Arse Bandits: Exploring Nostalgic Representations of Queerness in Gangster Films Sharif Mowlabocus Searching for politically useful representations of homosexuality in gangster films might at first glance appear a pointless task. A genre that celebrates archetypal heterosexual masculinity in its most crude and base forms, it is not the most obvious choice for developing queer readings, or for seeking to historicise queerness. This is a genre that uses racism, homophobia and misogyny in an almost casual manner, that rewards parasitic opportunism and glorifies violence to a degree verging on the pornographic. A brief look at the International Movie Database top 250 films illustrates the continuing popularity of the gangster genre, though I would argue that this has less to do with cinematic genius and more to do with upholding ideals of hegemonic masculinity in a world in which (at least according to British men’s magazines such as Loaded and Nuts) masculinity is supposedly under attack. This celebration of “real men” (i.e. white heterosexual masculine supremacy) can be understood as a defence against the supposed encroachment of feminism and lesbian and gay rights, of political correctness and of equal opportunities legislation. Claire Monk has commented on the 1990s fashion within film culture for older British crime films, stating that a reverence for films such as Get Carter and The Long Good Friday demonstrates an “uncritical, backward-looking self-referentiality and unacknowledged nostalgia” (172). Given the fact that part of this nostalgic appeal must surely lie in the forceful reassertion of hegemonic masculinity, the gangster film would appear an odd place to start discussing queer representation and histories. Despite this initial reading of the genre, however, I contend that such texts can operate as sites of sexual subversion, providing a counterpoint to the (over)represented metropolitan gay male lifestyle found in contemporary popular culture. I also believe that alternative queer narratives can be mined from such texts, providing a glimpse of historical configurations of