Mode of Thought

It is almost standard fare these days to encounter some sort of themed criticism page, whether it be QueerViews, 3 Black Chicks, Ain't It Cool News, or even Roger Ebert. Each of these reviewers bases their formula around the specific audience they cater to. However, one thing these pages share is the type of criticism they engage in, journalistic. I intend to enage in more academic criticism, utilizing various theoretical positions to define the structures created in the film. However, I think that certain modes of academic criticism, however vital, have become somewhat outdated by contemporary history. Does Marxist ideology still offer a valid perspective when Marxism blatantly failed as a vaid alternative governing system in the years since Vito Russo first published his works? Certainly Althusser's concepts of state apparatuses are valid ideas, but his blatantly atheist ideology does little to help engage the theological arguments over the validity of homosexuality as a type of emotional and physical love. Furthermore, queer theory itself has certain aspects which could use modification. Is it necesary to borrow so many feminist theories and apply them to theorizing about gay men? AIDS has ceased being a gay epidemic and become a global pandemic. As such, does the debate over AIDS treatment need to be intrinsically linked to the abortion debate? In twenty years, things have changed, not necesarily for good or bad, but they have changed, and perhaps a shift in the paradigm is necesary also. The issue of gay marriage itself shifts from moral to legal implications. The gay rights movement is changing, but the queer theory movement is static. Do we need a change, now that film is much more out of the closet?