Flaming Classics

Alexander Doty is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Lehigh University. He is author of MakingThings Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture ,(1993) and is co-editor of Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian andQueer Essays on Popular Culture (1995).

• Acknowledgments, Introduction, ONE Render unto Cesare: The Queerness of Caligari, TWO “My Beautiful Wickedness”: The Wizard of Oz as Lesbian Fantasy, THREE Queerness, Comedy, and The Women, FOUR The Queer Aesthete, the Diva, and The Red Shoes, FIVE Everyone’s Here for Love: Bisexuality and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, SIX “He’s a transvestite!” “Ah, not exactly.” How Queer Is My Psycho, Permissions, Index

"What makes Flaming Classics so refreshing is not so much its innovative angle as its conversational edge. Instead of the autoerotic jargon that all too often excites film critics while leaving their audiences unsatisfied, Doty's intelligent, accessible analyses convert his discourse into a pleasurable intercourse between writers and readers of both academic and pop-culture texts." -- RainTaxi"...peeks into new spaces with a sharp, funny eye to the tornado that continues to rage between marginalized queer cultures and mainstream cinema." -- Rain Taxi"Flaming Classics by Alexander Doty turns up the temperature on gay currents in cinema from Caligari to Psycho" -Flaunt.""This year's many books that probe the sexual nature of film, film stars and filmmakers could stock a mini-library. Part of the entertaining group is FlamingClassics by Alexander Doty, who argues that "The Wizard of Oz" is a lesbian fantasy -- a notion that many "friends of Dorothy" might passionately debate." -- Publishers Weekly"...Doty often takes a fresh approach to overexamined works." -- Library Journal