Prof. Lupo presents research on LGBT biopics

Mae Hunt, Crier Staff

Last Tuesday, February 10, Professor Jonathan Lupo offered a presentation called “Setting the Record Straight” during which he discussed three queer biographical films, or biopics, titled Pedro, Milk and J. Edgar.

The three biopics, written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, follow the lives of different gay men and their individual challenges stemmed from their sexuality.

Professor Lupo has spent the past six months perfecting his argument. which focused particularly on “How gay lives are constructed for film viewers” as well as “How gay lives are represented not only in film, but in history.”

In Milk (2008), Black shares the story of Havey Milk, a gay activist who fought for equal rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official.

Professor Lupo argued that the film’s “Conventionality engendered its wide critical and popular appeal and consequently its political value.”

Pedro (2008), shares the story of Pedro Zamora who was an openly gay AIDS educator as well as a cast member on MTV’s reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco.

This film depicts how MTV emphasizes Zamora’s story, “At the expense of Zamora himself,” due to the subtle ridicule and mockery of this character throughout.

Finally, J. Edgar (2011), on the other hand, follows the life of J. Edgar Hoover who was a powerful head of the F.B.I.

Here, Professor Lupo explainsed that “Black mirrors the ambiguous queerness of its protagonist with a nonlinear style that restricts point of view to the subject himself.”

Therefore, commenting “Not only on Hoover’s obsessive desire to know all about his targets but also on the biopic audience’s need to know its subject through the film itself.”

In large, the presentation argued that all three films “Work to both exploit and subvert the tropes and political potential of the cinema’s most enduring genre.”

Professor Lupo is an openly gay communication professor, who also specializes in film and television studies.

Professor Lupo shared that he is “Always looking for opportunities to bring my life story and research interests together.”

He has plans to present the same topic at a conference in New Orleans this April.

Additionally, he has hopes to ultimately turn it into an argument and eventually reach publication.