ABSTRACT

Contemporary LGBTQ film festivals are often held to a standard of nostalgic radicalism based in U.S. independent film cultures of the early nineties, and found diluted and assimilationist as a result. In an effort to track the complex circulation of affect still present within LGBTQ film festivals, this article troubles this critique of commodification and investigates the networking of LGBTQ film festival affect amongst contexts of significant socio-historical importance like group belonging, pride, and activism. I offer the concept affective media network to consider the organization of public feeling emergent from the negotiated emotional orientation attendees experience through films, corporate installations, and various festival events, each with differing relationships to LGBTQ history. Reading festivals as affective media networks allows us to see them as the unique public spheres they are – mediated spaces of community, ritual, and history that reflect the desires of a specific place and time. Using participant observation methodologies, I focus on Outfest, the premiere LGBTQ film festival in Los Angeles. Paying particular attention to the aggregate of Outfest’s rainbow iconography, and its curation of programmed space, I frame the LGBTQ film festival as an ambivalent space mediating nostalgia for the past against the hope of the future.

摘要

当代 LGBTQ 电影节通常以基于 90 年代初美国独立电影文化的怀旧激进主义标准举行，结果被稀释和同化。为了追踪仍然存在于 LGBTQ 电影节中的复杂情感循环，本文对这种对商品化的批评提出了质疑，并调查了 LGBTQ 电影节影响在群体归属、自豪感和行动主义等具有重要社会历史重要性的背景下的网络。我提供概念情感媒体网络考虑通过电影、企业装置和各种节日活动，从协商的情感导向参与者体验中产生的公众感觉的组织，每一个都与 LGBTQ 历史有不同的关系。将节日视为情感媒体网络，让我们能够将它们视为独特的公共领域——社区、仪式和历史的中介空间，反映特定地点和时间的愿望。使用参与者观察方法，我专注于洛杉矶首映的 LGBTQ 电影节 Outfest。我特别关注 Outfest 的彩虹图像及其对程序化空间的策展，我将 LGBTQ 电影节定义为一个矛盾的空间，在对过去的怀旧与对未来的希望之间进行调解。