‘David Bowie Made Me Gay’: MQFF Spotlights Formative Queer Experiences

As LGBTQIA+ people, we often see ourselves for the first time through film and television; a cinema screen or set of speakers often have a way of smacking us right in the face with exactly what and who we need to see: our own shared stories. Luckily, the 2024 MQFF program speaks all languages and visions of queer.

Personally, this moment happened as a young teenager. I was a baby queer living in a regional area, far from any city-based LGBTQIA+ sanctuaries, and was lonely – and honestly a bit confused as to why my high school friends were getting boyfriends, but not girlfriends too. My bisexuality had me feeling free, yet trapped and deeply alone at the same time. 

Then, one Friday night, But I’m a Cheerleader magically appeared on my television screen – and for the first time in my young-but-confused life, I knew that there were other people out there in the world who saw me, knew me, shared my story. It made me realise I could find these people one day, and everything might be okay. 

At the MQFF program launch, Victorian LGBTIQA+ Commissioner Joe Ball shared that he saw himself, a transgender man, on screen for the first time when he saw 1999 trans classic Boys Don’t Cry. 

“Joe astutely touched on the phenomenon that representation in film gives queers the linguistics to define themselves in meaningful ways, while also illuminating the problematic history of LGBTQIA+ portrayals in films,” says MQFF CEO David Martin Harris — who astutely tells us their own formative film experience was Sally Potter’s Orlando, because it introduced them “to gender fluidity in a magical and entirely benign way”. 

“MQFF is vital in the cultural landscape: we exhibit contemporary representations and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people created with agency, and we contextualise those historical works,” Harris explains. 

“In this way, [the festival] has provided me with many self-identifying experiences whilst surrounded by my community. An important role of MQFF, too, is that we provide an environment in which to meet new friends and forge community connections.”

“So many of us first register we’re queer through encounters with on-screen characters – real or fictional – in whom we see and hear ourselves, or aspirational versions of ourselves.”

“It’s a cherished 34-year-old cultural icon and an essential meeting place of queer joy and solidarity. Moreover, it’s one of the largest exhibitions of LGBTQIA+ cinema in the world today,” continues Harris, on the importance of MQFF. “We present an Australian and international survey of queer stories and voices – the festival is a premiere launchpad in Australia – folks experience the best and latest on the circuit, and films that you just can’t see anywhere else. It’s quite the experience to do the whole thing. 

This year, the MQFF program is all about that feeling; identity through shared experience, displayed loud and proud on screens and speakers in front of us, helping us come together to translate and distil our experiences in meaningful ways. 

“What would LGBTQIA+ culture be without certain, specific, celebrated conjunctions of sound and vision – without lip-synching, ballroom or karaoke?’ the program asks. “Or without the movie musical, a genre almost synonymous with queer spectatorship and participation?”

From the story of pioneering Black trans performer Jackie Shane who ‘refused to hide her queerness’, to the lesbian love languages of Georgian film Gondola, to the NSFW, terrifying-yet-horny film The Visitor — the 2024 MQFF program speaks all languages and visions of queer. 

“‘Formative’ speaks to how the sights and sounds we absorb inform who we become; I know I’m hugely indebted to the iconography of film and music videos, in realising my potential as the fully-formed, loud ‘n’ proud, queer cinephile and musician I am today,” says MQFF Program Director Cerise Howard. 

“Per the title of festival guest Darryl W. Bullock’s book, David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, so many of us first register we’re queer through encounters with on-screen characters – real or fictional – in whom we see and hear ourselves, or aspirational versions of ourselves. 

“There’s a lifelong connective tissue between audiovisual media and queers – ours is a thirst for representation of our community, in all its polymorphous magnificence that, once sparked, can never be quenched!”

Melbourne Queer Film Festival is on from 14-24 November, 2024.