If we look to the beginning of cinema, the very beginning, the first motion picture features two men dancing in front of a gramophone. Even in the period of the Hays Code, where depiction of homosexuality in Hollywood movies was prohibited, innuendo and coded communication flourished.

The history of queer cinema is a history of contradictions: it has always been marginal cinema but it also has had several heydays. From those early whispers to “New Queer Cinema,” a genre of highly regarded innovative gay and lesbian film that emerged during the AIDS crisis, queer cinema has had many moments. Are we now in a cinematic era, after a period of documenting, representing, and reflecting on recent and past eras of queer life, where any kind of queerness is just seamlessly woven into the fabric of life on film and is less and less marginal? Or is Queer Cinema still vital and relevant?

Dr Monica Pearl (Lecturer in 20^th Century American Literature and Film, University of Manchester) has written extensively over the past 20 years on queer representation in film.

Also see: Wild Nights With Emily