Luca Guadagnino rejects queerbaiting accusation: “Everything we do is ambiguous and cannot be nailed down”
Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino has spoken out against claims that his films are guilty of ‘queerbaiting’. These accusations focus on the main character Lee, played by rising star Timothée Chalamet.
When asked by i-d about Lee’s sexual orientation, the filmmaker said, “let’s leave it in the eyes of the beholder”. He justified this reply by referencing how this makes sense in real life. “Everything we do is ambiguous and cannot be nailed down and narrowed down to one thing,” Guadagnino said. “Do you believe when people tell you ‘I am this thing’, that that’s what they are?”
He added: “The unconscious never lies, and I prefer to see the behaviour of people as opposed to what they say.”
The director confessed that up until now, he didn’t know queerbaiting was. However, during the piece, i-d defined the term as “the idea of capitalising on the appeal of a queer audience by alluding to the idea of being interested in someone of the same gender.”
Guadagnino then progressed with a different perspective, stating: “But there’s also ‘straight’-baiting – that’s just baiting. Opportunistic behaviour isn’t part of one specific group of people. Everyone is opportunistic somehow.”
The director’s next book adaptation will be Bones And All. The film is based on Camille DeAngelis’ book and will follow a “young woman on the margins of society” as she falls in love with a “disenfranchised drifter”.
Bones and All will be released on Friday, November 25th.
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