Performative Identifications

Sebastian Jagielski

kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)

Abstract

Gays through the years referred to texts, subjects and symbols belonging to the dominant culture, giving them alternative and subcultural meanings. These texts provided them, especially in the pre-emancipation era, with the language which enabled them to express their experiences. Jagiel­ski in his article focuses on the relations between the homosexual viewer and female stars (divas): he analyses the reasons for which gay viewers are so eager to follow film images, he considers the genealogy of gays’ fascination with divas, and doubts raised by this affiliation. He illustrates his argument with the image of Violetta Villas, a woman-monster, who by connoisseurs of good taste was rejected as rubbish. Her body was a carnival masquerade, an excess which it was impossible to accept. But this body appeared monstrous only when it clashed with the context of the socialist period in Poland. The star combined in her image that which is abjectal with camp, which through parodistic hyperbolization undermines the dominant models of gender and sexuality. Villas and “fagots” share in common the place in which they find themselves - they are beyond any boundaries.


Keywords:

homosexuality, queer, Violetta Villas, gender, diva

Babuscio, Jack. 1984. Camp and the Gay Sensibility. W: R. Dyer (red.). Gays and Film. New York: Zoetrope.
  Google Scholar

Basiuk, Tomasz. 2002. Madres Embarazadas? W odmiennym stanie: Pedro Almodóvar, Elia Kazan i Tennessee Williams. W: T. Basiuk, D. Ferens, T. Sikora (red.). Odmiany odmieńca: mniejszościowe orientacje seksualne w perspektywie gender / A Queer Mixture: Gender Perspectives on Minority Sexual Identities. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Śląsk.
  Google Scholar

Butler, Judith. 2008. Uwikłani w płeć. Feminizm i polityka tożsamości. Tłum. K. Krasuska. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej.
  Google Scholar

Cleto, Fabio. 2009. Międzynarodowa intryga. Szpiedzy pop i szykowne sekrety lat 60. Tłum. M. Perchuć. „Kwartalnik Filmowy” 66.
  Google Scholar

Creed, Barbara. 2012. Potworna kobiecość. Tłum. A. Kowalcze-Pawlik. W: A. Gajewska (red.). Teorie wywrotowe. Antologia przekładów. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
  Google Scholar

Doty, Alexander. 1997. Making Things Perfectly Queer. Interpreting Mass Culture. Minneapolis-London: University of Minnesota Press.
  Google Scholar

Doty, Alexander. 2007. Introduction: There’s something about Mary. „Camera Obscura” 22 (2).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-2007-001   Google Scholar

Dyer, Richard. 1984. Introduction. W: R. Dyer (red.). Gays and Film. New York: Zoetrope.
  Google Scholar

Dyer, Richard. 2002. Entertainment and Utopia. W: R. Dyer. Only Entertainment. London-New York: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Dyer, Richard. 2004. Judy Garland and Gay Men. W: R. Dyer. Heavenly Bodies. Film Stars and Society, London-New York: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Farmer, Brett. 2000. Spectacular Passions. Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships, Durham-London: Duke University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822380252   Google Scholar

Farmer, Brett. 2005. The fabulous sublimity of gay diva worship. “Camera Obscura” 20 (2).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-20-2_59-165   Google Scholar

Farmer, Brett. 2007. Julie Andrews make me gay. “Camera Obscura” 22 (2).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-2007-007   Google Scholar

Hansen, Miriam. 1991. Babel and Babylon. Spectatorship in American Silent Film. Cambridge-Massachusetts-London: Harvard University Press.
  Google Scholar

Kletowski, Piotr, Piotr Marecki. 2008. Żuławski. Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej.
  Google Scholar

Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve. 2003. Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You. W: E. Kosofsky Sedgwick. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham-London: Duke University Press.
  Google Scholar

Kowalcze-Pawlik, Anna. 2012. Obietnica potworności. W: A. Gajewska (red.). Teorie wywrotowe. Antologia przekładów. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
  Google Scholar

Kurc, Mariusz. 2007. Diwy. „Replika” 1-2.
  Google Scholar

Kurz, Iwona. 2005. Twarze w tłumie, Wizerunki bohaterów wyobraźni zbiorowej w kulturze polskiej lat 1955-1969, Warszawa: Świat Literacki.
  Google Scholar

Maddison, Stephen. 2000. Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters. Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonds in Gay Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333985199   Google Scholar

Marszałek, Rafał. 1994. Film fabularny. W: R. Marszałek (red.). Historia filmu polskiego, t. VI, 1968-1972. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe.
  Google Scholar

Meyer, Moe. 2012. Dyskurs kampu. Rewindykacja. Tłum. A. Bartosz. „Teksty Drugie” 5.
  Google Scholar

Mętrak, Krzysztof. 1971. Dzięcioł puka, licznik stuka. „Film” 24.
  Google Scholar

Michalewicz, Iza, Jerzy Danilewicz. 2011. Villas: Nic przecież nie mam do ukrycia... Warszawa: Świat Książki.
  Google Scholar

Moon, Michael, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. 1994. Divinity: A Dossier, A Performance Piece, A Little-Understood Emotion. W: E. Kosofsky Sedgwick. Tendencies, London: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203202210   Google Scholar

O’Neill, Edward R. 2007. The m-m-mama of us all: Divas and the cultural logic of late ca(m)pitalism. “Camera Obscura” 22 (2).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-2007-002   Google Scholar

Perkovich, Mike. 2012. Michaśki, kamp, pedały i literatura amerykańska. Tłum. J. Połtyn. „Teksty Drugie” 5.
  Google Scholar

Robertson, Pamela. 2012. Jak jest zrobiony feministyczny kamp? Tłum. P. Sobolczyk. „Teksty Drugie” 5.
  Google Scholar

Sontag, Susan. 1979. Notatki o kampie. Tłum. W. Wertenstein. „Literatura na Świecie” 9.
  Google Scholar

Strauss, Frédéric. 2003. Almodóvar. Rozmowy. Tłum. O. Hedemann. Izabelin: Świat Literacki.
  Google Scholar

Żurawiecki, Bartosz. 2005. Trzech panów w łóżku, nie licząc kota, Warszawa: Sic!
  Google Scholar


Published
2013-12-31

Cited by

Jagielski, S. (2013) “Performative Identifications”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (83-84), pp. 59–79. doi: 10.36744/kf.2684.

Authors

Sebastian Jagielski 
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland

Asystent w Instytucie Sztuk Audiowizualnych Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Opublikował Maskarady męskości. Pragnienie homospołeczne w polskim kinie fabularnym (2013), współredagował tom Ciało i seksualność w kinie polskim (2009).



Statistics

Abstract views: 30
PDF downloads: 17


License

Copyright (c) 2013 Sebastian Jagielski

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.