Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Obscured to the Camera: Reading Absolute Queerness in Found Footage Cinema examines the Found Footage film: a subgenre of horror that relies on conventions of amateur/handheld-appearing cinematography, group improvisation, documentary cinema, and evolving audio/visual recording technology as part of their construction. These films, while about fantastical events, strive for a constructed aesthetic of authenticity to create the impression that the footage is discovered after the events of the narrative have already come to pass, and that the contents of the footage are true. However, for a subgenre where so much horror is derived from the impossible invading the world of the mundane, protagonists still seem to mostly demonstrate normative Subjectivity, as first theorized by Jacques Lacan. This upholding of normative subjectivity for its characters means that queerness is frequently absent from the subgenre. This project proposes a phenomenon called absolute queerness, based on Lee Edelman’s exploration of queerness as being ultimately undefinable in the Symbolic order, and therefore not a trait of a Subject as Lacan intended. Absolute queerness proposes that the threat at the heart of found footage films is not actually an embodied person or monster, but rather a hole at the center of the narrative where everything excluded by the Symbolic order – Lacan’s ab-sens, that which cannot be defined, having literally Non-Meaning – threatens the very concept of Subjectivity. The protagonists behind the cameras of these films cannot successfully record their encounters with absolute queerness, and their repeated attempts to do so lead to the structure of their reality being affected by symptoms of fragmenting (where the protagonist/subject is literally separated from aspects of their body or personhood) and glitches (where the laws of nature, time, and space no longer apply). These repeated failed confrontations lead not only to the collapsing of these realities, but to characters who attempt to encounter it being annihilated – beyond death and into literal non-existence. By examining three Found Footage films in dialogue with concepts of Queer Theory, and psychoanalysis, this project theorizes absolute queerness as a new opportunity for finding queer readings in a genre where queerness is still largely absent onscreen.

Date

3-24-2026

Committee Chair

Bibler, Michael

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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