Abstract:

An analysis of films depicting the relationship between the Occupation and terror in Israeli and in Palestinian queer cinema produced during – and after – the second Intifada (2000-2008) reveals a complex picture. Both corpora deal with the post-traumatic queering of race and nationality. However, while the Israeli films (The Bubble by Eytan Fox and Gevald by Netalie Braun) focus on the Western urban gay and lesbian scene infiltrated by terror, the Palestinian film (Diary of a Male Whore by Tawfik Abu Wael) focuses on the post-traumatic memory of expulsion and loss of home. These constructs – together with socio-religious differences between the two cultures and their film industries – have ramifications on how queer sexualities are represented. A close textual analysis of these three examples offers a rethinking of cultural concepts (e.g., gay-ization, the permeable body, masturbation, gay shame-pride-humiliation, gaze and scopic economics, kinging), as well as of memory; trauma; and post-trauma, as a way to reflect on queering the terror.