Rural intentions: Sexuality in Danish homeland cinema

This article focuses on the central importance of issues of sexuality, gender and the body in Danish homeland cinema. It demonstrates how the characters’ physical and emotional bond with the land and the livestock has a significant physical component which, considered in connection with a libidinal crisis of the films’ young couples, may be taken to harbour a sexual potential. Many of the films illustrate crises of procreative heterosexuality that threaten the rural heritage. The article posits marked sexual overtones in the aesthetic interdependence of virtue and villainy and the way moral encounters are staged. Sexually aggressive characters who threaten a passive couple may function as necessary sexual activators. Likewise, natural forces that provoke intense physical and emotional reactions are examined for their sexual associations. Apart from dangerous forces and characters, homeland cinema features many positively portrayed queer characters and relationships, which include male homoerotic relationships involving the hero.