Curating Deviance: Programming the Queer Film Canon

by Marc Francis

In Curating Deviance, Marc Francis scavenges film history for signs of vibrant, wayward life in the film programming of US art house and repertory cinemas between 1968 and 1989. Francis examines how creative and savvy programmers screened films by the likes of John Waters, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Russ Meyer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and a bevy of others in major cities across the United States, forming intertextual constellations in their repertory calendars. These programs allied a dizzying range of sexual and gendered outlaws, including stigmatized practices often overlooked by LGBT-focused queer theory. Curating Deviance reveals how repertory and art cinemas built a coalition of outcasts stigmatized for their taboo desires or identities, rekindling queer utopian imaginaries.

302 pages, Paperback

Expected publication February 17, 2026

About the author

Marc Francis was born and raised in Chorley, Lancashire. He is married to his long-suffering wife, Kelly. His passion is writing comedy, and takes all his inspiration from real-life situations and observes what goes on around him.

His 2022 Debut novel “Journal of a Husband” is a collection of hilarious stories and experiences from the perspective of a Husband. His writing is raw, sweary, a bit rude, but brutally honest and always with warm sentiment.