Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
By the time I finished 'Poison,' the New Queer Cinema was branded, and I was associated with this. In many ways, it formed me as a filmmaker, like as a feature filmmaker I never set out to be.
In high school, I came out to my friends as queer. My entire world opened up; this was a monumental step toward unveiling my truest self. I had my first girlfriend when I was sixteen years old.
Drag Race' is giving visibility to our community. It's on TV and you can see RuPaul, who is a black, queer, powerful figure who has run this empire for years, and I think that's an amazing thing.
Of course it is very limiting to be labeled a lesbian or queer writer. We live in a homophobic culture, and even people who aren't hateful per se assume they won't get anything from a queer book.
PWR BTTM isn't the only queer rock band. We've been lucky to receive a platform. If you go on Bandcamp and search for 'queer rock,' you can find 150,000 bands that you could love more than PWR BTTM.
California is a queer place in a way, it has turned its back on the world, and looks into the void Pacific. It is absolutely selfish, very empty, but not false, and at least, not full of false effort.
And 'Queer Eye' is fascinating. It has a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming quality. It's very bourgeois, of course, and much more about the liberation of the consumer than the liberation of the democratic citizen.
The gay community has had a sometimes tumultuous relationship with non-queer people coming to their shows because it was tourism, like using the queer spaces as a form of comic relief or entertainment.
People ask if I'm concerned about getting pigeonholed. No one asks, 'Ellen, you've done seven straight roles in a row. Shouldn't you shake it up, do something queer?' There's still that double standard.
I think that when you're queer, you grow up with these kinds of men who might have made you feel small because of who you are. They could be part of your family, or somebody on the street, or a teacher.
There is no separation between the black community and the LGBT community. As a black, queer woman myself, I often have to assert, right, that it's not one or the other but that I am all of these things.
I'm so unmaterialistic in every way. If you saw my apartment, it would explain a lot, I think. It's not so much a mess, but it just needs to have some feng shui or a real 'Queer Eye' makeover or whatever.
I was in the closet up until I moved to the U.S. But I was always one of those kids who couldn't really hide being gay. Some queer kids are just more straight-passing than others. I was not one of those kids.
Queer is invincible because people have tried everything - haven't they? What haven't they tried to do to queer people? And horrible things happened. But you never stop, because it's the truth of who you are.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a form of service journalism. To be successful, I think it has to be a combination of a good story, it has to be funny, and it also needs to be packed with useful information.
I've seen things change and people forget: the history of Berlin, the history of queer struggle, the history of AIDS, the history of New York changing from an artistic powerhouse to more of a financial one now.
Any increase in surveillance of marginalized communities for the sake of security theater have expanded the cycle of criminalization that queer people - especially queer people of color - are forced to navigate.
The successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.
You know, sexism in the punk scene - or just in rock and roll in general - is so easily demonstrated by the amount of women or queer people that you see on stage versus the amount of cis males that you see on stage.
I am an 'other.' As a queer, biracial man who occupies and embodies many different intersections of 'otherness,' I've spent my entire life seeking reflections of myself in the world around me to connect and relate to.
When 'Drag Race' first began, it seemed like a fun window into an underground culture, but over the nine years it has aired, the show has evolved to reflect America's changing relationship to queer rights and acceptance.
You know, in this industry, being an openly queer actor or entertainer, you can play the game your way, or you can play it the industry's way. And I decided to play it my way. I played it the industry's way far too long.
I prefer men who are queer. Not gay men, but queer men - guys with an open mind. Bisexual men, because they're able to understand the different elements of the body without judging that I don't conform to a certain ideal.
I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid.
I've known I was gay since I was young, I think. And I mean young - like, young - like 5 or 6. I think most gay people or queer people know there's something different about them very early, but I didn't know what to call it.
I think I first learned about Stonewall in Queer Theatre class at the University of Pittsburgh. It made me mad that queer people out at bars could be raided and arrested and harassed by the police just for being who they were.
