Dogma and DamnationA film about Homophobia. Put yourself in my shoes. "Everyone is going to Hell according to someone's religion"
Since March 2010 a change in the law has resulted in several cases of people being charged with hate crimes. Notably here in Derby we have seen the first UK prosecution of it’s kind for stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The work presented here has been produced as a direct response to these highly publicised occurrences and it attempts to explore the feelings these crimes have provoked from the viewpoint of one of the recipients.
In keeping with a long tradition of re appropriation, the vocabulary employed, “Queer, Homo, Faggot” etc. these are the words of hate, they are really powerful words, and that is why they are used. Starting in the 70’s and 80’s homosexuals made an attempt to reclaim these words, to take away their power to hurt by using them themselves, thereby disarming the words and removing some of the venom.
The label “Gay” is fine. It has its place, but when a lot of gay men wake up in the morning they feel angry and outraged, not gay. So we’ve chosen to call ourselves queer. Using “Queer” is a way of reminding us how we are perceived buy the rest of the world.
