21 thoughts on “Big List of Queer Frock Flicks for Pride Month!

  1. Thanks for this list!

    I don’t remember any lgbt content in Babylon Berlin except a visit to a gay club by the two presumably straight leads. Which is disappointing because Weimar Berlin was basically the birthplace of various modern queer identities. granted I only got halfway through the second season.

    1. ETA: there’s also the female character that performs in make drag, she didn’t seem to be queer off stage or part of the Community of cross dressing afab people or butch lesbians that existed at that time and her only relationship is with a man.

  2. Disreguard response re Tipping the Velvet as I revisited the list and saw it. Mea culpe.

    And Victoria was not included. Lord Alfred and Drummond beat hunk footman and trapped duchess any day.😇😀

  3. Holy Moley! You totally forgot one of the biggies. Madmen! From Sal to Bob, to Peggy’s lesbian flirtations, homosexuality and queer life was handled very matter of fact.

  4. Do we have to call them queer? Basically all of these films depict people who lived at a time when that was used as a slur against them. Wouldn’t it be better to just say “LGBT frock flicks”?

    1. Not particularly, as queer has been a reclaimed term by the community for decades and is also largely the preferred term in academic circles (“queer theory,” “queer studies,” “queer aesthetic,” “queer gothic,” “queer camp,” etc. etc.) both for its inclusiveness of all queer identities and because retroactively applying terms like “gay” or “homosexual” or “trans” onto historical periods and persons when those terms didn’t exist can be rather sticky. Queer (read: non-heteronormative/non-cisgender/non-gender binarist), conversely, functions as an abstracted umbrella.

      Queer is also a preferred term for many members of the community who don’t otherwise feel their identities neatly labelled/categorized (queer is my preferred term/identity tag) or who want to, again, reclaim the radical history and activism the word queer connotes (“We’re here, we’re queer”/”Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you”).

      Also, frankly, “gay” has been/still is used as a slur, so that anti-“queer” argument doesn’t hold water for me. “Don’t use queer” is also a discourse that’s currently being perpetuated by folks like the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists/TERFs (ie transphobic members of the queer community), acephobes, biphobes, and other queer exclusionists, so it sets my hackles up (obviously not accusing you of any of those attitudes, just giving some context as to why, as a queer person, I actually found a list of “queer” frock flicks pretty refreshing).

      1. AMEN! Seconding this beautifully written response (count me in for someone else who identifies as queer– and besides, “gay” was the slur that I heard growing up!) and praise for this list!

      2. Thank you! I was going to say that we’ve reclaimed “queer” & for that matter, in many of the historical periods depicted in these films, the words “lesbian” & “gay” just didn’t exist to describe same-sex desire.

        For example, Anne Lister didn’t describe herself as lesbian but she wrote extensively of her sexual affairs with other women. The word ‘lesbian’ didn’t mean female homosexual until 1870 & Lister died in 1840!

        Also, I use ‘queer’ & ‘LGBTQ’ interchangeably here on the blog to be inclusive bec. there are ppl with more identities than a specific word or letter can define.

      1. While it is coded (we’ve come a fair piece since 1991) in that there’s no F/F kissing or sex, it’s definitely on my list. Mary Stuart Masterson’s character cross-dresses male and clearly identifies as not-cis-female, there is a suggestive-to-almost-there scene at a swimming hole, and the F/F couple end up living together and raising a child together.

        I’ve also read the book, which is NOT coded. It is blatant that This Is a Non-Hetero-Normative Romantic Relationship and That Is Fine.

  5. And of course, Visconti’s « the damned » with its queer character and the infamous SA gay orgy, and « Ludwig » about the gay bavarian king

  6. I NEED to know what show/film belongs with the pic under the 16-18 century etc headline. I MUST know who that girl is. P.S. this site is so addictive!

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