Sexuality and politics: ‘Coming out’ in German and Chinese queer films

Bao, Hongwei

Abstract

This chapter analyses the ‘coming out’ narratives represented in two queer films from different cultural contexts: Coming Out (dir. Heiner Carow, GDR, 1989) and Lan Yu (dir. Stanley Kwan, China, 2001). Both films feature gay men’s ‘coming out’ experiences around the year 1989. In mainstream political propaganda, queer sexualities and the year 1989 have also been used to justify the current neoliberal consensus and to celebrate the demise of socialist alternatives. Through a careful reading of the film texts, in tandem with an analysis of their historical and social contexts, this chapter argues that, by exploring the possibility of queer existence under socialism and by challenging the queer complicity with neoliberalism, these two films articulate socialist longings and belongings in the context of postsocialism. This chapter therefore offers a more complex and nuanced understanding of the relationship between sexuality, mainstream politics, and political propaganda.

Citation

Bao, H. (2021). Sexuality and politics: ‘Coming out’ in German and Chinese queer films. In Research Handbook on Political Propaganda (156-167). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789906424.00018

• Online Publication Date: Dec 14, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 17, 2021
• Deposit Date: Aug 4, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 15, 2022
• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Pages: 156-167
• Book Title: Research Handbook on Political Propaganda
• ISBN: 9781789906417
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789906424.00018
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5955060
• Publisher URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781789906417/9781789906417.00018.xml
• Additional Information: This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in Research Handbook on Political Propaganda edited by Gary Rawnsley, Yiben Ma, Kruakae Pothong, published in 2021, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd .; The material cannot be used for any other purpose without further permission of the publisher, and is for private use only.