Spatially negotiating the queer body in Australian cinema

Spatially negotiating the queer body in Australian cinema

In cultural geography, it is axiomatic to note that space is sexed. Indeed, for over a decade scholars have emphasised the heteronormativity of public space. But it is not simply that bodies occupy sexualised space; sexuality itself is ‘a spatial formation’ (Ahmed: 67). How, then, can we examine the representation of sexuality, and specifically queer sexualities, as a spatial formation in Australian cinema? This paper focuses on Ana Kokkino’s ‘queer trilogy’: Only the Brave (1994), Head On(1998), and The Book of Revelation (2006) to argue that these films evidence, in increasingly radical ways, broader trends in spatial negotiations of ‘the queer’ in Australian cinema over the last two decades. Ultimately, I argue that ‘the queer’ typically operates to demonstrate the boundaries of sub/urban heteronormativity through various forms of policing of the queer body.

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