Table Of ContentLGBT Transnational Identity and the Media
Also by Christopher Pullen
DOCUMENTING GAY MEN: Identity and Performance in Reality Television and
Documentary Film
GAY IDENTITY, NEW STORYTELLING AND THE MEDIA
LGBT IDENTITY AND ONLINE NEW MEDIA ( co-edited with Margaret Cooper )
LGBT Transnational
Identity and the Media
Edited by
Christopher Pullen
Senior Lecturer in Media Studies,
Bournemouth University, UK
Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Christopher Pullen 2012
Individual chapters © Contributors 2012
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-30106-1
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2012 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-33674-6 ISBN 978-0-230-37331-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230373310
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
For LGBT citizens worldwide, especially for those living in
conditions of abject oppression. Also in memory of
Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and David Kato.1
1. In 2005 after being held in prison for 14 months, where they were allegedly
tortured, Mahmoud Asgari (17 years old) and Ayaz Marhoni (18 years old) were
found guilty of homosexual acts and publicly hanged in the Edalat (Justice)
Square in the town of Mashhad in northeast Iran. The iconic images of the
two young men blindfolded, with ropes around their necks just before execu-
tion, and then of their bodies swinging from the rope at the end of a crane,
were published worldwide through the Internet by human rights activists (see
Gay Identity, New Storytelling and the Media, Pullen 2009). David Kato was
murdered in Uganda in 2011, after public involvement in gay rights, addressing
advancing oppression there at that time (see the introduction, plus Chapters 1,
4 and 5).
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements x
Preface xii
Notes on Contributors xiv
Introduction 1
Christopher Pullen
Part I P olitics and Citizenship
1 LGBT Transnational Documentary “Becoming” 2 3
Christopher Pullen
2 Trauma and Triumph: Documenting Middle Eastern
Gender and Sexual Minorities in Film and Television 4 1
Rebecca Beirne and Samar Habib
3 Transsexual in Iran: A Fatwa for Freedom? 59
Sahar Bluck
4 Sub-Saharan African Sexualities, Transnational HIV/AIDS
Educational Film and the Question of Queerness 67
David Oscar Harvey
5 The Floating/Fleeting Spectacle of Transformation: Queer Carnival,
Gay Pride and the Renegotiation of
Postapartheid Identities 84
Ernst van der W al
6 The Argentinean Movement for Same-Sex Marriage 102
Margaret Cooper
7 The Politics of Reclaiming Identity: Representing
the Mak Nyahs in Bukak Api 1 14
Andrew Hock Soon Ng
vii
viii Contents
Part II A daptation and Postcolonial Transitions
8 Queer (Im)possibilities: Alaa Al-Aswany’s and
Wahid Hamed’s T he Yacoubian Building 1 31
Stephanie Selvick
9 Andrew Salkey, James Baldwin and the Case of the “Leading
Aberrant”: Early Gay Narratives in the British Media 1 46
Kate Houlden
10 The Exotic Erotic: Queer Representations in the Context of
Postcolonial Ethnicity on British TV 1 61
Peri Bradley
11 Documenting the Queer Indian: The Question of Queer
Identification in K hush and Happy Hookers 1 81
Bryce J. Renninger
12 Screening Queer India in Pratibha Parmar’s Khush 1 97
Daniel Farr and Jennifer Gauthier
Part III Performance and Subjectivity
13 Gay Pornography as Latin American Queer Hist oriography 2 13
Gustavo Subero
14 Quo Vadis, Queer Vato? Queer and Loathing in
Latino Cinema 2 31
Richard Reitsma
15 Queer Art of Parallaxed Document: Visual Discourse of
Docudrag in Kutluğ Ataman’s Never My Soul! (2001) 2 42
Cüneyt Çakirlar
16 T he Drag Queers the S/He Binary: Subversion of
Heteronormativity in Turkish Context 2 59
Serkan Ertin
17 If Art Imitated Reality: George Takei, Coming Out, and the
Insufferably Straight S tar Trek Universe 2 73
Bruce E. Drushel
18 A Chinese Queer Discourse: Camp and Alternative Desires
in the Films of Yon Fan and Lou Ye 2 90
Jason Ho Ka-Hang
Index 309
Figures
I.1 A collage of images of some of contributors to the “It
Gets Better Project”, created by David Sullivan. At the
time of writing, over 350,000 people have supported this
project. Barak Obama’s contribution to this may be
considered as central; in advocating transnational
citizenship ideals for gay youth. Image © David Sullivan.
www.flickr.com/davidnewengland 2
I .2 J effrey Crowley, Director of National AIDS Policy
at the Whitehouse, depicted in Whitehouse staff It Get
Better Project, personal video contribution. Image
Courtesy of the Office of National AIDS Policy 3
I .3 David Kato, who was murdered in Uganda in 2010.
Image courtesy of Gay Rights Uganda. Image © 2010
Current TV, produced and owned by Current TV 4
1 .1 Mariana van Zeller in a scene from the
documentary Vanguard: Missionaries of Hate. Mariana is in
conversation with “Long John”, who is oppressed in
Uganda, as an openly gay man. Image © 2010
Current TV, produced and owned by Current TV 24
1 .2 “Long John” in a scene from the documentary Vanguard:
Missionaries of Hate. Long John, in conversation with Mariana
van Zeller, on a journey through town to his home, where
he feels vulnerable from increasing oppression in Uganda 34
5 .1 Untitled. Photograph © Ernst van der Wal 89
5 .2 Untitled. Photograph © Ernst van der Wal 9 0
5 .3 Raped as a “cure” to my sexuality – Image
courtesy of Lindsay Nel 94
1 5.1 Kutluğ Ataman (2001) Never My Soul! Six-screen
or single-screen video installation. Reproduced with
permission of the artist.Courtesy of Lehman Maupin
Gallery, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery,London. 247
ix
