Everything lost? On the interaction of queerness and dementia in Axel Ranisch's Dicke Mädchen (2011).

This article explores the representation of dementia and queer relationships in the prizewinning film Dicke Mädchen (2011), which is part of German alternative cinema. It examines the various interplays, reciprocal disturbances, and intersections between age, gender and the intertwinement of female dementia and male queerness in order to illustrate how this link blurs traditional categories based on binaries and fosters the emergence of queer desires. Simultaneously, the film visually and narratively reminds its characters of the societal norms surrounding them and thus reinforces heteronormative structures, which, for the male protagonists, make a lasting queer romance impossible.