusetts
In the introduction to his seminal work, The Celluloid Closet (1981/ 1987,
revised), Vito Russo argues that "The story of the ways in which gayness has
been defined in American film is the story of the ways in which we have been
defined in AmericaŠ. We have cooperated for a very long time in the
maintenance of our own invisibility. And now the party is over" (xii).
This panel, with Russo's statement as its starting point, aims not only to
continue Russo's examination of the role of cinema in creating the gay/
lesbian/ bisexual/ transgendered subject in the America of the late
twentieth-century and the early twenty-first-century, but it also seeks to
examine Russo's impact on the academic fields that comprise Cultural
Studies. In an age that has seen numerous advances in the gay/ lesbian/
bisexual/ transgender rights movement, as well as increased visibility in
media representations, is Russo's The Celluloid Closet still relevant as a
working model for cultural evaluation, or has it become a historical
document? Media visibility of the gay subject has increased, but to what
effect? Has the representation of the gay subject in film and television
changed from those scrutinized in The Celluloid Closet? If so, to what
degree have these representations changed? To what level has Russo's work
had an impact of the academic areas of Film Studies, Gender Studies, Gay and
Lesbian Studies, and Queer Theory?
Papers may address, but are not limited to the following topics:
- Body Count: Corporeality of Gay characters in film and television.
Russo details the treatment of the image of gay bodies, usually in terms of
how they die or are killed. Has this changed in the 24 years since Russo
wrote this book?
- The Sissy: Object of ridicule? Laughing at or with? Has this become
a dated argument, or does the cinema still employ the sissy as Russo
examined its role in the construction of the masculine/ American identity?
- The Monster: Representation of Gays as murderers/ monsters who must
be destroyed. Russo demonstrated how the cinema often portrayed gays as
violent murderers, predators, vampires and the like. Are gays and lesbians
in current cinema still the monsters that Russo noted? If so, has the
cultural reaction changed?
- Sexual Representation (Finally, but who is it for?): Whose gaze is
being represented in The L Word and Queer as Folk? Is queer sex being
objectified for a straight audience? Is queer sex another exhibit in the
Freak Show? Russo could not have examined this phenomenon. Using his work
as a foundation, discuss how the sexualization of the gay and lesbian
subject alters how America sees gays and lesbians and how they see
themselves.
- Does Russo still have an impact on Film Studies? Gay and Lesbian
Studies? Alternatively, is his work too dated? How?
- What of the "Television" Closet? As television has taken over as the
dominant form for cultural identity representation, how does it perpetuate
or attempt to counter the culturally codified images of gays and lesbians
that Russo examines in The Celluloid Closet?
Send 300 word abstract with a short C.V. to Damion Clark at
damionrc@earthlink.net by September 10, 2004. Accepted panelists must be,
or become current members of NEMLA by December 1, 2004.
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