The Watermelon Woman ve Brother to Brother Filmlerinde Siyah Queer Deneyimi ve Yenilenme Olgusu

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, a strong preoccupation with history has been one of the defining features of queer cinema. Many filmmakers, including Derek Jarman and Tom Kalin, have revisited and rewritten official histories, and many others incessantly continue to do so with the aim of constructing a new future via the powerful medium of cinema. Against obliteration by two oppressive historicisms at once, i.e., white and straight, black queer filmmakers Marlon Riggs and Isaac Julien have embraced the same method in postmodern terms in Tongues Untied (1989) and Looking for Langston (1989) in the earlier phase of the so-called Queer New Wave. Following in their footsteps, Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans have carried the tradition to a new level with The Watermelon Woman (1996) and Brother to Brother (2004) in such a way that is still unconventional in form, yet more radical in content. In the following textual analyses, it is argued that both filmmakers not only manipulate history but also posit filmmaking as a means of hope and regeneration for black lesbians and gays of the United States, deploying blackness and queerness provocatively to problematize sanctioned identities of race, gender, and sexuality.