queer art | The Hanslick Girls

June 29, 2020

Blinding Light: Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider”

Their timelines on social media had returned to normal in the last week, with less and less content that showed evidence of the great civil rights struggle still ongoing in the country. Videos of protesters clashing with police had been replaced with more pointed action items about donating to charities and petitioning for legislation. A series of surprise Supreme Court victories had given the country the momentary breath of hope that things weren’t entirely doomed, which only distracted from the fact that things very much still were.

June 15, 2020

Treading Water: Frank Ocean’s “channel ORANGE”

– PRIDE MONTH 2020 –

The apartment was empty.

None of Gwen’s pots rumbled on the stove, and Dania wasn’t holding any conversation in their living room. The sun shone through the window––in their haste to leave, none of the trio had thought to close the blinds, and keep the sun from discoloring the art on the walls. It was, on this hot summer evening, quiet at home.

The streets were not quiet. Protests across the country had flamed every night for nearly three weeks, met with violent responses from government forces and police squads. Images of burned-out storefronts and activists washing pepper spray from their faces had filled every social media timeline, to a degree never seen before in the modern political age. The last few years had been an impossibly stressful time, the conscience of the country bending to accommodate the strain being put onto it. But, at least to the other protesters who shared the street with Gwen, Eleanor, and Dania––at least to them, the dam had finally burst.

June 24, 2019

Saint Joan: Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s “Ms. Blakk For President”

As she walked over the confetti-coated floor of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s upstairs theater, Dania felt caught between a rock and a hard place.

On one side of her –– rather, on either side of her, while they sat on a couch during the performance –– were Eleanor and Gwen, who were excitedly violating the “100 Yard Rule” to praise the performance before they had left the building. They had joined every whoop and holler that evening, each chant of “LICK BUSH IN ’92” and “MARSHA P,” each numb silence when the story’s parallels to 2019 were abundantly clear.

June 17, 2019

Split Decision: Ekachai Uekrongtham’s “Beautiful Boxer”

“Why…this one?”

“Curiosity, basically,” Dania said. “I’d heard about it but never actually watched it before.”

She could tell from the reactions during the film –– none negative, but none enraptured –– that her friends had mixed opinions on Beautiful Boxer. As a very early example of a transgender biography on film, it was replete with issues that would sink it for a modern viewer.

“It’s a male actor playing the lead, right?” Gwen asked. On screen, the name Asanee Suwan scrolled by, in line with Nong Toom and her deadname.

“A male boxer, yes,” Dania said. “He had never acted professionally before this, he was chosen so he could nail the fight scenes.”

Tag / queer art