In 1992, B. Ruby Rich coined the term New Queer Cinema to describe a cycle of films in the late 1980s and early 1990s that broke with conventional cinematic practices to show rethought subjectivities, generic subversions, and revised histories. New Queer Cinema, however, saw little of the same bursts of innovative directors and their films after 1992. This lag in revolutionary filmmaking left many evaluating queer cinema’s current state, even mourning the supposed end of New Queer Cinema. In this paper, I argue that queer filmmaking is not void of revolutionary potential; it is more that the driving force behind these films has changed. Instead of acting in opposition to a conservative government that failed to respond to the AIDS crisis, current queer work resists the normalizing effects of today’s neoliberal government. A cycle study of recent queer films reveals this driving revolutionary force.
