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Everything lost? On the interaction of queerness and dementia in Axel Ranisch's Dicke Mädchen (2011)

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores the representation of dementia and queer relationships in the prizewinning film Dicke Mädchen (2011), which is part of German alternative cinema. It examines the various interplays, reciprocal disturbances, and intersections between age, gender and the intertwinement of female dementia and male queerness in order to illustrate how this link blurs traditional categories based on binaries and fosters the emergence of queer desires. Simultaneously, the film visually and narratively reminds its characters of the societal norms surrounding them and thus reinforces heteronormative structures, which, for the male protagonists, make a lasting queer romance impossible. Therefore, we argue that although the film challenges traditional representations of dementia, age, heteronormativity, and care, there is also a clear tendency by the film's narrative and visual framework towards the containment of the non-normative imaginary freedoms it projects. While male queerness and female dementia are first lovingly and creatively explored, they are finally subjected to expulsion and death. • The film innovatively portrays queerness in closed domestic spaces but indirectly reinforces Otherness and re-naturalizes heterosexuality. • The use of comedy in dementia narratives allows to shift the focus from caregiving to retaining the agency of those afflicted with dementia. • Alternative views on masculinity, queerness, and ageing emerge but remain licensed transgressions, supporting the prevailing social order. • Queer theory can reshape understandings of dementia and ageing by offering new possibilities and understandings.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101309
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,340
OpenAlex ID: W4407310340
FWCI:
Cites: 43
Cited by:
Related to: 10