Studia Kulturoznawcze, 2012, nr 1(2)

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„Bezwstydne” filmy Dereka Jarmana
(Wydawnictwo Wydziału Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, 2012) Radkiewicz, Małgorzata
Shameless cinema of Derek Jarman Derek Jarman is one of the outstanding British artists and filmmakers, who became the crucial figure of the New Queer Cinema at the beginning of the 1990s. In the1980s he was one of the few openly gay public figures, who admitted to be HIV positive and who worked actively to arise the awareness of AIDS. Both in his paintings and film works he addressed the issue of sexuality and queer, challenging the conservative mentality of British society at the age of Thatcherism. Considering queer identity, it is visible that it is shame that precedes the formation of identity, specially nonnormative ones. Shame is defined as performative, as the queer identity is. Analyzing films of Jarman, it is interesting to observe how individuals became shamed because of gender but also how shame facilitates the formation of those individuals in the first place. In my paper I argue that in films of Jarman shame is at the same time an object and a process. Jarman’s characters – and Jarman himself – are as social beings already imbued with shame, but they still are able to become self-reflexive about their relationship with shame and its role in the formation of oneself.