All of Us Strangers: coming to terms with the grief and trauma of being gay in the 1980s

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LGBTQ+ representations in British film-making manage to cross over different styles and genres.

Metadata

Provider:

The Conversation

URL:

https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-coming-to-terms-with-the-grief-and-trauma-of-being-gay-in-the-1980s-222530

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Information

Tags:

The Favourite, Parent, Grief, Claire Foy, History, Noise, Walking, Vita, Human, LGBT, Love, Homophobia, HBO, Favourite, Trauma, Death, Queer, Ambiguity, Movement, Film industry

Geotags:

KATE, LONDON, UK, VIRGINIA

Summary

Key Points:

LGBTQ+ representations in British film-making manage to cross over different styles and genres.
However, such wide visibility risks compromising the potential of LGBTQ+ films as a political force of collective dissent against homophobia and transphobia.
Reclaiming LGBT heritage and history – including films such as Vita and Virginia (2018), The Favourite (2018), and Ammonite (2020).
Rather than leading to a politically and aesthetically distinct trend or wave, these films relay queerness in significantly different ways.

Ghosts of the past

Most characters in Haigh’s films yearn for connection and intimacy and drift in and out of relationships.
The film starts with Adam (Andrew Scott) working in his flat, located in a near-empty tower block in London.
As their relationship develops, Adam is preoccupied with the memories of his past.
From a near-empty tower block to a suburban house of ghosts, the unpopulated cityscape in the film feels like a parallel, dream-like universe that we are invited to experience through Adam’s navigation of loss and grief.
As a gay man in his late 40s, carrying the generational trauma of the HIV/AIDS crisis, Adam talks to the ghosts of his “younger” parents about his childhood and his sexuality.

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Cüneyt Çakırlar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.