The Search for Queer Cinema

U.S. volleyball star Erik Shoji comes out as queer

Erik Shoji has spent a decade spiking balls on the world’s biggest stages for the US men's volleyball team, and now he’s sharing something even more personal. In a video posted to both his Instagram and TikTok pages, the 35-year-old libero sat beside his snoozing labradoodle and said plainly, “I’m here to tell the world today that I am queer.”Shoji admitted the moment felt “scary, but freeing at the same time,” noting that self-acceptance took l…

The search for queer cinema

The Milanese filmmaker Luchino Visconti was both a Marxist and an aristocrat. He found squalor amid opulence and beauty in decay, and is perhaps best known today for directing Death in Venice – a clammy-palmed yet masterly 1971 movie about an ageing composer who encounters unattainable perfection in the form of a 14-year-old boy. It’s a picture with a narrow focus on an unappealing protagonist’s inappropriate desire, but its unhinged commitment …

US volleyball captain Erik Shoji comes out as queer

Erik Shoji, captain for the US men's volleyball team, has come out as queer in a powerful video on his social media.