ABSTRACT
This essay explores how gay shame can be traced as a cinematic discourse in two film versions of Victor/Victoria, the 1933 German original and the 1982 US remake, by illustrating how the concept of gay shame as a psychological process becomes manifest as filmic language. Applying a recent discourse from queer studies to a Weimar comedy and a Hollywood musical reveals shared strategies in how the two films link what can be called heteronormative value judgements to the presentation of non-mainstream sexual identities. Their visual language is intricately linked with tropes of Paris as the city of free love and is mapped out in the architectural and audiovisual renditions of the urban space. In a series of close readings, the chapter looks at how the various non-verbal elements of film-making practice, such as composition of frames or editing, can, subconsciously or not, create and reveal internalisations of gay shame in characters and viewers alike.
