6. Queer Imaginaries and the Essay Film: The Cinema of Raed Rafei
Queer Utopia: From Stonewall to Tell Garden | directed by Raed Rafei | 8 mins | English | Lebanon/US | 2021
When words fail to articulate the meaning of “queerness,” silence is the answer to an impossible coming out. This essay film ponders the place of queer utopia in a world of difference and privilege. The wandering eye of a Lebanese queerfilmmaker oscillates between the clamor of gay rights slogans at the Stonewall monument in New York, and the warm ordinariness of a public garden in his hometown, Tripoli, Lebanon, where homosexuality remains illegal and taboo.
This film emerges from a personal and philosophical conflict. Rafei filmed jubilant crowds at the Stonewall Inn in 2013 following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, initially sharing in the "queer universal pride". However, upon returning to Lebanon, he began to question the global applicability of Western gay identity politics, particularly the imperative for "coming out and visibility".
Formal Strategy: The film’s power lies in its poetic juxtaposition. The "clamor of gay rights slogans" in New York is contrasted with the "warm ordinariness" of a public garden in Tripoli. This is not a simple East/West dichotomy but an exploration of what queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz calls "queer futurity"—the "warm illumination of a horizon" that may manifest in unexpected, quiet places.
Key Concept – "The Happy Few": Rafei focuses on a celebrant's t-shirt reading "We happy few," seeing it as a symbol of the intersection of sexuality, race, nation, and capitalism. It prompts the question: who has access to this celebrated "queer utopia"? The film challenges the notion that liberation models can be seamlessly exported, a concern echoed by historian Anjali Arondekar regarding the "asymmetry of geopolitics".
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