Rafal Morusiewicz | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (original) (raw)
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Papers by Rafal Morusiewicz
Central Europe, 2021
ABSTRACT The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating f... more ABSTRACT The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. While increasingly featuring LGBTQ+ characters, especially in the current decade, Polish cinema films rarely break away from heteronormative and, less frequently, homonormative stereotypization, which takes on a limited range of offensive or empathetic manifestations. The former, represented by low-brow comedies, such as Weekend (dir. Cezary Pazura, 2010) and Sex Change (dir. Konrad Aksinowicz, 2009), would continue the infamous tendency of cis-male filmmakers to poke fun at anal sex and dildos, which they apparently identify as representative of non-heteronormative sexual practices and behaviours. The latter, usually featuring one or two gay or lesbian characters in the roles of sidekicks to the protagonists, would constitute sympathetic responses to socio-political situations of LGBTQ individuals in Poland, marked by homophobia, coming-out hardship, and/or heavily non-egalitarian legislation in Poland. Yet, in the early 2010s, a few cinema films brought about cracks in the dominating trend, proposing instead multi-layered though heavily ambiguous studies of non-heteronormative characters living in contemporary Poland. Suicide Room (dir. Jan Komasa, 2011) presents a story of adolescent homophobia in a private secondary-school setting, simultaneously questioning the sexual identification and cis-ness of the protagonist. Floating Skyscrapers (dir. Tomasz Wasilewski, 2013) focuses on a cis-male swimmer who falls in love with an openly gay male while being in a romantic relationship with a woman. Secret (dir. Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, 2012) combines a reflection on non-heteronormative forms of kinship and of sexual identification with the non-memory of Shoah – it is one of several films released around that time, which are reactionary towards the discussion concerning the Polish participation in the pogroms on the Jewish Poles in the 1930s-1940s.
The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. Whil... more The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. While increasingly featuring LGBTQ+ characters, especially in the current decade, Polish cinema films rarely break away from heteronormative and, less frequently, homonormative stereotypization, which takes on a limited range of offensive or empathetic manifestations. The former, represented by low-brow comedies, such as Weekend (dir. Cezary Pazura, 2010) and Sex Change (dir. Konrad Aksinowicz, 2009), would continue the infamous tendency of cis-male filmmakers to poke fun at anal sex and dildos, which they apparently identify as representative of nonheteronormative sexual practices and behaviours. The latter, usually featuring one or two gay or lesbian characters in the roles of sidekicks to the protagonists, would constitute sympathetic responses to socio-political situations of LGBTQ individuals in Poland, marked by homophobia, coming-out hardship, and/or heavily non-egalitarian legislation in Poland. Yet, in the early 2010s, a few cinema films brought about cracks in the dominating trend, proposing instead multi-layered though heavily ambiguous studies of non-heteronormative characters living in contemporary Poland. Suicide Room (dir. Jan Komasa, 2011) presents a story of adolescent homophobia in a private secondary-school setting, simultaneously questioning the sexual identification and cis-ness of the protagonist. Floating Skyscrapers (dir. Tomasz Wasilewski, 2013) focuses on a cis-male swimmer who falls in love with an openly gay male while being in a romantic relationship with a woman. Secret (dir. Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, 2012) combines a reflection on non-heteronormative forms of kinship and of sexual identification with the non-memory of Shoah-it is one of several films released around that time, which are reactionary towards the discussion concerning the Polish participation in the pogroms on the Jewish Poles in the 1930s-1940s.
What do we do now [that] the orgy is over?" (Baudrillard, Transparency of Evil 3) I will start th... more What do we do now [that] the orgy is over?" (Baudrillard, Transparency of Evil 3) I will start this text with sketching two settings, references, or, to quote Baudrillard, "floating theories" (Forget Foucault 16).
Queer identities, or rather (non)identities, are a process, constant fashioning, reworking, remix... more Queer identities, or rather (non)identities, are a process, constant fashioning, reworking, remixing. For the American independent cinema interested in LGBTQ issues, it took almost two decades to mull this over. Orginating in the early 1990s, New-York-based NQC was an amalgam of academic queer theories influences and artistic film practices. This short-lived wave restored voice in non-heteronormative societies, opressed in the past and stigmatized in the then contemporary times, yet raising controversies concerning the elitist bias favouring white middleclass gay men. Post-NQC LGBTQ cinema, commonly and mistakently called "queer cinema", showed the post-emancipatory regress, influenced by the privatization process within the independent film industry, whose financing from the mid-1990s depended on private investors hampering creative freedom. Gender and sexuality representation in these films are superficially simple constructs, frequently written into the assimilation politics, aiming to convince the audience that non-heteronormative people are hardly different from the heteronormative part of the society.
