Graphic design and the construction of gay masculinities in Kaiserin and Têtu

Since the early 1980s, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of international gay/lesbian-themed visual productions, ranging from pornographic images and television programmes to advertising and graphic novels. Often originating from countries with a multicultural tradition (most notably Great Britain and the United States), this cultural phenomenon has now reached many territories, including the French-speaking world. What are the thematic and aesthetic convergences/divergences of such visual productions? Do such works develop problematics and approaches specific to areas such as metropolitan France or French-speaking Canada? The eleven essays included in this collection (two in English and nine in French) aim to answer these questions by offering in-depth and challenging discussions of various queer-themed visual productions made in a contemporary Francophone context. Each contribution focuses on specific case studies drawn from auteur, pornographic and experimental cinemas, as well as those based on analyses of images from television, printed media and contemporary art.