ENG 3600-0001- Fall2026 - Welch

This course explores the long and often paradoxical relationship between Hollywood cinema and queer identity. From the coded performances of the classical studio era to the disruptions of New Hollywood and the emergence of openly LGBTQ+ representation in contemporary film, we will examine how queerness has been both suppressed and spectacularized on the American screen. We will give particular attention to the Production Code, star personae, genre conventions, and the industrial constraints that shaped what could—and could not—be shown on screen in the classical era. How did filmmakers encode queer desire through performance, mise-en-scène, and narrative structure? How did audiences learn to read between the lines? And what changes when queerness moves from subtext to text? Through close analysis and engagement with film theory and queer studies, students will consider Hollywood as a site of negotiation between visibility and censorship, desire and discipline, fantasy and politics. Films may range from classic-era melodramas and noir thrillers to New Queer Cinema and twenty-first-century mainstream releases. The course ultimately asks: Is Hollywood an engine of normalization, a space of resistance, or both? Fulfills LMC requirement for Understanding Genres. Counts towards Film Studies minor.