Youth culture in global cinema

260 coming-of-age queer
This playful Australian print ad for Beautiful Thing (1996) features its young gay couple in a
way that U.S. films about queer youth tend to avoid.
Raised in this environment of overblown masculinity, Ste is initially reluctant
to return Jamie’s affection and is particularly wary of how others will
view his relationship. This sense of social entrapment is echoed in the film’s
visual style, where the world of the estates is oppressive and restrictive.
These ties to locale are significant in aligning Beautiful Thing with other recent
working-class films in Britain. As Julia Hallam has noted, ‘‘these films
all foreground a sense of place in their use of location shooting and vernacular
dialogue.’’ 12 This place is made all the more significant in Beautiful
Thing, for it not only works to mark class, but also serves as a means of
further repressing sexual identity, particularly the alignment of masculinity
and working-class culture echoed in Ste’s family. The two boys find escape,
and a sense of belonging, in a gay pub; distance from the estate is emphasized
by a lengthy (but conveniently direct) bus ride and also through gay
lifestyle magazines which seem to depict gay culture as ‘‘out there’’ rather
than in their immediate environment.
All of the main characters in the film are portrayed as desiring escape
from the identities they have been expected to assume. Leah’s desires to become
Mama Cass are emblematic of this. Cass’ whiteness is in contrast to
Leah’s blackness, made evident in one scene where Leah coats her face in