Concerned Citizen: Homonationalist Narratives in Queer Cinema

Abstract

Starting from the idea of queer as a rupture and questioning of gender and sexual orientation norms, it is possible to detect one of the existing tensions between queer cinema and mainstream cinema. The discrepancy arises in the assimilation of members of the LGBTIQA+ community by mainstream cinema by incorporating characters and plots that are determined and re-created according to heteronormative and Western logics and narratives. The film directed by Idan Haguel, Concerned Citizen, inhabits this tension by presenting a gay Israeli couple living in Tel Aviv in a multicultural neighborhood in the process of gentrification where they plan to become parents. Considering this tension, an analysis of the production context and its significant festival reception and trajectory will be carried out. This examination will lead us to a better understanding of the socio-political context in which the film is situated, as well as the role played by film institutions within it. On the other hand, we will use a hybrid methodology between hermeneutic analysis and visual semiotics by analyzing from cultural and gender studies the pattern of repetition within narrative structures and the development of the main character. Through such analysis, the aim is to identify the homonormative habitus in politics and its possible openings within the film. In turn, the evolution of the main character, Ben, will shed light on the relationship of the victim-oppressor binarism within a context of homonationalization.