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Sick and Dirty
Hollywood's Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness
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Book Presentation:
A BLAZINGLY ORIGINAL HISTORY CELEBRATING THE PERSISTENCE OF QUEERNESS ONSCREEN, BEHIND THE CAMERA, AND BETWEEN THE LINES DURING THE DARK DAYS OF THE HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION CODE.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Motion Picture Production Code severely restricted what Hollywood cinema could depict. This included “any inference” of the lives of homosexuals. In a landmark 1981 book, gay activist Vito Russo famously condemned Hollywood's censorship regime, lambasting many midcentury films as the bigoted products of a “celluloid closet.”
But there is more to these movies than meets the eye. In this insightful, wildly entertaining book, cinema historian Michael Koresky finds new meaning in “problematic” classics of the Code era like Hitchcock's Rope, Minnelli's Tea and Sympathy, and-bookending the period and anchoring Koresky's narrative-William Wyler's two adaptations of The Children's Hour, Lillian Hellman's provocative hit play about a pair of schoolteachers accused of lesbianism.
Lifting up the underappreciated queer filmmakers, writers, and actors of the era, Koresky finds artists who are long overdue for reevaluation. Through his brilliant inquiry, Sick and Dirty reveals the “bad seeds” of queer cinema to be surprisingly, even gleefully subversive, reminding us, in an age of book bans and gag laws, that nothing makes queerness speak louder than its opponents' bids to silence it.
About the Author:
MICHAEL KORESKY is Editorial Director at New York's Museum of the Moving Image and a member of the National Society of Film Critics. Previously he held editorial positions at Film at Lincoln Center and the Criterion Collection, where he continues to host and curate the Criterion Channel series Queersighted. He has taught at NYU and The New School; cofounded MoMI's online film criticism publication Reverse Shot; and has written for Film Comment, Sight & Sound, the Village Voice, Film Quarterly, and other publications. He is the author of Films of Endearment and a monograph on the British director Terence Davies.
Press Reviews:
"Moves with a beautiful universality that will inspire readers." ―USA Today, Best Books of 2021 on FILMS OF ENDEARMENT
"Revelatory.... Koresky wears his erudition lightly, teasing out the mixed messages of code-era films with aplomb. It's a sterling work of film criticism." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Koresky analyzes Judy Garland as a gay icon and probes the portrayal of the social outcast in Tea and Sympathy and in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer. Such movies resonate for queer viewers, Koresky asserts, because they capture the longing for acceptance … A sensitive response to a rich trove of movies." ―Kirkus Reviews
"An engaging and thought-provoking book recommended for LGBTQIA+ and film studies collections." ―Library Journal
"From its elegant and impassioned introduction through a text that is historically grounded and glittering with insight, this is destined to become an instant classic. Koresky brings his strength as one of the finest and most knowledgeable film critics writing today to locating the strands of queer cinema within the history of cinema writ large, especially through the years of censorship. He knows the importance of confronting 'negative' images, not as anathema but as rich sources of competing and interrelated tropes. His portrait of The Children's Hour and its various permutations is a spellbinder in itself." ―Molly Haskell, film critic and author of FRANKLY, MY DEAR: GONE WITH THE WIND REVISITED
"An emotional celebration of artists gay and straight who bucked the Motion Picture Production Code of the twentieth century that aimed to erase queer lives. In a new age of censorship and book bans, Sick and Dirty feels itself like a glorious act of defiance. Koresky's writing crackles with urgency, and thank goodness because it's a history we're in danger of repeating.
" ―Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of THE CELEBRANTS and THE GUNCLE
"While The Celluloid Closet anatomized the tragic fate of the homosexual on the big screen, Koresky examines queerness itself as an unwitting by-product of the Production Code censors in the Golden Age of Hollywood." ―Philip Gefter, author of COCKTAILS WITH GEORGE AND MARTHA
"I'm not sure I have ever read a book about movies that is as tender and open-hearted." ―Mark Harris, New York Times bestselling author of MIKE NICHOLS on FILMS OF ENDEARMENT
"Koresky writes in a clear, direct, always natural style that complements the sincerity and generosity with which he approaches the art. One can always sense that he writes about films because he loves them, not because he wants to conquer them. He is fascinated by the way films of different eras reflect the collective political psychology of their time, and he is an inquisitive and engaged historian." ―Ari Aster, director
"The word 'critic' is too limiting when applied to Michael Koresky. He is one, of course, but he's also a historian, an enthusiast, a passionate guide. Whatever you want to call him, Sick and Dirty amply demonstrates what those of us who've followed him for years already know: he's one of the best in the business. Blending together keen biographical detail, wonderful storytelling, and insightful reads of films both famous and not, Sick and Dirty illuminates the hidden queerness of Hollywood's Golden Age. The results are an important, revelatory addition to both LGBTQ history and film studies, and wonderful fun to read." ―Isaac Butler, award-winning author of THE METHOD
"In Koresky's capable hands we meet some of the most remarkable queer figures of classic Hollywood … combining scholarly and historical rigor with accessibility.… I think it's safe to say that Korseky is very much in the ranks of such talented film writers.… The power of a book like Sick and Dirty lies in its ability to deeply excavate the painful and conflicted histories of queerness in Hollywood.… [A] worthwhile addition to the existing scholarship on queerness in old Hollywood." ―Omnivorous
See the publisher website: Bloomsbury Publishing
> From the same author:
> On a related topic:
Queering Contemporary French Popular Cinema (2009)
Images and Their Reception
Celluloid Comrades (2006)
Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas
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