Queer Transgression and Postcolonial Ambivalence
Queer Transgression and Postcolonial Ambivalence
Scanning contemporary Arab cinema through the lens of queer studies reveals many films exploring issues of gender identity and sexual difference, and challenging patriarchal culture in the broader context of the struggle for national and social liberation. Chahine's stylistic outlook on his personal experiences, despairs, and anxieties, as well as his hopes and aspirations are reconciled within loosely connected cinematic episodes of fantasy and reality. But the creative, political, and personal struggles of the filmmaker are laid out in a manner unprecedented in world cinema, let alone in Arab cinema. However, Chahine's disclosure of the most intimate of his personal aspirations and anxieties (such as his bisexual fantasies and relations, and his apprehensions of aging) breaks major taboos in the history of self-reflexive cinema.
Keywords: social liberation, gender identity, sexual difference, bisexual, self-reflexive cinema
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