This project engages in a close feminist, queer, and disability cultural studies reading of several Hollywood films-- Call Me By Your Name (2017), Five Feet Apart (2019), and Isn't It Romantic (2019). I argue that while the films display more visible representations of queer, disabled, and fat identities, these representations are limited and simplistic. More often than not, they reinforce problematic stereotypes and further “other” these identities as non-normative. However, I also investigate how these confining representations often exceed beyond these “simplistic identity narratives,” and bring in moments of queering and disabling the characters past normativity. In regards to these moments, I offer a critical reading practice that is informed by queer and crip theory to interpret these scenes as moments of exceeding. Unfortunately, the characters are often assimilated to a more socially acceptable identity by the film’s narrative arc ending with them being alone, “cured” or, sadly, dead. Expanding upon the “Bury Your Gays” trope to encompass how this is done to disabled and fat characters within digital literary texts, I propose the notion of queer heartbreaks as a way to analyze these endings. Analyzing the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020), I look to the past for guidance about how to create a vision of a more liberated and imaginative future for queer, fat, and disabled representations.
