Queer Visualities: The Fictionalization of Identities in Photography and Cinema

Abstract This article discusses the production of non-normative gender identities in the field of visual culture. The methodology adopted is that of visual culture studies. Thus, the authors begin with pioneering self-portraits from the 1920s, placing photographic images by the artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Duchamp in dialogue with the queer cinematographic pieces Pink Flamingos; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; and The Danish Girl. These works of art resort to the fictionalization and ambivalence of identities, a strategy that produces questions and subversions in relation to social norms. Finally, the authors argue that queer photography and cinema are characterized as fields of resistance in visual culture, serving as works of art that destabilize knowledge and social practices.