The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

There are all these languages that keep people in place that conform us to a set of terms. It's why I think the whole idea of identity as something that is something of a straitjacket. That most of us like to think of as natural and innate. That we just find and go, 'Yeah, that's who I am.'

I value what I learned from being cast in the margins and what that felt like.

Todd Haynes Quotes