C.R.A.Z.Y.: A Queer Film Classic

By Robert Schwartzwald

QUEER FILM CLASSICS is a critically acclaimed series that launched in 2009, edited by Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays, covering some of the most important and influential films about and/or by LGBT people made between 1950 and 2005, and written by leading LGBT film scholars and critics.

A Queer Film Classic on the 2005 film by French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee (best known for Dallas Buyers Club and Wild), about a young gay man named Zac growing up in the 1960s and '70s who struggles to find his sense of self amidst a "crazy" family of four brothers, a loving mother, and a macho father who seeks to cure him when the boy reveals that he prefers dolls to hockey, David Bowie to Patsy Cline, and his cousin's boyfriend Paul's luscious lips to those of the girl next door. With exquisite attention to period detail, at once highly realistic and magical, C.R.A.Z.Y. chronicles Zac's place in an evolving family romance set against the backdrop of Quebec's "Quiet Revolution," when traditional Catholic culture made way for the modern age. The film won a best picture Genie Award (Canada's version of the Oscars) in 2006.

Robert Schwartzwald's book discusses the film's context within a turbulent Quebec, and how French Canada is situated between, and conflicted about, American and French popular culture.

*Watch the original trailer for C.R.A.Z.Y....