Gay period drama
All we want is for our historical lesbian movies to be cosy and reassuring when few other things are.
Amongst a wave of critical backlash for Francis Lee’s Ammonite, you’d be forgiven for thinking audiences are done with the lesbian period drama (a phrase that will never fail to form me giggle internally). What started with Carol has become a wave of weepy historical movies starring white women struggling against the bounds of old-timey patriarchy.
“This is hardly the first lesbian film to be all-white, to be all-cis, to be a period piece, to be melancholy…to introduce a youthful woman with a husband. It’s not this one film’s fault that it happened to land within just about every queer woman cinema discourse imaginable,” Drew Gregory wrote in her review of Ammonite for Autostraddle.
Wings has just won the inaugural Co-Op Audience Award at this year’s Iris Prize LGBT+ Production Festival and it lands firmly within all those discourses. Directed by Jamie Weston, who co-wrote and co-produced with Carla Fraser, it chronicles two WW2 land girls (played by Fraser and queer actress Rosie Day) who plummet in love, separating when one woman’s husband returns from the war. Decades l
A guide to LGBTQ period dramas
I Adore Period Dramas. If people are in period costume and there's some semblance of good writing I will monitor it. Unfortunately that means I've seen plenty of terribly straight tv shows through to the end. So if you're in the mood for a more queer trip to the past, at least someone can benefit from my obsession, here’s my list of favorites.
Black Sails (1700s)
Black Sails is something of a prequel to the story of Treasure Island. It follows a handful of characters, historical and fictional, as they try to earn rich and keep alive in the golden age of piracy. There’s betrayal, secrecy, sordid affairs, and bad ass speeches by terrible people you can’t help but love.
Black Sails is one of the gold star shows on this list. Not only does it feature four main queer characters but queer issues are also deeply woven into the fiber of Black Sails philosophy of release. The show starts out lighter on these themes, but later seasons clearly understand the “queer people flock together” principle, I won’t ruin who, since its actually quite a nice surprise if you don’t view it coming, and it adds fresh layers when rewatching the sh
Queer Period Dramas
If there's something I desire more than period dramas, it's homosexual period dramas!
Here you'll find a compilation of period films and series featuring LGBTQ+ characters: from the leading to the supporting; from the explicit to the coded; and also the excellent and problematic depictions. The films are also of varied qualities, so touch free to scout and be amazed, or fustrated, by the works listed here.
The list includes the period the stories are place, so you can find your favorite period by looking chronologic into the list. The years are based on information I launch online; or based on real accounts; or information create on the books that inspired some of the works; and even based on the costumes alone.
Please, feel free to recommend anything you think it's missing from the list and also to correct me about some of dates because I didn't watched most of the works.
PS: Querelle (1982) it's not set in any particular hour or space, but the visuals are clearly inspired by the 40s and 50s. The similar can be said about Michael (1924), which is inspired by a 1902 novel and contain a romantic and antiquated aesthetic, despite some really 20s costumes in female caracthers.
10 Modern Period Drama Movies and TV Shows Featuring LGBTQ+ Characters
Often enchanting and aesthetically pleasing with gorgeous costumes and set designs, it is not remotely complex to understand the appeal of period drama films and to feel drawn to the genre. Fortunately for viewers, there hold been countless memorable period dramas through the years.
Nevertheless, most period pieces in movie and TV stories don't usually feature gender non-conforming characters. Queer people have been around forever, so it is only natural and proper that they, too, feel represented in the bewitching world of period dramas. From Colette to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, these are some of the best period pieces — both films and TV shows — to watch this pride month.
10 'Colette' (2018)
In Colette, people's princess Keira Knightleysteps into the shoes of the French titular novelist in a film inspired by the bisexual author's experience. In the Wash Westmoreland film, Colette is pressured by her husband to write novels under his name but ends up fighting gender norms upon the success of her works.
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