The Dissolving "I": Abjection and Becoming in Queer Cinema

This thesis explores abject depictions of gay, racialized and gender nonconforming people in independent and experimental queer films. I analyze O Fantasma (Portugal, João Pedro Rodrigues, 2000) and The Living End (US, Gregg Araki, 1992) in relation to theories of queer negativity, utopia, affect and embodied spectatorship; Un chant d’amour (France, Jean Genet, 1950) and The Attendant (UK, Isaac Julien, 1993) through theories of race, bottoming, shame and debasement; and Liquid Sky (USA, Slava Tsukerman, 1982) and Dandy Dust (UK, A. Hans Scheirl, 1998) in conjunction with posthumanist and transgender theories of becoming. I argue that these films create opportunities for ambiguity, in-between states, and multiplicities, eliciting intellectual and affective responses that exceed anti-normative and nihilistic approaches in queer theory.