“I WANT US TO BE TOGETHER”: a busca por um final feliz gay à luz dos estudos queer e do conceito de heteronormatividade na obra God’s Own Country (2017).

Abstract

The queer community faces numerous daily struggles, having to hide their true selves, having their rights denied, their existence erased, and being forced to conform to the heteronormativity present in our society. In addition, they are often obliged to accept being portrayed in a completely dehumanizing way due to norms dictated by these same heteronormative standards. In this context, it is important to investigate and problematize such issues experienced by the queer community through the movie God's Own Country (2017), directed by Francis Lee. In the movie, the gay protagonist couple faces obstacles and suffering to live their love freely. Based on this brief synopsis, our aim is to answer the following guiding question: How does the movie God's Own Country (2017) both reproduce and challenge the heteronormativity of gay happy endings from a queer perspective? To address this question, we have defined the following general objective: To investigate how the film God's Own Country (2017) reproduces and challenges the heteronormativity of gay happy endings from a queer perspective. To achieve this general objective, the following specific objectives were defined: (i) To discuss the theoretical assumptions of queer studies, with an emphasis on the concept of heteronormativity; (ii) To understand how heteronormativity is reproduced and challenged by the protagonists in both public and private spaces. Regarding the methodological approach, a qualitative investigation was conducted in the bibliographic mode, of an explanatory nature, based on the works of Annamarie Jagose (1996), Judith Butler (2019), Guacira Lopes Louro (2018), among others. As a result, we found that the analyzed scenes demonstrate how the movie characters are constantly restricted and oppressed, both in public and private spaces, due to the fear of judgment, highlighting the oppression that the system imposes on them. Furthermore, the movie happy ending, although significant and important in questioning normativities, should be viewed with caution, as it also reinforces the heteronormative logic of commercial films, suggesting that the acceptance of non-heteronormative relationships depends on their conformity to traditional standards.