During the AIDS epidemic queer clubs were spaces of letting off steam, community building and activist organizing. This video essay explores the ways in which queer clubs have been used to allow queer people to explore various artforms such as ballroom and whacking as well as fight against the death in their community. I have chosen to use repeating visuals throughout the essay to highlight the circularity of the news coverage during the AIDS epidemic, as wells as the circularity of the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights currently. During the AIDS epidemic, those who were fighting against the virus were often having the same fight over and over again, with every friend’s death and protest beginning to look the same. To give the viewer a sense of this circularity I used repeated visuals including repeated images of AIDS patients and protests to give them a sense of repetition of events. I then contrasted the repeating visuals throughout the essay, I then use different footage accompanied with the repeating audio, “Good gay fun trouble,” to highlight that there is continued hope. As if to say the conversation and actions around AIDS changed, so the current conversations around queer liberation can also change. That nowadays we can also use “good gay fun trouble,” to help us liberate ourselves from our current anti-LGBTQ pandemic sweeping the United States.
Works Cited
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