Bruce LaBruce (born January 3, 1964) is a Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Life and career

LaBruce was born in Tiverton, Ontario. He has claimed both Justin Stewart and Bryan Bruce as his birth name in different sources. He studied film at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

in Toronto and wrote for '' Cineaction'' magazine, curated by Robin Wood, his teacher. He first gained public attention with the publication of the queer punk zine '' J.D.s'', which he co-edited with G.B. Jones. He has written and photographed for a variety of publications including ''Vice'', the former Nerve.com and '' BlackBook Magazine'', and has been a columnist for the Canadian music magazine ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

'' and Toronto's '' Eye Weekly'', as well as a contributing editor and photographer for New York's ''

Index Magazine ''index Magazine'' was a New York City-based publication with interviews with art and culture figures. It was created by Peter Halley and Bob Nickas in 1996, running until late 2005. Covering the burgeoning indie culture of the 1990s, ''Index'' ...

''. He has also been published in '' Toronto Life'', the ''

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'' and ''

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''. His movie, '' Otto; or Up with Dead People'' debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. '' L.A. Zombie'' was banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2010 because, in the opinion of Australian censors, it would have been refused classification. However, the film was subsequently able to screen at OutTakes, a New Zealand lesbian and gay international film festival, in May 2011. In March 2011, LaBruce directed a performance of

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

's opera '' Pierrot Lunaire'' at the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. This iteration of the opera included gender diversity,

castration Castration is any action, surgery, surgical, chemical substance, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical cas ...

scenes and dildos, as well as portraying Pierrot as a transgender man. He subsequently also filmed this adaptation as the 2014 theatrical film '' Pierrot Lunaire''. Beginning with '' Gerontophilia'' in 2013, LaBruce dropped some of the more sexually explicit aspects of his filmmaking style. He retained his traditional interest in exploring sexual taboos, dramatizing an intergenerational relationship between a young man and a senior citizen, but opted to do so within a film that would be more palatable to a mainstream audience."Marie-Hélène Thibault et Pier-Gabriel Lajoie dans «Gerontophilia», un film de Bruce LaBruce tourné à Montréal"
''

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

'', December 19, 2012. In 2018, LaBruce directed the short film ''Scotch Egg'' as part of Erika Lust's ''XConfessions'' series. The short is about a Scottish gay man who has sex with a woman in a gay bar. LaBruce was inspired to create the film after reading a confession sent to ''XConfessions'' by a heterosexual woman who fantasized about going to a gay bar and having sex with a homosexual man. His short film collection '' It Is Not the Pornographer That Is Perverse...'' was released in 2018. The title refers to Rosa von Praunheim's film '' It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives'' (1971). In 2024, his film '' The Visitor'' was selected in the Panorama section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival where it premiered February 17.

Themes and style

According to Courtney Fathom Sell of ''South Coast Today'', some of his films explore themes of sexual and interpersonal transgression against cultural norms, frequently blending the artistic and production techniques of

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...

with gay pornography.Punched in the Nose: An Interview with Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce
. '' South Coast Today'', February 27, 2008. LaBruce's filmmaking style is marked by a blend of explicitly pornographic depictions of sex with more conventional

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

and filmmaking techniques, as well as an interest in extreme topics which mainstream audiences might dismiss as shocking or disturbing

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

s."Bruce LaBruce: There Is a Certain Romance to It". ''L.A. Record'', June 26, 2009. For instance, his films have depicted scenes of sexual fetish and

paraphilia A paraphilia is an experience of recurring or intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, places, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. It has also been defined as a sexual interest in anything other than a legally consenting human ...

, BDSM, gang rape, racially-motivated violence, amputee fetishism, gerontophilia, male and female

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

, twincest, and zombie and

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

sexuality. He has frequently been identified with the New Queer Cinema movement that emerged in the 1990s, although at the height of that movement's prominence, he rejected the association on the grounds that he felt more personally aligned with the queercore movement. The queercore movement was born in the 1980s and LaBruce was one of the fathers. Noted as the avant-garde and unapologetic gay answer to the punk movement, queercore expressed the very same discontent with society as the punks were stating.

Filmography

Feature films

*'' No Skin Off My Ass'' (1991) *'' Super 8½'' (1994) *'' Hustler White'' (1996), co-directed & written with Rick Castro *''Skin Flick'' / ''Skin Gang'' (1999) *'' The Raspberry Reich'' (2004) *'' Otto; or, Up with Dead People'' (2008) *'' L.A. Zombie'' (2010) *'' Gerontophilia'' (2013) *'' Pierrot Lunaire'' (2014) *'' The Misandrists'' (2017) *'' Ulrike's Brain'' (2017) *'' It is Not the Pornographer That is Perverse...'' (2018) for CockyBoys studio *'' Saint-Narcisse'' (2020) *''The Affairs of Lidia'' (2022) * '' The Visitor'' (2024)

Short films

*''Boy, Girl'' (1987) *''I Know What It's Like to Be Dead'' (1987) *'' Bruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home Movies'' (1988), co-directed with Candy Parker *''A Case for the Closet'' (1992) *''The Post Queer Tour'' (1992) *''Slam!'' (1992) *''Come As You Are'' (2000) *''Give Piece of Ass a Chance'' (2007) *''The Bad Breast, or The Case of Theda Lange'' (2010) *''Weekend in Alphaville'' (2010) *''Défense de fumer'' (2014) *''Refugee's Welcome'' (2017) *''Scotch Egg'' (2018) *''Valentin, Pierre and Catalina'' (2018)

Books

*''Ride Queer, Ride'' (1996) *''The Reluctant Pornographer'' (1997)

Awards

* 2019:

XBIZ Award XBIZ Awards, renamed as XMAs Awards from 2025 onwards, are given annually to honor "individuals, companies, performers and products that play an essential part in the growth and success of adult films". They have been described by XBIZ publisher ...

– Gay Director of the YearXBIZ Award Winners
'' XBIZ'', January 2019

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Labruce, Bruce 1964 births Alt porn Living people Canadian columnists Film directors from Toronto Screenwriters from Toronto Film producers from Ontario Canadian male screenwriters Canadian pornographic film directors Canadian experimental filmmakers English-language film directors German-language film directors Canadian gay writers Canadian LGBTQ artists Canadian LGBTQ film directors Canadian LGBTQ screenwriters Queercore People from Bruce County Canadian theatre directors Canadian horror film directors Canadian photographers Canadian contemporary artists LGBTQ photographers 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people 20th-century Canadian screenwriters 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian screenwriters 21st-century Canadian male writers Gay screenwriters 20th-century Canadian LGBTQ people