In the first week of this course I found the readings insightful and thought-provoking in matters of queer identity, heteronormativity and the perpetuation and acceptance of a binary organization of gender and sexualities by both heterosexual and queer human participants. In the Queer Studies Introduction reading it states that “sexuality is at once constituted by society and a vehicle for regulating and controlling it. Thus queer scholars contend that the focus of lesbian and gay studies on the making of lesbian and gay identities and communities tacitly accepts the binary organization of sexuality underlying the dominant position of heterosexuality in society.” (QS Intro, 4) This argument positions gay and lesbian (I’m changing it to queer) identities and communities as both accepting and contributing to the dilemma of heteronormativity while also being incredibly important to creating and maintaining a strong sense of identity and self-worth among queer individuals that is on equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts. Queer individuals are arguably forced to contribute to heteronormativity in social spaces where their otherness may cause them physical or emotional harm, or in speech-acts like coming out which recognize the presumed-norm of heterosexuality by verbally “coming out” as something opposite or different. In the reading titled “Against the Teleological Presumption: Notes on Queer Visibility in Contemporary Italian Film”, Rigoletto writes that “the prominence of coming out within contemporary gay identity may be thought of as one of the effects of the institutional incitement to speak about sex, which, from the 18th century onwards – as Michel Foucault has pointed out in his History of Sexuality, Vol. 1.” (Rigoletto, 2) These ideologies have turned sex – and gender – into markers on one’s identity and tools for societal and cultural control and regulation.

Many fields of study, including Queer Studies, largely ignore the full range of nonnormative genders and sexualities as they adhere to compulsory heteronormativity and traditional societal binaries of male and female, or heterosexual and homosexual. Queer studies views sexuality as something formed and utilized by society to control and regulate itself. Heteronormativity stems from ideologies of compulsory heterosexuality and focuses on establishing a set of norms that make heterosexuality seem natural, correct, moral, or right, and poses homosexuality as an immoral, opposite binary to it.

The Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek’s 2010 comedy-drama film Loose Cannons depicts the coming-out process of two brothers named Antonio and Tommaso Cantone in Southern Italy. The film begins like many other conventional coming-out queer films, however things take an unexpected turn when Antonio surprisingly comes out as gay to their family directly before Tommaso had planned to. The intolerant and harsh reaction that Antonio is met with by the family and father in particular leaves Tommaso deciding not to come out yet. The film has many memorable moments of familial love and genuine acceptance from Alba and the Grandmother to the two queer men in the film. A particular scene in Loose Cannons that struck me and reminded me of content from the reading and lectures was when Tommaso’s four gay friends from Rome visit his family home, their gayness unbeknownst to the family. (See linked video for short scene) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB97M-dg89s I felt like this scene is important because it situates the five queer characters on the left side of the room and the heteronormative characters opposite of them. I found this imagery interesting when analyzing the identitarian versus non-identitarian frameworks of queer cinema. I particularly enjoyed that this scene shows how differently queer and/or non-identitarian human beings are treated in heteronormative spaces when they are not verbally stating their queerness. Loose Cannons explores and challenges the ideology of an assumed and compulsory heterosexuality and heteronormativity that exists in cultural and social spheres, forcing queer identified individuals into speech-acts known as coming-out in order to be acknowledged as queer.