EXCO 432 - Gay Films of the Seventies

2 credits
After Stonewall and before AIDS, a new kind of film emerged, which had never been seen before in history and would never be replicated again. They were independent, underground films made with budgets as low as $10,000. They were honest, avant-garde expressions of gay men’s fantasies and the repression they faced in culture, in society, and in the prison system. They were working class movies that defiantly crossed the lines of bourgeois morality, embracing the seedy and the perverse as beautiful in their own way. Inspired by Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger, amateur directors elevated pornography into art, and imbued provocative, overtly political messages into them. This subgenre emerged as an extension of the gay liberation movement, blurring the line between politics and art; many directors on this syllabus knew and worked with Harvey Milk and Vitu Russo. The course will present these films in mostly chronological order, paring them with primary sources and connecting them to contemporary events. It will also provide insight into 70’s gay life; contemporary gay artists, illustrators, and photographers; and concepts like cruising and bathhouses which are now lost to time.

Fionn Mahony Sorensen
fsorense@oberlin.edu
Link to Syllabus
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