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    Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: a queer odyssey

    Janes, Dominic (2011) Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: a queer odyssey. Science Fiction Film and Television 4 (1), pp. 57-78. ISSN 1754-3770.

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    Abstract

    This article is a queer reading of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It begins by situating the film in the context of the careers of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. Clarke is shown to have been a homosexual or bisexual who explored same-sex desires in a number of his later fictions, whilst Kubrick is discussed as having a fascination with problematising normative masculinity and asserting, by contrast, the superior potency of his artistic vision. The alien monolith is interpreted as a visualisation of the masculine closet. Bowman’s encounter with the monolith in the extra-terrestrial hotel room is presented as a homosexual encounter that leads to the revelation of the sublimity of infantile polymorphous perversion. Finally, the film’s queer liberatory potential is understood to lie in its refusal to provide a didactic framework for a future form of normative sexuality.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: Pages numbered pp. 3,4,5 have been removed from the full-text due to presence of 3rd party copyright images.
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Research Centres and Institutes: Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR)
    Depositing User: Dominic Janes
    Date Deposited: 27 Oct 2011 11:19
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:56
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4234

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