Performing Queer Female Identity on Screen: A Critical Analysis of Five Recent Films

The female character has historically existed in film largely as a spectacle, as a performer, as the object of a gaze. We have grown used to seeing female characters in 'performance roles' in movies, either singing or dancing on stages in nightclubs, musical arenas, or theaters. The image of a woman on-stage, on-screen, performing her 'femaleness' for the fictional audience as well as the film viewing audience, has become quite commonplace. But queer women in film perform on yet another level. In addition to performing their gender for the world, they also perform their sexuality for either a general or an 'insider' audience, performing queerness in ways that can be read to establish a queer visibility, to establish a shared sense of queer community, or to show romantic lesbian interest.This work examines and critiques the prevalence of 'performance spaces' for lesbian identities in films, evaluating how queer femaleness is signified on the screen in contemporary cinema. It studies five films in particular: ""When Night is Falling"", ""Better than Chocolate"", ""Tipping the Velvet"", ""Slaves to the Underground"", and ""Prey for Rock and Roll"". In all of these films, the women perform their femaleness and their queerness both offstage and on, creating a new kind of female filmic spectacle. In developing this study, the author employed a number of methods to study both the story worlds of the films and the ways that queer women react to and feel about them, including close textual analysis of the films in question, evaluations of the conditions under which each film was produced and received, and dozens of audience surveys.