Judith Butler and Film

In a period of expanding representation for women and LGBTQI+ people in cinema, television and other screen media, Judith Butler's groundbreaking writing on gender and identity is more relevant than ever. This is the first book to focus on the ways in which film has shaped the influential philosopher's thought.

Since the 1980s, Butler's theories - particularly on 'gender performativity' - have been widely used to analyse representations of gender on screen. And equally, Butler has turned to films that spotlight drag performances and transgender people to re-examine the materiality of gender identity. In Judith Butler and Film, author Temmuz Süreyya Gürbüz explains how Butler cites growing up in the movie theatres their family owned as formational to their understandings of gender and sexuality, traces the influence of films such as Paris is Burning (1990) and Boys Don't Cry (1990) on their work, and also considers the documentaries Butler took part in. Moving beyond established film theory, Gürbüz draws from recent trans film theory, and also includes a final chapter on the idea of cinema as a form of embodiment - connecting this phenomenological approach with Butler's interest in experimental, collective and avant-garde filmmaking.