Queer Cinema Quotes

Unless you're of a certain age, you may not know my name, but you can Google it - I was a pretty big movie star in the 1950s. Oh, and another thing: I was - am - gay.

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

I loved 'Carol.' I thought it was a beautiful film.

I did a short film at Outfest, 'Where Are the Dolls,' based on an Elizabeth Bishop poem done, where I play this woman who is sort of walking the streets and ends up alone dancing in a club. I have this hot and heavy scene with a very beautiful actress. It became very popular.

'Blue is the Warmest Colour' - I'm not a lesbian, I'm not French, I'm not a woman, but I saw so much of myself in those women and in those characters. I saw different parts of myself than I ever would've seen if I hadn't seen that film.

One of the things that 'Love, Simon' is doing that hasn't been done before is it's a gay teen rom-com with a mainstream wide release and the backing of a studio that previous gay rom-coms have not had. I'm really excited by that.

When I started making films, it was never that I had this great ambition to only do gay-themed material.

I will talk to people who say they loved 'Tales of the City' or 'Far and Away' or 'Love and Human Remains' or 'Barcelona.'

A lot of gay-themed films are terrible. And mainstream audiences and the press aren't interested, understandably.

Everything encourages you not to tell stories of gay lives. There is no economy yet for that kind of cinema.

People define gay cinema solely by content: if there are gay characters in it, it’s a gay film... Heterosexuality to me is a structure as much as it is a content. It is an imposed structure that goes along with the patriarchal, dominant structure that constrains and defines society. If homosexuality is the opposite or the counter-sexual activity to that, then what kind of a structure would it be?

It's cool when frat boys say, 'Yeah, 'Hedwig!' I'd like to see that same thing happen with 'Shortbus.'

We were talking about the kissing in the movie just recently. Clearly, it's pretty challenging material, but Ang said two men herding sheep was far more sexual than two men having sex on screen.

By the time I finished 'Poison,' the New Queer Cinema was branded, and I was associated with this. In many ways, it formed me as a filmmaker, like as a feature filmmaker I never set out to be.

When I was first starting out in the industry in the early '90s, gay love stories were relegated to limited-release films that were hidden deep in the back of Blockbuster video stores.

A lot of straight actors are actively searching for gay roles because it is something different to do.

I haven't seen that many gay movies, but I haven't loved a lot of the ones I've seen.

A gay murder movie is never going to be, like, breaking box office records.

I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.

Bob Fosse, even though he wasn't gay. He was certainly queer and had a huge effect on the 'Hedwig' film, as did Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, who had a weird butch queer feeling about him. His films almost flirted with camp but in an extremely realistic acting way.

There have been some good British gay films.

'Priscilla' was made in 1994, and I think it was kind of daring for its time.

'Milk' had to be a financial success, following the success of 'Brokeback Mountain.' It had to make money so studios would develop other LGBT projects.

My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.

When Bound was released, Boys don't Cry wasn't out yet. Therefore it was very taboo to play a lesbian. I loved the part, because girls never get to play the typical guy parts.