School of Culture and Communication - Theses

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End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 × Subject: Melbourne ×

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    Popcorn & politics: the queer film festival’s relationship with homonormativity and social empowerment
    Richards, Stuart ( 2013)
    From grassroots screenings organised by community activists to commercially minded organisations, the queer film festival has always been an integral player in the development of queer cinema. This thesis investigates The San Francisco Frameline International LGBT Film Festival and The Melbourne Queer Film Festival using the conceptual rubric of the social enterprise to interrogate the relationship between social and economic value. I argue that the growth of the queer film festival is in historical alignment with the conceptual development of cultural policy that has enabled community arts organisations to adopt creative industry logic. One aim of this research project is to examine whether the need for fiscal sustainability results in a dominance of homonormative films in the festival program. Data will be analysed from archival research, textual and film analysis, and interviews with both audience members and film festival staff personnel. Analysis of the programs of both case studies shows that socially progressive films outnumber homonormative films. Audience members interviewed demonstrated that queer film festival attendance was socially empowering. This thesis concludes that the partially conservative programming, created out of a need for economic viability, does not outweigh the social importance of audiences’ experience of attending the queer film festival.