A Camera Obscura Book Curating Deviance

A vibrant examination of a cult film that redefined queer identity, tracing its rapid creation and unexpected legacy. The analysis reveals how the film’s striking imagery and shifting reception—through adaptations, Olympic floats, and TV influences—continue to spark conversations about inclusion and progress. In Curating Deviance, Marc Francis scavenges film history for signs of vibrant, wayward life in the film programming of US art house and repertory cinemas between 1968 and 1989. Francis examines how creative and savvy programmers screened films by the likes of John Waters, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Russ Meyer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and a bevy of others in major cities across the United States, forming intertextual constellations in their repertory calendars. These programs allied a dizzying range of sexual and gendered outlaws, including stigmatized practices often overlooked by LGBT-focused queer theory. Curating Deviance reveals how repertory and art cinemas built a coalition of outcasts stigmatized for their taboo desires or identities, rekindling queer utopian imaginaries.

Pagina's: 304, Paperback, Duke University Press