sexuality

PARIAH: Identity & Awareness As A Family Matter
PARIAH: Identity & Awareness As A Family Matter

Pariah is essential in the African American LGBTQ artistic and cinematic canon, as well as an achievement in cinematic storytelling.

BETWEEN THE SHADES: Exploring The "Shades" Between Gay & Straight
BETWEEN THE SHADES: Exploring The “Shades” Between Gay & Straight

A deeply touching film about sexuality, Between The Shades opens the door to seeing LGBTQ+ people as exactly what they are. Human.

WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME: The Crisis Of Pop Star Identity
WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME: The Crisis Of Pop Star Identity

Whitney: Can I Be Me focuses more on the context and hidden traumas of Whitney’s life than the music itself, but that’s no bad thing.

SOMETIMES, FOREVER: A Dreamy Portrait Of Teenage Love
SOMETIMES, FOREVER: A Dreamy Portrait Of Teenage Love

Sometimes, Forever is a stylish, incisive look at teenage sexuality, and though it’s set in the ’90s, it does much to speak to our own time.

AQUARIUS: Vulnerable & Righteously Angry
AQUARIUS: Vulnerable & Righteously Angry

Aquarius is a powerful character study about a woman fighting back against vulnerabilities, anchored by a fine performance from Sônia Braga.

How The DIVERGENT Series Helped Me Accept My Identity
How The DIVERGENT Series Helped Me Understand My Identity

In this very personal feature, Zachary Kennedy explains how the Divergent series helped him understand his sexual identity: instead of belonging to one “faction”, he belongs to more.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN: Annette Bening Shines In Period Character Study
20TH CENTURY WOMEN: Annette Bening Shines In Period Character Study

20th Century Women is a remarkable character study of women in the 1970s, but it falls just shy of greatness due to its lack of plot.

"Have You Ever Seen A Real Woman Before?" Body Imagery In WHITE GIRL
“Have You Ever Seen A Real Woman Before?” Body Imagery In WHITE GIRL

White Girl reflects the embodiment of societal and interpersonal dysfunction while exploring the role of the body in film and in life.

Film Inquiry's Best Articles Of November 2016
THE HANDMAIDEN: A Forward-Thinking Period Piece

The Handmaiden is director Park Chan-wook’s most explicit film to date, if only in its portrayals of warped male sexuality contrasted with the comparatively emotive sexuality of women.

ELLE: A Complex & Challenging Exploration Into Lurid Territory
ELLE: A Complex & Challenging Exploration Into Lurid Territory

Elle faithfully transcribes the original book “Oh…”, presenting masochistic and sadistic elements as comedy in the darkest form.

John Hughes' Women: Monsters & Angels
John Hughes’ Women: Monsters & Angels

There’s a strange dichotomy surrounding the films of John Hughes, both written and directed. In one sense, there have been few directors that have so understood the angst of the teenage experience. Yet, conversely, Hughes’ depiction of both race and gender are entirely at odds with his apparent insight into the teen condition.

The Beginner's Guide: Screwball Comedy
The Beginner’s Guide: Screwball Comedy

Screwball comedies came around in the 1930s, due to the Motion Picture Production Code. The genre is still popular today, and some filmmakers try to recreate the themes and techniques in modern films. By 1934, the production code was being enforced in the motion picture industry.

Positive Psychology & Film: Atypical Dating Scripts
Positive Psychology & Film: Atypical Dating Scripts

Films and culture provide us with scripts that help us make sense of dating and sexuality. Unfortunately, many of the scripts are outdated.

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR As Generic As A Film Can Get
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: As Generic As A Film Can Get

Despite the title being one of the most fascinating I’ve seen in a while, Careful What You Wish For, directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, is about as painfully average as a neo-noir thriller film can get. You will not be surprised or fascinated at any point in this film, where a younger man takes an older woman (Isabel Lucas) as his lover. Though, said older woman isn’t all that much older than him, sadly showing how limited roles for women are in this industry.

The Mind On Film: Representative or Farfetched?

The subject of mental illness and disorders are interesting, educational, and sometimes sensitive topics in film. From watching movies like Girl, Interrupted, The Road Within and The Machinist, audiences learn a great deal about very real and problematic issues surrounding sufferers, however, can it be said that these representations are portrayed correctly? The film industry is guilty of depicting disorders such as hysteria as an illness that only women suffer from, and autism is far too often painted as a superpower, not to mention the unclear representation of schizophrenia, which causes audiences to confuse the illness with dissociative identity disorder.