In the lead up to screenings at 92YTribeca’s Queer/Art/Film series, we asked a few questions of the presenters via email. One question asked of all them was: “The use of the term Queer seems wide reaching nowadays, not restricted to “gay” individuals. For instance, we have heard it used by heterosexual people who identify as Queer, which implies definitions aside from sexual. Do you agree? What does “Queer” mean to you?”

Filmmaker Jenny Livingston offered our favorite answer, saying in part:

Since the 90s, it’s been used by LGBT people to denote a difference that sparkles, people who set themselves apart, (in relation to gender identity and sexuality) because they don’t fit the norm. It’s important to know that fitting in, while not wrong, is certainly not the thing that makes you more lovable, more interesting, more human.

Continuing below, we collected the answers from all five interviewees and are reprinting them in full.

“The use of the term Queer seems wide reaching nowadays, not restricted to “gay” individuals. For instance, we have heard it used by heterosexual people who identify as Queer, which implies definitions aside from sexual. Do you agree? What does “Queer” mean to you?”

Ira Sachs: To be honest, the term “Queer,” doesn’t sit that well with me, but I think it’s much better, particularly in this context, than “LGBT,” which is so clinical its almost anti-septic. Since I started working on this series – and I thank my friend the art historian Richard Meyer for the title, by the way – I’ve started to think more about “queer,” as a word, and try to figure out what about it I don’t like.  Yes, it’s inclusive, though in some ways, only to those who embrace or enjoy its somewhat aggressive stance.  It also feels weird for me, at 43, because its very much a term that I connect with youth. I also notice that it’s a term that makes straight people uncomfortable, which probably adds to my own discomfort with it. And it’s a bit dated…..so, as my answer shows you, it’s a complicated term and I have complicated feelings about it.  But I have noticed that the more I use it, the more I start to own it, and that’s also been interesting. Maybe I don’t like it because I don’t want to be identified as such, as queer.

Matt Wolf: I think Queer is a political and cultural term.  It’s used in a lot of contexts to historicize or describe certain cultural material or artists, and for that reason I think a lot of people continue to identify with the term.  The initial impulse to reclaim this negative slur was very political.  But I don’t really think it’s politically provocative to use the term Queer now— for straight or gay people.  I guess when I hear people use the term queer, I understand that they’re framing their experience or identity against the grain of mainstream gay culture.  I appreciate that… Mainstream gay culture is really boring.

Jennie Livingston: At the first Yale LGBT reunion which I attended this Spring – I was on a film panel with Bruce Cohen (Milk) and Eva Kolodner (Boys Don’t Cry), Eliza Bayard of GLSEN talked about the two kids that killed themselves this Spring because of bullying, much of which was anti-gay. The verbal violence that drove these two boys to suicide had nothing to do with sexuality: one boy was 11: too young to have a fully formed sexuality and he did not identify as gay. As Bayard pointed out, both victims of bullying were “queer” enough to be literally hounded to death. I supposed “queer” is a word that once meant (and can still mean) odd, in a pejorative sense.  Since the 90s, it’s been used by LGBT people to denote a difference that sparkles, people who set themselves apart, (in relation to gender identity and sexuality) because they don’t fit the norm. It’s important to know that fitting in, while not wrong, is certainly not the thing that makes you more lovable, more interesting, more human.

Kenny Mellman: Queer to me means outside the norm of society.  It also, rather broadly, seems to me to be any output from Queer identified peoples and well as content that for whatever reason has an appeal to Queer identified peoples.

Sarah Schulman: Ideologically, my use of it shifts based on who I am talking to and where I am. Personally, I am old-school so I think of myself as “old gay.” That means that I help and support other people in my community regardless of what they can do for me. That’s how I was trained when I first came out, and I abide by those values.

Upcoming film events at 92YTribeca: