作者：Jian CHEN（加州大學爾灣分校博士候選人）
翻譯： 蒲琮文

介紹關妮薇．透納這位美國電影藝術家需要運用鑑賞早期電影史同樣的方法與技巧。

多重身分流動的藝術家

　　試著想像：當這位演出者注視著機器，從她肢體動作上所傳達給觀眾的那種強烈感受，到變化多端的影像挑戰觀眾視覺感官，這一切彷彿置身於十九世紀晚期，如同愛迪生發明的電影放映機一般，實際上吸引美國及台灣影迷目光的，是螢幕上的關妮薇．透納影像：透過紅顏禍水般的酷兒情謎、女同性戀羅曼史中走調的低俗鬧劇，以及與死神共進燭光晚餐，毛骨悚然的景象……等等，以此激發觀眾的共鳴。

　　對觀眾而言，關妮薇．透納的影像早已烙印在觀眾心中。然而，身為幕後工作者，並兼具作家、導演和製作人等身份，她透過製作影片來對抗文化迷思，並親自演出來引導觀眾將注意力集中在連續影像上，兩者是全然不同的詮釋。在訪談中，關妮薇．透納形容自己是個流動的藝術家，在身兼幕前、幕後不同角色的同時，也加深了洞察力和挫折感。

演戲讓我更了解如何導戲，導戲讓我更挑剔寫作，而製作人的工作，因為太困難了，所以對我的生命沒有任何幫助。我是雙子座的，所以很容易三分鐘熱度；容易討厭人群，但兩天後又會感到孤寂；因為有種種可能與機會，讓我停不下來，我的生命週期變化多端，這就是我的生活方式。

　　這樣變化多端的生命週期，成為她對電影製作源源不絕的原動力。幾部膾炙人口的影片：如鼓吹女同性戀當自強的浪漫喜劇《十種釣魚的方法》；以華爾街為背景的懸疑小說改編而成、斥資八百萬美金的好萊塢驚悚片《美國殺人魔》……等。依循這些成功的經驗，她繼續寫作、導戲，在短劇中演出，例如自己執導的《愛情嗡嗡嗡》，以及希拉莉．哥堡的《超娘女靈媒》。同時也在電視影集中參與編劇及導演，兩季的《L Word》以及全新電視影集《嘜走》，打造出有別以往探討酷兒＊的節目，皆深獲好評。

從《十種釣魚的方法》談起

　　深入探討透納的電影，不難發現她的影片，不僅可以作為好萊塢開始著重酷兒議題之佐證，針對這種現象，她的作品甚至能夠提出完全出乎意料的複雜理由。1990年代中期，《十種釣魚的方法》和雪若．鄧依執導的《尋找西瓜女》，是美國女同性戀獨立意識急速高漲的少數先驅，其中還包括《雙姝奇戀》、《捉夢者》以及《愛情妳我她》。這些影片將女性之間的性與羅曼史，呈現在螢幕上，將青少年羅曼史與姐妹情誼，從異性戀假設中給掠奪過來。

　　《十種釣魚的方法》編織出女同性戀間情色、情感、政治糾結的關係脈絡，並且往更邊緣延展的雙性以及酷兒次文化邁進。電影積極呈現女同性戀真實生活的一面，透過教育的方式（就像是上101堂女同性戀課一樣），試著抹去舊有刻板印象，內容則著重於描繪屬於女同性戀歷史、社會甚至是婚姻的困境。這類低成本鼓吹「自己動手做」的製片價值在於，透過固定場景、熟面孔的演員來鼓吹寫實「美學」。這部片最終目的是要推向建立女同性戀的文化想像——一種以影像為基礎、由那些遺失的敘事片段、欲望明亮面所建構起來的夢工廠。透納所提供的想像素材，對作為電影幕前的具體概念，以及幕後的製作是十分重要的。1990年代的新女同性戀文化想像，不只吸引現有的酷兒社群，也將這些人的文化呈現在觀眾眼前。此外，隨著美國以及國際影展的交流，這些基礎影片就可以「引領」異性戀觀眾，進入酷兒電影世界。

《L Word》：同性戀文化抗爭的總結

　　從早期美國獨立女同性戀電影，到今日好萊塢對女同性戀幾近誇張的影像詮釋，我們或許可以試著將這兩個時期，畫上一條共有的直線。近十年來，我們可以發現商業主流電影史無前例地認同並贊助同志題材；奧斯卡加持，李安執導的《斷背山》，史蒂芬．戴爾第執導的《時時刻刻》以及琴柏莉．皮爾絲執導的《男孩別哭》。這股浪潮在電視影集也掀起波瀾，《同志亦凡人》的北美版，當然還有《L Word》。

　　《L Word》在許多方面皆可視為早先針對文化再現之諸多抗爭的頂點。電視影集中滿足上流都會女同性戀對雜交的欲望，並視其為性愛的功績；以及與男同性戀相關的無敵風格。關妮薇．透納從《十種釣魚的方法》橫跨到《L Word》，這一步似乎是為女同性戀文化的進步代言背書。其中因恐懼同志而壓迫同志的政治元素，在透納參與的非酷兒電影當中，例如《美國殺人魔》、《吸血萊恩》和《寫真女王》中，可以看見她以相同方式來探討類似的問題。

然而，關妮薇．透納對這樣歡欣的調調提出警告，她仍不斷追求不同的形式繼續前進：
目前探討同性戀議題的主流電影都還不算成功，甚至都不能算是真的同性戀電影……我很想看到一群女同性戀朋友用正確的方式表現出來——不論是喜是悲，這就是生活……如黑色喜劇般，這才是我真的想看到的。我真的有點兒想法，一旦拿出來說，大家就會盯著我，好像我瘋了似的。說不上來……不過我想我會寫出來的。不拿它來賺錢，而是製作時大哭、上映時很帶種，就像我平常那樣。

　　關妮薇．透納不願局限過去到現在的女同性戀形象。在《L Word》中，透納飾演的蓋碧．戴渥克斯，在許多方面捕捉到現代同志的衝突困境。劇中蓋碧的工作是劇作家，同時也是陰道重建手術診所的接待員，她是不遵守遊戲規則的情人，她貪得無饜的個性為《L Word》的卡司及劇本增添驚奇。就是這種角色所帶來的驚奇，即使是女同性戀角色，也不會讓這種商業電視影集變得呆板單調。這種在電視影集裡的短暫聚焦，對其他同時期的同性戀主流電視影集來說，可以啟發不同角度的思考。

酷兒同志觀眾成為新的利基市場：好萊塢舊瓶新裝

　　隨著酷兒觀眾能見度的提升，同時也有助於1990年代，以女同性戀為中心的獨立製片榮景，特別是可以在有線電視看到酷兒節目。酷兒觀眾成為新的利基市場，而對廣大的主流觀眾而言，他們對於性別傾向的共識，一再地重覆呈現在相同的劇情中。在電影界也有相同的轉變，好萊塢的電影工業正在尋找新的觀眾群、新的素材，以重振這種通用方程式的活力。好萊塢用這種的角度看待酷兒，並非宣示他們將這種次文化轉換成主流文化。正如《游擊女孩俱樂部》中所暗示：美國女性主義的新浪潮相當奇特，首先必須要掌握消費者文化，並將早期女性主義制度化。要想傳播這種純真的幻想，就要讓女性主義本身的政治與藝術行動，與商業文化、主流媒體甚至是羅曼史記述串聯起來。

　　好萊塢製片將《游擊女孩俱樂部》的暗示謹記在心，但著墨在酷兒議題上的，既不是頌揚鼓舞，也不是打發了事，而是一種調和影片的「潛在意含」。也就是說，他們所關注的不是那種外放式情感，即使是過去所忌諱的酷兒性欲。關妮薇．透納的作品能訓練對酷兒議題還不甚熟悉的好萊塢觀眾注意到影片裡的「潛在意含」。這些電影的主要情節，還是陷入一般異性戀的分類，卻伴隨著酷兒諷刺手法與情色層面。例如：在《吸血萊恩》中，萊恩和其中一位在嘉年華會的女俘虜間的親密友情；或是《美國殺人魔》中，穿插的「女同性戀」幻想情節。多年來，透納以女同性戀為中心的影像，是以一種有意無意穿插的方式進入主要情節。此種方式最奇特的地方在於，兩個女人間的性暗示意味並不強烈，突出的反而是故事與角色間的關係無法預期。「潛在意含」的表現方式，通常並非為了大剌剌地表現出被壓迫的一面，而是要傳達出影片主軸以及這個複雜世界的限制。

　　透納目前的工作計畫包括：跟隨《游擊女孩俱樂部》這部在國際巡迴演出中深受迴響的電影到世界各地宣傳；完成兩部短片的後製作業；試播一部有關暗夜潛行者的節目；製作有關高中生、同性戀與異性戀聯盟的電影；和蘿絲．裘琪合作《十種釣魚的方法2》。

＊我用「queer」（本文中譯統一為「酷兒」）一詞做為更廣泛的性別顛覆，代表了女同性戀、男同性戀、雙性戀、變性人和性別殊異者，這是用一種簡單的方式揚棄異性戀和性別基準。雖然「queer」一詞有自己的歷史，而我自己常用它來做不同的定義連結；之所以選擇這個字，是因為它是個敏感的辭彙。我們必須注意到雙性戀、變性人和性別殊異者的重要性，這樣的次文化在過去一直被邊緣化，即使這些族群已經團結起來成為酷兒一族，卻依舊依附在女同性戀和男同性戀背後。

Dreamwork Fueling Today’s Queerer Hollywood: A Panoramic View and Fragments of a Chat With Guinevere Turner

Jian CHEN

Introducing American film artist Guin Turner demands some of the maneuvering and immersion required by the early machines of cinema. As if hovering over Edison's kinetoscope of the late 1800s, the viewer is mesmerized by the moving image while made acutely aware of the positioning of her body as she peers through a cinematic machine. This detour through the beginnings of cinema seems well-suited because Guin's images on the screen work through sensation, as many of her fans in the U.S. and Taiwan attest. They provoke through the eroticized enigma of the queered femme fatale, the offbeat slapstick of lesbian romance, and the thrill of having a candlelight dinner with death’s silhouette. Even as the viewer is tempted to remain fixed only on the image before her, Guin's work behind the screen as writer, director, and producer directs the viewer's attention to the construction of the moving image through the machinery of film production and through contending cultural imaginations.

In our online interview, Guin describes herself as a roving artist whose multiple roles behind and in front of the camera have lent insights and frustrations. Whatever the topic of discussion, she adds a personal slice, even an astrological tidbit:

Acting makes me a better director, directing makes me a less tolerant writer, and producing is just a lot of work and doesn't help anything in my life because its too hard...I am a Gemini and I lose interest easily, get sick of people and then two days later get lonely again, so having all of these possibilities and opportunities keeps me busy, and means that my life is different week to week. I thrive on that.

Guin's filmography reflects her restless drive towards filmmaking. Her list of features includes films as diverse as Go Fish, a do-it-yourself lesbian romantic comedy, and American Psycho, an eight million dollar Hollywood thriller based on a novel about an upscale Wall Street slasher. As successful as she has been in feature film, Guin continues to write, direct, and act in short films, including her own Hummer and Hilary Goldberg's Beyond Lovely. She also does writing and acting in television, the newly expanding medium of queer* programming, with the first two seasons of L Word and the new television series Don't Go notched into her belt.

A more in-depth tracking of Guin's filmmaking not only confirms the recent surge of queer eye candy productions within Hollywood film and television, but also gives an unexpectedly complex account of this phenomenon. Guin's work in Go Fish and Cheryl Dunye's Watermelon Woman during the mid-1990s was part of a decade of burgeoning American lesbian independent features that also included The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Claire of the Moon, and All Over Me. These features put sex and romance between women on-screen, wresting narratives of teen romance and sisterly friendship away from heterosexual assumption. In particular, Go Fish brings to life the web of erotic, emotional, political, and stylistic ties forming lesbian, and to a more marginalized extent bisexual and gender queer, subculture. The film grapples with the urge for real-life representations of lesbians in the face of historical erasure through pedagogical moments (as if giving a Lesbian 101 class) that focus on the difficulties of mapping a specifically lesbian history, community, or even mating ritual. Low-budget do-it-yourself production values also fuel a realistic "aesthetics" with fixed local settings and locally recognizable actresses, actors, and extras. Even so, the realistic impulse in Go Fish ultimately moves towards creating a lesbian cultural imagination—an image-based dreamwork fragmented by irrevocably lost narratives and the lustrous surface of desire. Guin has been pivotal in providing the very material content of this imagination as its embodiment on-screen and as its producer off-screen. The new lesbian cultural imagination of the 1990s not only appealed to existing queer communities but also brought these communities into visibility as film audiences. In addition, with their circulation in U.S. and international festivals, these foundational films "introduced" heterosexual audiences to queer film programming.

It is tempting to draw a straight line from the earlier days of American independent lesbian filmmaking to the glossier image of today's Hollywood lesbian. This current decade has seen the unprecedented commercial mainstream recognition and sponsorship of queer-themed features, with Ang Lee's Oscar-decorated Brokeback Mountain and its predecessors in Stephen Daldry's The Hours and Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry. This level of mainstream visibility is matched in television with the North American version of Queer as Folk and, of course, the L Word craze. In many ways, the L Word can be viewed as the culmination of prior struggles for cultural representation. The television show satisfies the desire for a promiscuous and upscale urban lesbian chic equal to the sexual exploits and impeccable style associated with gay culture. Guin's "crossover" from Go Fish to L Word seems to support a narrative of progress for lesbian cultural representation. Her expanding work in non-explicitly queer-themed Hollywood movies including American Psycho, BloodRayne, and The Notorious Betty Page can also be viewed within this vein, signaling the wavering of the homophobic politics of queer containment.

Yet, Guin herself cautions against such a celebratory tone. She still craves a different kind of representation:

There has yet to be a big mainstream movie with real gay content that is successful. Or even existent...I'd like to see a group of lesbo friends represented in a real way--have it be funny and sad, like life...Dark comedy. That's what I want to see. I actually have an idea but whenever I bring it up people look at me like I'm crazy. Can't tell you--but I think I will write it. And make it for no money, and cry during production, and have a ball at screenings, just like I always do.

Guin’s work resists a linear framing of lesbian visual representation from past to present. Gabby Deveaux, the character played by Guin in L Word, in many ways captures the conflicted bind of new queer visibility. Gabby's unwieldy dimensions as an aspiring screenwriter and receptionist at a vaginal rejuvenation clinic and as an insatiable lover that does not play by the rules adds an unpredictable newness to L Word's cast and script. But for that same reason the character does not congeal into the kind of stable stock character required of a commercial television series, even one about lesbians. This momentary focus on television can be instructive in giving another angle to this decade's mainstreaming of queer programming.

With the greater visibility of queer audiences, generated in many ways through the rise of lesbian-centered independent films in the 1990s, cable television in particular began to see queer programming as viable. Queer audiences became a new niche market and their sexual lives a way to re-dramatize the repetitious content of serial melodramas for a broader mainstream audience. This shift in television can be mapped also in cinema, with the Hollywood industry's search for new audiences and new material to re-enliven its generic formulas. This non-celebratory angle on queer inclusion in Hollywood productions does not claim that this moment is purely a translation of subculture into mainstream cultural capital. As Itty Bitty suggests, the new wave of American feminism is a queered one that must tackle the new landscape of consumer culture and the institutionalization of the ideals of earlier waves of feminism. It must do so while shedding the fantasy of innocence, as its own politics and art activism cannot completely divorce itself from commercial culture, mainstream media, and even narratives of romance.

Keeping Itty Bitty's framing of the question of mainstreaming in mind, queer Hollywood productions should incite neither celebration nor dismissal. What is needed instead is an eye that is once again attuned to subtext rather than what is made immediately visible, even if what is made visible is a previously taboo queer sexuality. Guin's work in non-explicitly queer Hollywood movies trains the viewer to pay attention to subtext. While the dominant storylines of these movies fall into generic heterosexual categories, moments of queer innuendo and eroticism surface, for instance in Rayne's intimate friendship with another female captive at the carnival in BloodRayne or Guin's cameo in a "lesbian" fantasy scene in American Psycho. In these moments, Guin's long-standing work in lesbian-centered image-making creeps into main storylines. What is queer about these moments is less the sexual undertone between two women than the layer of unpredictability and unknown given to both story and characters—the promise of an entire world just outside the visible one. When subtext is read not for what is repressed in order to bring it into visibility alongside the dominant text, but rather as signs for the limitations of the visible text and the complex worlds it cannot represent, we have something like Guin's signature erotic dark comedy.

Guin's most current projects include traveling with Itty Bitty Titty Committee as it steams up the international festival circuit, two short films in post-production, a pilot for Oxygen TV about stalkers and a movie for Lifetime TV about a high school gay straight alliance, and Go Fish 2 with Rose Troche.

*Note: I use the term “queer” to designate both a broad umbrella category designating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender queer and a more generalized tactic of undoing heterosexual and gender norms. Although the term “queer” has its own specific history alongside and oftentimes in contention with the other identifications I am using it to represent, I choose to use it precisely because it is a slippery term. It is important to note that bisexual, transgender, and gender queer as sexual identifications and subcultures have been historically marginalized even as they have been lumped together under queer or as additives behind lesbian and gay.