Queer Portrayal In Contemporary Irish Cinema

Introduction to Queer Ireland

Homosexuality has occupied a troubled space in Ireland. In a country that has repressed sexual desire and activity in the name of a greater cause, Ireland has a reputation facilitating the . Even now, popular images of Ireland often contain rolling green hills and indomitable castles, all which exist away from contemporary space and troubles. Ireland's popular image seems fuelled by this idealized pastoral landscape, which houses simple rules and roles for its citizens. A man's job is to work and act as a bulwark for the family, while the mother stays home and tends to the home and family. Mother Ireland acknowledges this idealized Hibernia, but also challenges the images that have been associated with this fantastical life and, like Ireland, ignores those not involved in this image.

Queer bodies, then, should have no place in this community. Unable to conform to Ireland's strict rules of gender and familial roles, queer individuals have been forced into a privatized space. Rhetoric seeking to regulate private lives often cites the collapse of the traditional family values, due to both the homosexual challenge the typical image of an Irish family and inability to naturally procreate to further the Irish population. When arguments against queer activity arise, they often speak of the promiscuous homosexual man luring his straight counterpart into devious sexual activity. This acknowledgement of the physical body and the lust that drives it serves counter to the ideals Ireland holds dear, both nationally and religiously. And within this argument is an acknowledgement that sexual identity is not as rigid as the cell that entraps it, and that the threat comes from identities' natural fluidity. And as Kathryn Conrad states in her book "those who make this instability visible are thus liable to be described as unusual and out of place" (32). And this disruption of the Irish family extends to Irish identities as well.

To be fair, Ireland has made progress . As many an author has said, Kieran Rose's pamphlet on the progress of gay rights does illustrate a more open Ireland, though it smooths out the finer details. Through the work of a number of organizations, queer Irish folk have been given subjectivity, contrasting the purges that plagued homosexuals throughout history. At the time of this writing, a popular vote is to be held on May 22nd, 2015 to decide whether to legalize gay marriage in Ireland. Hibernian attitudes are changing, and with it, popular portrayal of queer persons.

In "Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema," Martin McLoone writes of Reefer and the Model and the dance between the gay Badger and an Irish soldier. The two men dance in an American bar in front of other patrons , eventually sharing a kiss. The locals in the bar tolerate the kiss (136). But, like the film's other marginalized characters, "gayness works allegorically only because its perversity is implied.It is used as a metaphor for the outcast... the price paid for operating on so many metaphorical levels is that dominant representations are confirmed" (McLoone 137). McLoone continues to list other films which fall into the same pitfalls, in which norms are challenged, but the identities of the characters used are meant to represent marginalized status.

This text was written before the turn of the century, in which new films have been released that explore sexual identities and how they fit into Ireland, rather than being used to represent people on the periphery. I will thus explore Queer portrayal in contemporary Irish film. As I explained on the home page, this project initially began by exploring homosexual portrayal with the narrow view of how gay men were portrayed in Irish film, failing to acknowledge the fluid identity. As research was pursued, this project began to expand to use the catch-all "queer" to describe these new identities. Therefore, this website will not focus solely on homosexual portrayal, rather how queer characters navigate a new Irish landscape. I want to analyze what these movies are exploring with their characters and how these characters traverse spaces.

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