PARADISE (2023): CRUISING MEMORIES AT BADA, PAGODA, SEONGDONG, AND GEUKDONG THEATERS IN SEOUL

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze memories of cruising at the Bada, Pagoda, Seongdong, and Geukdong theaters in Seoul during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, based on the narrative of the Korean documentary Paradise (2023). A hermeneutic analysis was conducted that emphasized the characters' stories, identifying memories of cruising from a queer perspective. To facilitate the analysis, four implicit categories were structured in the short documentary through the editing process: queer homosexuals, queer queens and bamboo shoots, cruising codes, and the cartography of the theaters. As provisional conclusions (in line with the perspective of futurity and the utopia of possible worlds), it is highlighted that the memories of cruising, in the theaters analyzed, reflect worlds that are products of concrete hopes, of imagining and constructing through resistance, spontaneity, verbal, gestural, and bodily codes; and a cartography of space that does not obey exclusively a consumerist purpose.