Abstract
In Scandinavian cinema, there is a longstanding tradition of the ‘coming of age’ narrative. However, despite the fact that youth films of this type offer some of the most graphic and liberal representations of sexuality within contemporary Scandinavian cinema, minority audiences are often denied equality in this area. While the success of Lucas Moodysson’s Show Me Love from 1998 to some extent has offered progressive representations for young female sexuality including homosexual experiences, the gay teenager appears to be continuously trapped in the closet within Scandinavian cinema. A survey of contemporary Danish, Swedish and Norwegian feature films1 of the new millennium reveals that only two youth films have featured gay protagonists, namely The Man Who Loved Yngve (Stian Kristiansen 2006) from Norway and Love Is in the Air (Simon Staho 2011) from Denmark. These very different films are united by a narrative structure that allows their main characters to flirt with a queer sexuality and thus apparently to be challenging the heteronormative attitude so inherent in youth film narratives.
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© 2014 Anders Lysne
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Lysne, A. (2014). Straight Eye for the Queer Guy: Gay Youth in Contemporary Scandinavian Film. In: Pullen, C. (eds) Queer Youth and Media Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383556_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383556_15
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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