Representation of homosexuals in American cinema

Diagnostic Essay

Representation of homosexuals in American cinema

“Negative designations of a group have negative consequences for the lives of members of that grouping” (Dyer 2002 p.3).  During recent history the moving image has substantially participated in the manipulating of the underlying narratives of homosexuality. “Hollywood, that great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gays and gay people what to think about themselves.” (The Celluloid Closet 1995). Films express stereotyping implicitly and form sexual judgments and symbolic exemplifications of modern social misrepresentations in which thoughts about gay men and women have been implanted. In this essay I will be looking at the rejected practices in Hollywood narratives towards the ‘gay’ genre that are questioned through instances of movies regarding homosexual identity. I will be focusing on representation of gays in America predominantly. Film and television constructs reality, it has always been a chosen media for manipulating the way the general public think. The world is understood through films’ recording of it.

The dictionary definition of homosexual is “a person who is sexually attracted to people of their own sex.” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2011) It does not say that they are ‘sissy’, weak or less than. l. However, the depiction of homosexuals shows that American cinema as well as world cinema today has chosen to make up their own definition. Hollywood wants to depict them as what they believe the public as a whole thinks. In Morocco (1930) it’s ok to show a woman dressed up as a man kissing another woman as male audiences find that sexy yet, it would have never been allowed to get two men to do the same thing. Hollywood wants to relate to the biggest group of people as possible even if it involved changing what is originally intended e.g The Lost Weekend (1945) was changed to make it ‘less gay’ as mentioned in the book The Celluloid Closet (1987).

“A distinctive type of structural change is transforming modern societies in the late twentieth century. This is fragmenting the cultural landscapes of class; gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and nationality which gave us firm locations as social individuals. These transformations are also shifting our personal identities, undermining our sense of ourselves as integrated subjects” (Hall, 1992, p. 275).

Being gay, female, black or German  (the other/otherness) for example, should be a part of you but not what defines you. For instance the general depictions of gay identity are not an accurate one but one that is made up from a predominately straight audience. In the CBS documentary The Homosexuals (1967) gays are made out to be something you should be afraid of and fear. Even films that seem like they are showing gays in a positive light like A Single Man (2009) show scenes of a pedophilic nature; or the film Happiness (1998) where a bisexual father is supposed to be looking after his son’s friend but ends up sexual abusing him; and Victim (2010) where a bisexual doctor performs horrific surgery to turn a straight male into a female. It gives the impression that all ‘queers’ are sick mentally ill animals. The way gays are shown to be, is not that of a homosexual but that of a straight producer/ screenwriter. What is portrayed on television and in the cinema is only acceptable to a non-gay audience. For example Boys Beware (1961) produced by S.Davis portrays all homosexuals to be child abductors.

The thing I find with narrative and placing a exact genre tag to each work is that you end up with a formula of what, how and why it should be done. “As soon as the film begins, it is clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished, or forgotten’ (Gauntlett 2002, p.21). Doing this leaves no room for progression and to break away from the norm. The film industry likes to stick with what it feels is safe; it does this by providing a structure of what reality consist of. We as consumers see so much of these formulated recipes of what a piece of film or television should contain that we start to see it as reality and reject what is not there, making something like homosexuality seem unnatural.

Gay positive films are being made like And the Band Played On(1993) and Bent (1997) but none have managed to reach a main stream audience. It seems as though the gay community has decided to break away from Hollywood and go independent, deciding not to hide in the shadows any longer, and make their own films such as Love to hide (2005), Small Town Gay Bar (2007), Glue (2006), Milk (2008), Wonder Boys (2000). It is a shame however that there is this divide and which will only contribute to resentment.

A lot of films had gay references in them but as they were mostly hidden, the film companies did not mind or know.  An example of a modern television show, that was much loved until word got out that one of the characters was gay is the Teletubbies (97-2001) due to the male Tincky Winky having a handbag. It has been said that this was one of the factors that led to the shows cancellation.

The way many Hollywood films, non Hollywood films and television shows seem to get around having gays in their film is by using a predictable equilibrium.

