Reattachment Theory

Queer Cinema of Remarriage

Lee Wallace

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781478008101
  9781478006817
• eBook ISBN:
  9781478009139
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

In Reattachment Theory Lee Wallace argues that homosexuality—far from being the threat to "traditional" marriage that same-sex marriage opponents have asserted—is so integral to its reimagining that all marriage is gay marriage. Drawing on the history of marriage, Stanley Cavell's analysis of Hollywood comedies of remarriage, and readings of recent gay and lesbian films, Wallace shows that queer experiments in domesticity have reshaped the affective and erotic horizons of heterosexual marriage and its defining principles: fidelity, exclusivity, and endurance. Wallace analyzes a series of films—Dorothy Arzner's Craig's Wife (1936); Tom Ford's A Single Man (2009); Lisa Cholodenko's High Art (1998), Laurel Canyon (2002), and The Kids Are All Right (2010); and Andrew Haigh's Weekend (2011) and 45 Years (2015)—that, she contends, do not simply reflect social and legal changes; they fundamentally alter our sense of what sexual attachment involves as both a social and a romantic form.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Queer Skepticism and Gay Marriage
• 2. From Gay Marriage to Remarriage
• 3. Dorothy Arzner’s Wife
• 4. Tom Ford and His Kind
• 5. Lisa Cholodenko’s Attachment Trilogy
• 6. Reattachment Theory
• 7. The Remarriage Crisis
• Reacknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index