Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss (Tommy O’Haver, 1998)

INTRODUCTION:

Queer Cinema has been in existence for decades but without a name. It's identified with avant-garde cinema. In 1991, Queer Cinema was introduced at Toronto Film Festival as a concept that re-examined and reviewed the image of homosexuality. It's become more visibility increased in 1990's. In fact, this film is related to the queer cinema as because it's about the romantic gay film. 

THEORY DISCUSSION:

Queer theory has re-evaluated subjectivity, male gaze and so on; by incorporating the question of pleasure on screen and the celebration of excess, resulting in a subversion of previously considered mainstream genres. The Queer Theory takes pride in difference. It's also re-appropriating the romantic films where the normal romantic films would just about the love story between a girl and a guy but the queer theory is different. 

SYNOPSIS:

Billy Collier (Sean P.Hayes) is a photographer working on a series of pictures featuring recreations of movie kisses, with drag queens playing the female roles. For this male model, he hired Gabriel (Brad Rowe), a young waiter on whom he has developed a serious crush. While Billy is openly gay, Gabriel said that he's straight and even claims to have a girlfriend. However, as they spend much more time together and grow closer, Billy becomes increasingly unsure that this is true. 

ANALYSIS:

As the above pictures shown, it's few of examples in this film which show how the queer theory re-evaluated subjectivities and takes pride in difference. This film was actually a re-appropriating romance films because usually a normal romance film create a love story between a girl and a guy (heterosexual) whereas for this homosexual film, it included the romance between the heterosexual and homosexual but obviously we can see that the homosexual romance was the dominant and the heterosexual romance was the minority in this film. 

In addition, this film also used the feminist theory. The above picture shown is the example of feminist theory in this film where this pinky lady was having a performance and she's singing all the way. She has a woman voice but her face don't really look like a woman at all. Usually, the man will give label such as slim body, long hair and so on towards the woman but actually not all the woman look like the label given by the man. It could be different sometimes. And this scene was the suitable example which shown the feminist theory. 

Lastly, at the last scene is where Billy having an photography exhibition. As at the last shot, the dark side gave a sense of heterosexual people do not share homosexual and the dark side were actually bigger than the bright side as where Billy and another guy stand. Hence, it show the dark side (heterosexual) is the dominant whereas the bright side (homosexual) is the minority. 

CONCLUSION:

As a conclusion, even this film is a re-appropriating romance film, but at the end, it still created a setting where giving the sense of the heterosexual are still the dominant whereas the homosexual still remain as the minority and still can't accepted by others as the reflection of reality society.