Way Out: Re-Iterative Coming Out in Queer European Cinema

Way Out: Re-Iterative Coming Out in Queer European Cinema is a rejection of coming out as a linear narrative. The dissertation offers a pluralistic alternative to the formulas of confession, disclosure, and identity adoption that often pervade the current representations of coming out in the West. Paris Cameron-Gardos’ dissertation studies different iterations of coming out in three queer European films: Summer Storm (2004), Brotherhood (2009), and North Sea Texas (2011). In Summer Storm, coming out is linked to a world of competitive sports where the teenage athletes reveal the secret that everyone already knows. In Brotherhood, coming out is transformed when identities are instantaneously accepted and rejected within a homophobic Neo-Nazi subculture. And finally, in North Sea Texas, we encounter a re-imagined coming out script where the two teenage characters ambiguously decline any opportunity to define their identities. Each film shows coming out as re-iterative: an action that is continually repeated and endlessly adapted. Paris’ analysis acknowledges his own lived experience of coming out: an experience that always contains elements of failure, success, and is never finished. He explores his own relationship to coming out by employing personal anecdotes that help us turn away from the presumption of coming out’s universality. In doing so, he weaves together an analysis of the film narratives and queer theory. He challenges the reader to see the act of coming out as ever present and always in a state of flux