In The detective (1968), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Rebecca (1940) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936) all the characters that come across as gay end up dead. The same can be said about a lot of other films without you ever feeling sorry for the homosexuals or made to feel resentment due to them being the ‘bad guy’. In the hit television series Skins (2007 – Present) the gay character Naomi (series 3) is made out to be the antagonist, the ‘home-wrecker’ as she wants Emily to be in a relationship with her, yet when a gay person is ‘turned’ straight no one seems to care.

The same level of discrimination however is not just towards the gay community but also others like black people. For instance, in Night of the Living dead (1968) Ben is the first person to die. It is like the film is suggesting that the minority, whatever it may be, is the weaker side and needs to be removed like an infectious disease.

The divide and discrimination goes deeper then ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ but as far as gay or lesbian.

“Compounding the matter was that homosexual men and women have served very different functions with the regimes of sex/ gender representation, gay men more often seem as weak-willed (coded as effeminacy or pathological in their capacity to desire other men, while women were capable of romantic friendships and sentimental alliances…” (Tinkcom and Villarejo  2001, p.17)

In modern times, gay men have become to be seen as weak or sick people, in The History boys (2006) the gay teacher ends up being a mentally ill pedophile yet two girls’ on the other hand lesbians tend to be made out to look ‘hot’ and arouse the male audience An example of this would be the recent Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009) or the lesbian scene in American Pie 2 (2001).

A coherent emphasis of homosexual stereotyping is also shown cinematically through the existence of two antagonisms, or contrasts, within the film’s narrative. A rare exception I have found to this is Performance (1970) as sexuality and gender are mixed yet never talked about in a positive or negative manner.

“To explore identity is to enquire: how do we see ourselves and how do others see us?” (Baker 2008, p. 216) As humans we have a trend to organize our life between each two contrasts like ‘fat and skinny’, ‘me and you’, ‘black or white and ‘straight’ and ‘gay’. It is these ways of ordering things that make the divide of mankind grow. It is this way of thinking that has made the word ‘gay’ become its own kind of identity rather then just a sexual preference. Hollywood wants to fuel this and tell us what each stereotype should be, making sexuality essential and gain more power of what and how we should think. However, on the other hand, some television shows like Will and Grace (1998-2006) and Queer Eye (2003-2007) have brought a level of tolerance to gays on the screen. Whereas some shows like The L Word (2004-Present) are aimed at purely gay audience, which could be seen as counterproductive to the efforts to integrate heterosexuals and homosexuals.

The ‘abandonment’ of a real representation of homosexuals’ identity in film has led to multiple generations of ignorance and a set of forced morals about what is right and what is wrong in society. American movies are forced onto the conventional mainstream public so Hollywood’s themes will always be in favor of the masses and attack the minorities. In a newspaper article, Ginny Vida of the National Gay Task Force said this about the film ‘Cruising’: “This is not typical of gay people, that we go around murdering or that we’re viding abuse.” (Edmonton Journal, Jul 1976). This and a lot of other articles and reviews written by gay people on films with homosexuals in them all say the same things, that they are being depicted negatively and incorrectly. Barron (2004) talks about interviews that were carried out on young gay people asking them about the type of representation about homosexuals they had growing up

‘The picture that I got was that they were very feminine, walking around with their wrists bent, they were very thin, they walked around like girls, dressed different to other lads. They were basically like male girls, they were all skinny and scrawny and they were all real camp, that was the picture I got growing up’ Joe (18)” (p.14)

Like Joe in Barron’s thesis, a lot of young people are being affected by Hollywood depictions of gays.  Hollywood manipulates realistic cinematic exemplifications of gay sexuality. Cultural and society factors along with historical elements have all contributed to today’s perceptions of gays in and out of the cinema.

Differences concerning homosexuality and heterosexual personalities have been made evident through the films that have wanted to display their own set of ethics or the ones felt by the film’s company or producer. This can be said, as there have been a lot of examples of where scripts and narratives have been changed to exclude homosexuals like in The Maltese Falcon (1941), Peter Lorre was supposed to be gay but the character was changed from gay to undefined. Also Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) the leading antagonist is gay but the word is never used. Therefore sexual authority on what is correct is evident in American cinema through the example of film feeling that they need or have to keep the gays locked away or better forgotten about. An example would be Rebel Without a Cause (1955) where the character is never said to be gay yet he is hated for it. It is true to say however that with each passing decade, gay exposure  is becoming more and more prominent in television and film but it still can’t be helped that the ‘gay’ character should be made to appear as the joke of the group, the one that is there purely for entertainment and to act over the top in a feminine way.

