Queer Alchemy: Fabulousness in Gay Male Literature and Film

Abstract

<p>This thesis prioritizes the role of the Fabulous, an underdeveloped critical concept, in the construction of gay male literature and film. Building on Heather Love's observation that queer communities possess a seemingly magical ability to transform shame into pride - queer alchemy - I argue that gay males have created a genre of fiction that draws on this alchemical power through their uses of the Fabulous: fabulous realism. To highlight the multifarious nature of the Fabulous, I examine Thomas Gustafson's film Were the World Mine, Tomson Highway's novel Kiss of the Fur Queen, and Quentin Crisp's memoir The Naked Civil Servant.</p>