ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights a new trend in German cinema: representing queer protagonists as ‘ghosts’ in contemporary German (co-)productions featuring lesbian relationships between Germans and migrants. This is located alongside two longstanding trends in on-screen LGBTQ+ representation: invisibility/erasure (often the death of a queer character as punishment for sexual and social transgression) and monstrosity (e.g. the vampire, the second most frequent representation of lesbian/queer desire). The chapter employs Judith Butler’s work on liveable lives (2009) and Jack Halberstam’s queer temporality (2005) alongside theories of ‘passing’ to argue that the queer ‘ghosts’ in contemporary German cinema, including Unveiled/Fremde Haut (2005, Maccarone), Ghosts (2005, Petzold), The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, 2007), and Ghosted (2009, Treut), ultimately work against longstanding trends to foreground memory and visibility while creating spectatorial empathy.
