I enjoyed reading Stanley, Tsang, and Vargas’ musings in “Queer love economies: Making trans/feminist film in precarious times” as I constantly found myself drawing stars, hearts, and writing “YAASSS” in the margins next to phrases that resonated with me. They all in a way reappropriate a popular visual medium and play around with the process making and the visual and end with a product not for mass consumption, but for a dialogic critique against white heteronormativity. It goes to show that even with the lack of a big budget, which is what almost all big time directors depend on, low budget directors are still able to draw in audiences and tell a story. For these specific directors a radical queer aesthetic is able to flourish through this grassroots type of filmmaking process. With little access to big name celebrities to star in your films, I would assume that it would be easier to ask anyone in your circles/networks to be a part of the process. Stanley and Vargas allowed their actors in Homotopia to adlib and choose their own wardrobe, which led to camp aesthetics and self developing characters. After watching the film in class, I was immediately drawn to the character Joy who had an ambiguous gender and sexual identity, and had these Daria-like executed lines that countered every character in contact with them in a blunt and militant way. Love Joy! Also, I think these choices of camp and queer/trans intersections allows a placemaking of counterpublics… meaning that the end product, wherever it is filmed, would most likely be viewed by audiences that may feel under represented or misrepresented in theater and/or on screen. Because the directors make an effort to be at the showing, they allow for audience interaction with the film after the viewing.

Again I’m drawn towards the queer imagined violence especially after Vargas summarizes the film Homotopia and the ending scenes. They described the water balloon and squirt gun wedding crash as “attempting to divert yet another gay from walking down the aisle,” and I can’t help but just laugh at that (this is where I wrote YASSS in the margin). I definitely need to look up their other works.