Brad Windhauser — a professor of instruction of English and gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Temple University — has just published “The Queer Coming-of-Age Film Genre,” an exhaustive look at American LGBTQ+ films about adolescents. He discusses the “classic cluster” of coming-of-age films in the 1990s, including “Edge of Seventeen” and “But I’m a Cheerleader,” as well as the second stage of films, such as “Pariah,” “Moonlight” and “Spa Night,” to show how the genre has evolved. Additional chapters analyze films with trans and nonbinary teens, such as “Boy Meets Girl,” as well as adolescent-adjacent films, including “We the Animals” and adult coming-of-age films, like “Beginners.”
What he shows is how this genre has collectively distilled issues of pride, shame and belonging as LGBTQ+ teen characters undergo rites of passage, from being marginalized, to finding a new queer peer group, getting a makeover, losing their virginity, and acknowledging their “new self,” usually in a mirror.
In a recent interview, Windhauser spoke with PGN about the appeal of the queer coming-of-age film genre.
Why did you choose to focus on queer coming-of-age films? What is it about this genre that appealed to you?
Back in 2017, I was offered to move over to the Gender Studies department at Temple University, and I was asked to develop a curriculum for LGBT studies. I wanted to do two film classes, so why not look at life stages of queer people? I focused on coming-of-age because that was more relevant to students. As I put this class together, there was no book on this genre as a genre. There’s that adage, if you can’t find the book you need, write it.
What did you notice that makes queer coming of age films different?
Queer people share a lot with our cis-het counterparts, but our queer identity creates obstacles that no one else faces — the influence of religion, or how engaging in sexual activity with members of our own gender solidifies our identity, which heterosexuals do not experience in the same way. In non-queer teen films, sex moves someone from adolescence to adulthood. In queer films, it moves us to a queer identity that changes how we move forward in life.
What observations do you have about helpful and harmful representation? Many of these films provide viewers with hope, validation and a sense of belonging, but some have ambiguous endings. Can you talk about that?
In terms of era, the “classic cluster” of the queer coming-of-age film, which coalescs in the ’90s, comes at a time when we weren’t represented in standard coming-of-age films like those by John Hughes. Also, coming out of the AIDS crisis, we needed “happy gay films” for lack of a better expression. These films — “Edge of Seventeen, “But I’m a Cheerleader,” “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” — gave us hope. That being queer — and in particular, being queer and adolescent — [meant] there was a world and a community out there for us. For some people, that wasn’t realistic, but it was a place to start. As the genre ages, in the late ’90s/early 2000s, we get more realistic. The films that came out in the genre’s second stage look at the intersection of race and economic status and queer identity. They are more open-ended and show that not everyone shares the same queer coming-of-age process.
I recall seeing “Edge of Seventeen,” and thought it was too real. It was painful.
When “Edge of Seventeen” came out, friends said I should watch it. I didn’t want to have to like it because it was a “gay” film, but looking back on these films, they don’t function in regular films. They provide representation and a lifeline that is so important for so many people. It goes beyond just enjoyment. For people who didn’t see ourselves anywhere else, it had the potential to be eye-opening and world changing.
Each film you selected is designed to provide one truth about this coming-of-age experience. Can you talk about your criteria?
In order to do the genre justice, and have the conversation I wanted to have, I needed to give myself boundaries. What it means to come out and be queer is so different from culture to culture. I had to restrict myself to American films. That made for a more-focused conversation. For the initial wave, I went with the more notable films — the ones people were able to see. To make the case for what we learn about the coming-of-age process in American culture, I had to take American films and go deeply into those.
You examine films that show different ways of being queer, beyond diversity with race, class and sexuality. You include chapters on trans and nonbinary coming-of-age films, adjacent adolescent films, and even adult coming-of-age films.
One of the fun things about studying this corpus of films in terms of genre, is what are the characteristics of it as a genre? When I studied these films, I thought about [the] traits that bound them together? If you treat them as genre films, they have a collective purpose of saying something about the coming-of-age process. They all deal with parents, a straight peer group, a new queer peer group, economic status, friends, sex and sexuality, the potential of a lover, etc. As I did that, I realized I’ve seen these traits in other films that don’t have teens in them. Can I apply genre theory on other films not about coming of age? What does that say about movies like “In and Out,” which has those exact same characteristics? The genre is able to take films and say what it means to be closeted, regardless of the age you are. That’s unique to queer people. When we are ready to come out, we undergo some of those emotional changes society expects from adolescence. That was a cool way to expand the book to show how our queer identities are extended or are dealt with in pre-adolescence.
Much of your analysis considers the shame or pride of queer teens. What observations do you have about depictions of self- and social acceptance in this genre?
Because of our identities, we have to deal with shame that is both internal and external. If you grow up queer and you are in a society that’s not accepting directly — living with homophobia directed at others or directed at you — you sort of feel wrong and develop shame about that. But indirectly, if you look at the world around you and you don’t see it in your family, the community, in music, films, TV, and feel you are not represented, you feel “I must be bad, or there is something wrong with me.” The shame that goes along with that is something these films also look to address. That is how they fulfill their sociological function — they make us feel better as queer people.
How do you see these films empowering queer youth, and/or adults? They create emotional identification, provide understanding and possibly even foment social change.
Best-case-scenario, films teach us who we are and who we can be. I teach “The Queer Coming of Age Film Genre” as a class at Temple University, and my students say, “This film reminded me I wasn’t alone. This film taught me how to date, or find my tribe or community.” If you are a member of a marginalized community — and you are not used to seeing something that speaks to you — [then] when you do see it, it takes on greater significance. These films make kids and adults feel heard and seen, and feeling validated brings you joy.
Full Disclosure: Gary M. Kramer assisted Brad Windhauser with some aspects in the production of “The Queer Coming-of-Age Film Genre,” and has been acknowledged for that in the volume.