Drafts by Rafal Morusiewicz
Central Europe, 2021
ABSTRACT The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating f... more ABSTRACT The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. While increasingly featuring LGBTQ+ characters, especially in the current decade, Polish cinema films rarely break away from heteronormative and, less frequently, homonormative stereotypization, which takes on a limited range of offensive or empathetic manifestations. The former, represented by low-brow comedies, such as Weekend (dir. Cezary Pazura, 2010) and Sex Change (dir. Konrad Aksinowicz, 2009), would continue the infamous tendency of cis-male filmmakers to poke fun at anal sex and dildos, which they apparently identify as representative of non-heteronormative sexual practices and behaviours. The latter, usually featuring one or two gay or lesbian characters in the roles of sidekicks to the protagonists, would constitute sympathetic responses to socio-political situations of LGBTQ individuals in Poland, marked by homophobia, coming-out hardship, and/or heavily non-egalitarian legislation in Poland. Yet, in the early 2010s, a few cinema films brought about cracks in the dominating trend, proposing instead multi-layered though heavily ambiguous studies of non-heteronormative characters living in contemporary Poland. Suicide Room (dir. Jan Komasa, 2011) presents a story of adolescent homophobia in a private secondary-school setting, simultaneously questioning the sexual identification and cis-ness of the protagonist. Floating Skyscrapers (dir. Tomasz Wasilewski, 2013) focuses on a cis-male swimmer who falls in love with an openly gay male while being in a romantic relationship with a woman. Secret (dir. Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, 2012) combines a reflection on non-heteronormative forms of kinship and of sexual identification with the non-memory of Shoah – it is one of several films released around that time, which are reactionary towards the discussion concerning the Polish participation in the pogroms on the Jewish Poles in the 1930s-1940s.
The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. Whil... more The search for queer/queerable moments in the post-1989 Polish cinema is a frustrating feat. While increasingly featuring LGBTQ+ characters, especially in the current decade, Polish cinema films rarely break away from heteronormative and, less frequently, homonormative stereotypization, which takes on a limited range of offensive or empathetic manifestations. The former, represented by low-brow comedies, such as Weekend (dir. Cezary Pazura, 2010) and Sex Change (dir. Konrad Aksinowicz, 2009), would continue the infamous tendency of cis-male filmmakers to poke fun at anal sex and dildos, which they apparently identify as representative of nonheteronormative sexual practices and behaviours. The latter, usually featuring one or two gay or lesbian characters in the roles of sidekicks to the protagonists, would constitute sympathetic responses to socio-political situations of LGBTQ individuals in Poland, marked by homophobia, coming-out hardship, and/or heavily non-egalitarian legislation in Poland. Yet, in the early 2010s, a few cinema films brought about cracks in the dominating trend, proposing instead multi-layered though heavily ambiguous studies of non-heteronormative characters living in contemporary Poland. Suicide Room (dir. Jan Komasa, 2011) presents a story of adolescent homophobia in a private secondary-school setting, simultaneously questioning the sexual identification and cis-ness of the protagonist. Floating Skyscrapers (dir. Tomasz Wasilewski, 2013) focuses on a cis-male swimmer who falls in love with an openly gay male while being in a romantic relationship with a woman. Secret (dir. Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, 2012) combines a reflection on non-heteronormative forms of kinship and of sexual identification with the non-memory of Shoah-it is one of several films released around that time, which are reactionary towards the discussion concerning the Polish participation in the pogroms on the Jewish Poles in the 1930s-1940s.
What do we do now [that] the orgy is over?" (Baudrillard, Transparency of Evil 3) I will start th... more What do we do now [that] the orgy is over?" (Baudrillard, Transparency of Evil 3) I will start this text with sketching two settings, references, or, to quote Baudrillard, "floating theories" (Forget Foucault 16).
Queer identities, or rather (non)identities, are a process, constant fashioning, reworking, remix... more Queer identities, or rather (non)identities, are a process, constant fashioning, reworking, remixing. For the American independent cinema interested in LGBTQ issues, it took almost two decades to mull this over. Orginating in the early 1990s, New-York-based NQC was an amalgam of academic queer theories influences and artistic film practices. This short-lived wave restored voice in non-heteronormative societies, opressed in the past and stigmatized in the then contemporary times, yet raising controversies concerning the elitist bias favouring white middleclass gay men. Post-NQC LGBTQ cinema, commonly and mistakently called "queer cinema", showed the post-emancipatory regress, influenced by the privatization process within the independent film industry, whose financing from the mid-1990s depended on private investors hampering creative freedom. Gender and sexuality representation in these films are superficially simple constructs, frequently written into the assimilation politics, aiming to convince the audience that non-heteronormative people are hardly different from the heteronormative part of the society.