Homo-erection: Black Film and the representation of male homo-eroticism

Abstract

In the research report, I study the representation of male homoeroticism in the genre of Black film. I argue that the first non-pornographic portrayal of men as homoerotic images in cinema can be found in a French film made in 1950, Un Chant d’Amour. While this representation was predominantly White — in terms of its production, cast, and the audience for which it was made — it also offered the first homoerotic depiction of the Black male body in cinema. As such, I draw a link between the historical homoerotic representations of Black men in (White) Queer cinema, and the subsequent evolution of what I identify as Queer Black film. Using close reading analysis to study male homoeroticism as it occurs in Queer Black film from the 1980s until the 2010s, I offer an exploration of the different ways in which this eroticism has been approached across the decades. My three primary case studies are Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989) and Young Soul Rebels (1991), as well as Moonlight (2016) by Barry Jenkins. From a homoerotic perspective, these Queer Black films speak back to Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour (1950), which serves as the earliest example of male homoeroticism in cinema. What permeates my analysis, is the presence of “homosexual frustration” where male heterosexual characters are concerned. I conclude by identifying (and introducing) the Hetero-Gaze, which I see as being used by Queer filmmakers to push back against homophobia.