Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra: A Politically Incorrect Use of Neapolitan Identities and Queer Masculinities?
by Marcello Messina
Taking as a starting point John Champagne’s recent argument about the queer representations of Italian masculinity contained in Garrone’s Gomorra, this paper aims to connect the queer masculinity of the film’s characters with the negative judgement on their lives and actions suggested by the film. In particular, it will be argued that queerness is used alongside the Neapolitan-ness of the characters to portray them as Others, in order to alienate the audience from them. In other words, it will be suggested that the film does not celebrate the queerness of the characters, but uses it as a means to portray them as deviant to a non-Neapolitan, heterosexual audience.