Be Gay, Do Crime_1: When in Chicago…

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Be Gay, Do Crime_1: When in Chicago…
Our Story

In March, Our Story begins its series Be Gay, Do Crime in Chicago. Seven decades apart, in the famous city still known as the “capital of crime”, Swoon and Bound’s two protagonist couples live their lives outside the confines of the law.

Products of the New Queer Cinema of the 90s, these related works are both central projects in the LGBTQ+ filmmakers movement: the refusal to make themselves respectable at a time of persistent antipathy towards a community hard hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and the desire to reclaim and explore the damaging fictional figure of the queer villain ‘from the inside’.

In Swoon, Tom Kalin examines the story of murderous duo Leopold and Loeb, questioning the historic representation of both their homosexuality and their monstrosity.

In Bound, the Wachowski sisters cleverly play with the codes of camp and mafia films, offering their criminal heroines satisfying revenge on the system and machismo which holds them down.