Coming Together
The Cinematic Elaboration of Gay Male Life, 1945-1979
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Introduction
1 Picturing the Underground
2 The Cinematic Authoring of Gay Life
3 Toward a Gay Mainstream
4 Liberation Porn
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index
Review Quotes
Choice
“Essential. . . Few books are as important to a field of study as Ryan Powell’s Coming Together is to queer film history.”
Thomas Waugh, author of Hard to Imagine
“A lively and bold new analysis of male-focused queer cinema over three decades of American history. Powell sets up a fresh perspective, making experimental cinema, community-based spectacle, mainstream features, and hard core porn all talk to each other as male-desiring worldmaking. Astutely uncovering both utopias and contradictions onscreen and off, and rehabilitating everything from the Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiasts to American Cream, Coming Together belongs on the bookshelf of every homophile, cinephile, and cultural historian.”
Richard Dyer, author of Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film
“A brilliant, often enthralling, work of history and historiography. Coming Together gives us a fascinating and meticulously researched account of the development of the collective self-fashioning of gay men from the end of World War Two to the late 1970s, and of the central role filmmaking and filmgoing played in that process. At the same time, it asks us to examine key historiographic issues, such as what counts as part of film history beyond the films themselves; the role of film analysis in social history; and the idea that history may be understood in terms of sudden turning points (as Stonewall is so often perceived). All this is wonderfully held together by the way Powell explores and runs with the terms used by and about gay men; the spatial resonances (in and beyond films) of being ‘underground’ and coming ‘out’; and the multiple implications of ‘coming together’ as historical process, social practice, and erotic ideal. A book as delightful and stimulating as it is rigorous and lucid.”
Michele Pierson, author of Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder
“A groundbreaking study of the great variety of gay cinema that emerged in the United States after World War Two. Through close engagement with these movies, Powell movingly shows us how much the elaboration of gay male life owes to the storytelling power of all types of films.”
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