Casual Queerness is A Huge Step for The Future of Queer Cinema

Image by Avel Chuklanov via Unsplash

By Lauren Crookston

From prohibition due to censorship laws to same-sex rom-coms, queer representation has come a long way in the past century. It’s history is long and complicated, a reflection of LGBTQ+ rights in the real world, of its victories and its setbacks. Granted, cinema has always acted as a conduit for the expression of our values and our fears and our hopes, and thus why should LGBTQ+ people be the exception.

In the past twenty years or so the few LGBTQ+ stories that have made it onto the big screen have seen a shift in tone – from the devastating to the light-hearted. From Brokeback Mountain and Boys Don’t Cry to Love Simon and Booksmart, the leap from tragic stories of the struggles of being LGBTQ+ to light-hearted queer coming-of-age stories is definitely a pattern worth noting. The stories we see generally, are a reflection of a time that is on the road to recovery from Stonewall and Thatcher’s Section 28.

What’s more interesting, however, is the recent shift that has gone predominantly unnoticed: having protagonists that are gay without it being the centre of their narrative. Now, that’s not to say that movies that do centre around a character’s sexuality are bad – contrarily I’d argue they are essential, especially to LGBTQ+ youth growing up in a heteronormative society. Furthermore, they serve to memorialise times in which being openly queer came with ostracization, harassment or worse, whilst also giving a voice to those who may still face these consequences.

That being said, the ‘queer’ films that resonate with me the most, are the ones in which sexuality plays little to no part in the film, other than something that the main character just so happens to be. Glass Onion, the sequel to Knives Out, gave us a queer protagonist in the space of a scene, with no fanfare, no big declaration and no fuss. Benoit Blanc has a boyfriend, and it’s not a big deal, the film said. And thus, it wasn’t a big deal.

Another film that did this beautifully, released in the same timeframe was Aftersun, written by Charlotte Wells, who herself, is a queer woman. The film’s central protagonist, Sophie, is in a relationship with another woman, but at no point in the film is this made a point of contention nor does the narrative ever treat it as something that is particularly important. The film is not about Sophie’s queerness but about her childhood, her grief and her father: things that a broader audience than just LGBTQ+ people can relate to.

The advantage of telling stories about queer people that do not revolve around their queerness is that it appeals to a larger and more general human experience. As previously stated, that does not undermine the works that do revolve around queer identity, which have paved the way for stories such as these to be told, but rather works in tandem with them to normalise queer people existing outside of their sexual identity or preferences in the same way that cisgender, heterosexual people do.

That’s not to say that cinema has all of a sudden become some sort of beacon of casual and effortless representation. Television certainly has more leeway and screentime to explore queer characters outside of their sexualities, and this is even spreading to children’s television, which, although not unheard of, is something that is somewhat lacking in the film industry. Not to mention the lack of casually trans and POC queer characters that exist in cinema generally, without the narrative revolving around this aspect of them.

The point is that ‘casual’ queerness – as I’m coining it – in cinema takes the normalisation of queer representation to a new level. It allows it’s characters to be LGBTQ+ without limiting them from being anything else. It tells our stories without alienating those who have not experienced it by focusing on all the other aspects of ourselves that make us fundamentally human. Casual queerness allows those who don’t relate to the queer experience to still feel an affinity with queer people through other channels. Casual queerness is a new wave of queer cinema that not only humanises us, but also blurs the lines between what is queer cinema and what is not, that may someday see queer stories just be called stories.