Because I didn't have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn't hand us enough variety to choose from.
If you listen to PWR BTTM, or to Gloss, If you look at me on stage, it can make you feel less alone. It makes you feel like you're a queer person and you have this singular power, but it's not like we're a brand. We're just real.
On 'Queer Eye,' I really get to see the way someone lives. They know the Fab Five are coming, but they don't know when or how, so our producers make sure they don't clean up so that we can experience exactly how they normally live.
When I was working at Trio, I was pitched 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' and I knew, whoever gets this, this is a game changer. When I started at Bravo in 2005, it was a hit, and Season 1 of 'Project Runway' was in postproduction.
Being queer you're supposed to adore figure skating. It's a sport, not an art. I love the costumes and hate the music and of course I worship Johnny Weir because so does he. Also he's real. It's a full gay thing and it always has been.
'Moonlight' is a story that hasn't been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.
We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.
I think this is a trait that runs throughout the queer community, the obsession with the hyper-feminine female villains. And we see it in Disney movies and in movies like 'Death Becomes Her,' and in characters like Poison Ivy and Catwoman.
People in Scunthorpe don't care what I say. And I'm not camp, either. I'm a geezer. I'm not a raving queer, I've got a bit of character. I just ignore people who shout at me in the street. I just stick my head in the air; I'm not interested.
I was on MTV's 'Real World' at the time when 'Queer Eye' came out. I remember, the first time I won an award, I got the award, and they were like, 'It's a tie! With 'Queer Eye!'' I never thought that I would one day follow in their footsteps.
It's queer how ready people always are with advice in any real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if they had received them from the Almighty!
I take the time to show up for people in my field who are often not seen and heard in the same capacity as I am. Applauding other women and queer writers of color enables me to recognize and showcase the abundance of talent and work being created.
In a way, a stage can be the safest place to be visibly queer and non-gender conforming because you're literally surrounded by witnesses. Any type of violence that a person might try to carry out on you, that's just not a very likely place to do it.
These names: gay, queer, homosexual are limiting. I would love to finish with them. We're going to have to decide which terms to use and where we use them. For me to use the word 'queer' is a liberation; it was a word that frightened me, but no longer.
What I loved about playing Ms. Albright in 'Love, Simon' is that, so often, when we speak of allies in the queer community, we don't really get to see what it means be an active ally. I love that she can step into this world with these kids and be a truth teller.
Bob Fosse, even though he wasn't gay. He was certainly queer and had a huge effect on the 'Hedwig' film, as did Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, who had a weird butch queer feeling about him. His films almost flirted with camp but in an extremely realistic acting way.
It's not called 'Queer Eye For the Straight Guy' now for a reason. We want to be able to help more and more people, and why wouldn't we help women, and why wouldn't we help a trans man? I want to help as many different groups as physically possible with this show.
I'm just trying to blur this very clear line we've drawn and are drawing over and over and over again between communities. Saying those are queer films and those are films. I would love for that line to disappear. For that frontier to be abolished once and for all.
You know, being an 'other' in this world, you're walking around in a horror movie at all times, you're always on edge and wondering when the monster is going to jump out and get you. I feel like that's the experience of African-Americans and queer people in America.
From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going.
Yes, it's called 'Queer Eye' and there are five gay men on it, but we're also tackling real issues. The conversations we have on our show would be just as valid if they swapped us out with straight guys. What we do is important, not just because we're a niche gay show.
Growing up as a queer child in Mississippi, I got my Nintendo in 1985, and I've been lost in this world ever since. When I was scared because my church said people like me were going to burn in hell, 'Final Fantasy,' 'Dragon Warrior' and 'Super Mario' offered a lifeboat.
I think that because I struggled and did get very bullied, that definitely made me learn how to be funny and let things roll off and be able to laugh, and I think that has definitely helped me when it comes to being in the public eye with 'Gay of Thrones' and 'Queer Eye.'
The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.