LGBTQIA+ moviegoers are unpredictable. Sometimes, efforts from major studios and streamers to make new entries in the queer cinema canon will get greeted with shrugs from the rainbow brigade. Most notably, in the 2020s, Bros and The Prom didn’t garner much LGBTQIA+ enthusiasm. Both projects had an abundance of queer characters, sure. However, they were just a little too safe and standard to really excel with this demographic.
In contrast to Bros and The Prom, there was no pride parade marketing or pre-release attempts to placate the LGBTQIA+ market with this year’s theatrical releases of Conclave and Black Bag. There initial promotional campaigns communicated features that were cold, “serious” movies for adults. In execution, both are star-studded delights full of crackling entertainment and enough sassy retorts, backstabbing, and women refusing to be quiet to become queer cinema nirvana. You never know what strikes a chord with any sector of the moviegoing public. Just look at the fervent life Conclave and Black Bag have taken on with queer people.
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Conclave especially excelled as the source of endless memes from queer social media users in 2024’s final months. Queer viewers had latched onto this saga of cardinals sniping each other in the Vatican and weren’t letting go. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, Ralph Fiennes wasn’t showing up to promote the feature’s Peacock debut directly appealing to 50+ year-olds who love CBS programming. Instead, he recited Jools Lebron’s “very demure, very mindful” speech on CNN. It was an act that made the co-anchors in the room crack up with delight. Online queer Conclave fans, meanwhile, gobbled up this nod to a phrase that had become a part of everyday queer verbiage. Now Conclave’s stars were practically talking directly to its fanbase.
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Black Bag, meanwhile, hasn’t quite inspired the same level of meme-age as Conclave. However, a Black Bag image of Cate Blanchett wielding a gun has already become rampant on Instagram. Perhaps it’s a possible harbinger of future LGBTQIA+ meme lords taking various Black Bag lines and turning them into go-to punchlines. Regardless, Letterboxd is already full of queer folks professing their adoration of the feature while many facets of the film feel tailor-made for queer sensibilities. A dark joke of Michael Fassbender’s protagonist hiding a gun inside a picnic basket while fishing with a potential traitor is a prime example.
Much more unites the two films, though, beyond gays making memes about them and hailing from the same domestic distributor (Focus Features). This includes their deployment of dark humor in “stuffy” confines. Conclave and Black Bag chronicle exploits in the Vatican and a British intelligence agency, respectively. These are hallowed grounds usually reserved for stripping away queer rights, not to mention stories elevating the importance of powerful cis-het figures. Yet both Conclave and Black Bag emphasize the dark comedy potentiality within these locations. Suddenly, these domiciles are the perfect vessels for catty comebacks and stinging barbs when dramatic queens enter the picture.
This quality is the one that really informs the respective queer fanbases of Conclave and Black Bag. Much like Ken Russell’s The Devils and countless other films of yesteryear, LGBTQIA+ moviegoers gravitate towards subversive features daring to put queer-friendly material in locations where they “don’t” belong. It’s not as surprising to see Ryan Murphy evoke Glee’s candy-coated musical numbers in The Prom. 2022’s Bros often felt like a standard rom-com that happened to star Billy Eichner and Luke MacFarlane. Cinema that resonates most with queer folks tends to have dangerousness to it, not just memories of the past.
Conclave and Black Bag, meanwhile, enter domains where great power resides and fills them with elements that queers can’t get enough. There are enough salacious twists and backstabbings in both films to fill up multiple seasons of any reality show. Both carve time dedicated to women (namely queer icons like Cate Blanchett and Isabella Rossellini) being loud and pronounced. After all, these are films where ladies give unforgettable monologues punctuated by curtsies and pull out guns at the drop of a hat. Conclave and Black Bag also hail from directors (Edward Berger and Steven Soderbergh, respectively) imbuing each production with visual finesse.
Compared to Red, White, & Royal Blue or Uncle Frank‘s listless imagery, Conclave and Black Bag dazzle with their framing. The former feature often defaults to staging evoking classical paintings. Meanwhile, Black Bag’s very precise blocking subconsciously instructs viewers to take notice of every corner of the frame. You never know where a clue or betrayal could be lurking! Juxtaposing such richly satisfying eye candy with delightfully trashy fun just enhances their irresistibility to LGBTQIA+ audiences. Conclave and Black Bag’s most entertaining impulses feel so extra excitingly “intrusive” when inhabiting camerawork and blocking reminiscent of buttoned-up cinema. The dissonance is so much more exciting than the derivative corporate Pride Month energy of The Prom.
Black Bag’s queer-friendliness also stems from it continuing long-standing trend within LGTBQIA+ cinema. This new Soderbergh feature examines cis-het relationships with a clinical, aloof gaze emphasizing how bizarre these connections are. From the works of Douglas Sirk to John Waters’ movies like Serial Mom, queer cinema often depicts classical cis-het romances in very arch, melodramatic turns that accentuate how preposterous heteronormative impulses truly are.
The Vatican and a British intelligence agency become the perfect vessels for catty comebacks and stinging barbs when dramatic queens enter the picture.
Black Bag’s depiction of George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean’s (Cate Blanchett) relationship firmly echoes this trend. The duo are very sexy together, and genuine affection courses through their rapport. However, as supporting characters like Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), can attest, they’re also both insane. Even the most ribald R-rated comedies like works from Judd Apatow eventually come around to supporting how “stable” and “beautiful” standard monogamous cis-het relationships are. Black Bag, meanwhile, never waves in depicting how bizarre Woodhouse and St. Jean’s dynamic is. It’s the kind of outrageous manifestation of cis-het connections that’s always informed iconic pieces of queer cinema.
As for Conclave, one has to wonder if the way religious institutions adversely impact queer souls informs some of this film’s LGBTQIA+ fanbase. Countless queer folks have enough religious trauma to fill the Grand Canyon twice over. Such trauma was usually at the expense of authority figures, like cardinals. In Conclave, the fallibility and vulnerability of those individuals is the whole point of the story. Not only that, but the entire story is about how these folks can’t keep the modern world detached from the Vatican no matter how hard they try. Combining all that with Conclave’s heaping of witty retorts and grandiose imagery, there’s clearly no shortage of reasons this film’s struck a chord with queer folks.
Most urgently, though, Conclave and Black Bag’s unexpected queer fanbases reflect the need for Hollywood to produce all kinds of mid-budget movies. Scoring such out-of-left-field praise is only possible with original features that haven’t had all their idiosyncratic wrinkles ironed out. Relying only on franchises is seen as a “safe” option for shareholders and executives. However, that inherently limits surprises in what films resonate with which demographics. It’s risky launching something new on the big screen. However, that route is the only way to produce new gems in the queer cinema canon. You can’t just start crafting a piece of art declaring it will inherently be a favorite among the gay neurodivergents populating Letterboxd. Spontaneity and risks lead to glorious queer moviegoer experiences, like watching Conclave and Black Bag in a crowded theater.♦
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