Queer Representations of Class in Folkbildningsterror

A film introduction by Atlanta Ina Beyer

In January 2019, a collective of queer film lovers started a new monthly series of film screenings in
Frankfurt/Main, Germany. The series was called Independent Cinema im ExZess, and took place at the
long-established subcultural space ExZess in Frankfurt‘s Bockenheim district. As a kick-off, on January
9th, 2019, the group screened the Swedish film Folkbildningsterror. They invited me to do a Q&A with
the director of the film, Lasse Långström, and to give an introduction to the film, based on an article
that I had previously published. I am grateful for the opportunity, and all the thoughts and words shared
in the discussion afterwards. As a document of the particular moment in time we are currently passing
through together, and for those who couldn‘t take part in the screening, I am publishing the introduction
here.

Folkbildningsterror is an anti-capitalist, glitter-punk, left-autonomous-queer agit-prop musical brought

to us by Göteborg‘s Förenade Musikalaktivister. It is charming and hilariously funny, a visual spectacle
in jarring colors. Definitely not romantic comedy, rather a celebration of queer communities and
unlikely political alliances.
According to director Lasse Långström, it was created as a response to the electoral victory of Sweden‘s
right wing populist party, the Sweden Democrats, that took just under 13 per cent in the 2014
parliamentary election. Folkbildningsterror is an attempt at an intervention against the looming shift to
an increasingly reactionary neoliberalism, a call for a turnaround and change of times. The film is
directed against the slandering and discrimination of minorities, as well as against proposed legal
reforms that aim to dismantle the Swedish welfare state.
The focus is on the trans* characters Theo and Kleopatra Caztrati, as well as a nameless, notoriously
tense and angry rabbit. Theo’s mother is chronically ill but is nonetheless harassed by the employment
office. Theo wants to help her, but he also has his own problems with the workfare system and a lack of
future prospects. On top of this, he’s occupied with thoughts of gender transitioning and unfulfilled
romantic desires. Cleopatra and the rabbit team up with Theo to help him help his mother, but their
common task soon becomes much bigger than first anticipated: They must save the welfare and free the
animals from Gothenburg's zoo. Throughout the movie, more and more people from different subsets of
the queer movement and subcultures join their cause.

The film’s first musical number shows trans woman/drag queen Kleopatra striding in a pink tull dress
across tarmac, fields, and railway tracks in a rainy Swedish landscape. She sings about a Europe that is
shifting shape, a coming storm and a change of times. The song reflects our own uncertain political

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times that often do feel like a storm. Given the current political conjuncture, it is not clear where it will
take us. Many countries in Europe and worlwide are shifting more and more towards the Right.
Aggressive neoliberal politics continue to destroy the material conditions of our lives. Moving in the
swamplands of defence, it’s hard to estimate, if we are standing at the abyss of fascism or if we will
manage to turn things around before it is too late.

Kleopatra demands quick action and a synchronization of different struggles. Our big bang is now, she
insists. Our shot at a future that is not to be catastrophic seems determined by our ability to come
together and forge political alliances that are strong enough to stop the rise of the Right. However, there
is no turning back to the old. Decades of neoliberal politics have only brought us into this quagmire.

Many on the Left are divided about what would be the best way to move forward now. Many demand a
turn back to class politics. The Left, they say, has lost the working class. They blame a supposedly
existing focus on gender, anti-racist and other minority politics in the past for the rise of the Right. In
these discussions, queer identity politics and class politics tend to be dealt with separately or posed as
opposites. Queer people are seldom represented as affected by neoliberal politics. They seem to be a
people without a class. This is rather interesting: After all, the precarious are neither all heterosexual,
nor can they always be assigned to just one of two binary genders.

It is also true, however, that class issues have not been much of a concern in queer movements for more
than some time, now. What does this say about the class-specific interests of such politics?

