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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Text (Refereed)
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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: | 10 Aug 2025 18:00 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4234 |
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