Stories with Queer Identities

“Stories with Queer Identities” analyzes representations of queer characters in Bier’s films Like It Never Was Before (Pensionat Oskar, 1995), Once in a Lifetime (Livet är en schlager, 2000), and Love Is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør, 2012), and in her television series The Night Manager (2016). Anders Marklund argues that Bier’s career shift from ‘modest-sized Swedish productions to larger international ones’ parallels a movement away from nuance and toward broad stereotyping in her work’s approach to queer characters. He connects this shift to each film’s specific context and intended audience, linking, for instance, Like It Never Was Before to Sweden’s gay rights movement in the 1990s and considering The Night Manager’s Corky according to the series’ function as mainstream, heteronormative entertainment. Marklund concludes that Bier’s more recent and ‘elegant transnational productions’ re-marginalize queer characters in a manner reminiscent of earlier problematic film stereotypes.