Demands for a purely formal, civic equality continue to form the backbone of the mainstream LGBTIQ
agenda. This kind of agenda had been been increasingly successful in progressive neoliberalism. In such
politics, queerness is understood above all as a sexual identity that is separate from other aspects like
race, gender, or class, and thus highlighted as a dominant if not singular marker of difference. Such a
narrow political horizon, that does not question structural inequalities like capitalism, heteronormativity,
racism, sexism or ableism that shape many queer lives, aims to benefit just the circle of already
privileged queers. However, the LGBTIQ++ movement is not homogenous. Current queer culture is
shaped by a fragmentation into endless subsets of queer identities, each with their own set of struggles.
While addressing hegemonies within each category of identity are necessary to achieve more
democratic movement building processes, class issues are rarely explicitly addressed here either.

To conceive of queer and class struggles as separate political fields not only severely limits the scope of
truly transformative queer politics but also diminishes the potential for a synchronization of different
fights that Kleopatra demands in our potential “Big Bang” moment. The majority of queers shares with

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the majority of all people that they will continue to lack better futures, until intersecting racialised,
classed, and gendered power inequalities are not yet overcome.

How then, do we forge the intersectional political alliances we so urgently need to deflect catastrophe
and collectively stir towards a better future?

Politics of representation – and therefore also film – can play an important part in this. Emancipatory
representations need to produce images of precarious lives that allow for more resistance. One way of
doing this is to support and strengthen (self-)representations of those subjects who normally remain
hidden or marginalised in notions and representations of class and queer identities. This not only allows
an expanded view of queer and class politics, but also allows us to renegotiate how we think about our
political affiliations – thereby making unlikely solidarities across ‘identitarian divides’ conceivable.

In its anarchic-flamboyant aesthetic reminiscent of the films of Bruce la Bruce or John Waters,
Folkbildningsterror produces queer and empowering representations of class. The film therefore makes
it possible to see and feel beyond the restrictions of the present in order to pursue better futures.

The film was developed and shot over three years by a collective of friends and activists from
Gothenburg. It is a film by, for and about working class subjects who rarely get airtime. Working with a
DIY-approach allowed them to renarrate and to create their own vision of what queer communities and
struggles against a reactionary neoliberalism could be all about.

The characters in the film depart from dominant and narrow notions of queer and class identities. Trans
positions – which remain marginalised even in queer (political) discourses – and precarious queer living
situations are central themes of the film. Queer and trans needs are formulated as class needs as well, as
part of the struggle for the good life for everyone. The characters want everything, for everyone, and for
free: free love, free choice of gender and access to hormones, a self-determined life instead of
exploitation, disciplining, state-sanctioned harassment, and pathologisation. Unlike suggested by
hegemonic queer political discourse, the protagonists are not interested in getting married and the
shallow politics of equality and recognition with their mere political concessions are not enough for
them. They protest together against transport ticket inspections, employment office harassment,
machoism, and deportations. They fight for a utopia that surpasses the limits of the (old) welfare state:
an actual “welfare society”. Rather than adapting to the limited options of the here and now, they insist
upon alternative ways of being together in the world, and ultimately upon a better world.

The film represents different forms of precarity, experiences of violence, exclusion, marginalisation, and
exploitation, and thus makes it possible to collectively reflect upon them. Ultimately,

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Folkbildningsterror is a film about solidarity, yet it also embraces conflict and contrasting political
stances. In the process of building alliances, the protagonists have to constantly negotiate varying
differences and manifold disputes. One is easily reminded of the stifling, painful political minefield that
queer organising can often feel like. Yet in its charmful portrayal of people and non-humans coming
together and together rising above, it also asks us to collectively dream bigger. Shifting between
fantasy-comedy, musical manifesto and familiar portrayals of urban western European queer scenes as
we know them, Folkbildningsterror creates a sort of dreamscape that does not merely pass as utopian
and unreal. In contrast, in this space of ambivalence it drafts a different image of what queer culture and
politics could be about.

With tongue-in-cheek humour, but nonetheless to be taken seriously, other forms of collectivity take
centre stage. The musical thus does both, it works to queer notions of class war and struggles, and it also
projects and redefines a queer utopia by putting forward a vision of new kinds of alliances across social
divides – across different experiences, identities, and positions.
I hope that you will very much enjoy the trip that Folkbildningsterror takes you on. We will screen the
movie now and we are very happy that Lasse Långström can be here tonight so we can talk about the
movie later. Be enchanted, dream big and form your own opinions.