A Queer Ode to a VHS Galaxy Not That Far, Far Away
As Solo, Ready Player One and Stranger Things prove the retro might of VHS era cinema, Watching Skies – Star Wars, Spielberg and Us is a universal and affectionate tale about the pop cultural remembrances of a 1980s gay kid.
Like many a child in a 1980s world of VCRs, Reagan and Atari, Mark O’Connell wanted to be one of the kids on the Star Warstoy commercials. Jaws, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Supermanand Star Wars weren’t just changing cinema – they were making lasting highways into video stores, toy boxes and childhoods like never before.
In this energetic tale of a gay Star Wars kid with too many Princess Leia figurines, O’Connell flies a gilded X-Wing through a universe of bedroom remakes of Return of the Jedi, close encounters with early crush Christopher Reeve, a gay honeymoon on Jaws’ Amity Island, and the first gay marriage on the lot at Pinewood Studios.
A unique study on how a rich galaxy of movies shape big and vital cinema to this day, Watching Skies reclaims pop culture’s busiest movie decade for LGBT readers. A love letter to the queer pulses of San Francisco and the shared histories it has with the work of Spielberg and Lucas,Watching Skies is about how a shark, two motherships, some gremlins, ghostbusters, and a man of steel jumped a whole generation to hyperspace.
Mark Gatiss, writer of Doctor Who and Sherlock, says about Watching Skies: ‘A fantastic personal account of one of the greatest chapters in movie history. An unmitigated delight.’
Watching Skies – Star Wars, Spielberg and Us is available now in the UK and will be released in the US on September 1st, 2018, pre-order now on Amazon