American identity is a notion which involves governing beliefs, tradition and classifications. The character of America can be seen through an analysis of the television and films it has created. The strong heterosexual narratives meet the curiosities of only one prevailing sector in American society and unsurprisingly involves some and dismisses the rest.

“It must be said that perhaps homosexuals themselves contributed to this: the drama of being gay is central to many gay people's identities.” (Callow, 2008, web ). There can be no complete depiction and recipe of how gays can be and should be seen in the world as the quotation says, maybe some gay men and woman like all the ‘drama’ that comes with being gay and wants that to be their identity “A person may make use of diversity in order to create a distinctive self-identity which positively incorporates elements from different settings into an integrated narrative” (Giddens 1991, p.200) but some do not. Hollywood would like to make out however that it is as simple as black and white. Films like Philadelphia (1993) and Brokeback mountain (2005) along with documentaries like Out in the Silence (2009) show a real understanding of what it’s liked to be gay in homophobic community and the difficulties, which are not normally portrayed on film.

Our identities and cultural surrounds are anti-essentialism, ever changing. However it would be good to see Hollywood depicting a more diverse range of homosexuals and not let their sexuality be the key factor of their personality.

Word count: 2152

References

A Single Man, 2009. Film, Directed by Tom Ford, USA: Artina Films

And the Band Plated On, 1993. Television, Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, USA: Home Box Office (HBO)

American Pie 2, 2001. Film, Directed by J.B. Rogers, USA: LivePlanet

Boys Beware, 1961. Television, Sid Davis, USA: Sid Davis Productions

Bent, 1997. Film, Directed by Sean Mathias, UK| Japan: Art Council of England

Baker, P. (2008) Sexed Texts: Language, Gender and Sexuality. London: Exquinox. P.216

Barron, M., 2004. Gay & Bisexual Young Men, Body Image: Stereotyping & Bullying. Thesis, (MA). Brunel University, London.

Brokeback Mountain, 2005. Film, Directed by Ang Lee, USA/Canada: Alberta Film Entertainment

The Celluloid Closet, 1995. Film, Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman. USA: Arte

“CBS Reports” The Homosexuals, 1967. Television documentary, Mike Wallace, USA: Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Callow, S., 2008. Sexual healing. The Guardian. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/31/gay-roles

Dracula’s Daughter, 1936, Directed by Lambert Hillyer, USA: Universal Pictures 

The Detective, 1968. Film, Directed by Gordon Douglas, USA: Arcola Pictures

Dyer, R. (2002) The matter of images: essays on representation. London: Routledge. P.3

Edmonton,. 1979. Gays against film. Edmonton Journal, Jul 26, 47

Edmonton Journal, Jul 1976

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 200

Gauntlettt, D., 2002. Media, Gender and Identity An introduction. Routlegde: London P.21

Glue, 2006. Film, Directed by Alexis Dos Santos, Argentina| UK: Diablo Films

Happiness, 1998. Film, Directed by Todd Solondz, USA: Good Machine

The History Boys, 2006. Film, Directed by Nicholas Hytner, UK: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Hall, S. (1992)

The Lost Weekend, 1945. Film, Directed by Billy Wilder,  USA: Paramount Pictures

A Love to Hide, 2005. Film, Directed by Christian Faure, France: Merlin Productions

Lesbian Vampire Killers, 2009. Film, Directed by Phil Claydon, UK: Alliance Films See

The L Word, 2004-Present. TV Series, Created by Ilene Chainen, Canada| USA: Anonymous Content

Morocco, 1930. Film, Directed by Josef von Sternberg, USA: Paramount Pictures

Milk, 2008. Film, Directed by Gus Van Sant, USA: Focus Features

Night of the Living Dead, 1968. Film, Directed by George A. Romero, USA: Image Ten See

Oxford, 2011. Dictionary. In: Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Performance, 1970. Film, Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, UK: Goodtimes Enterprise

Philadelphia 1993, Film, Directed by Jonathan Demme, USA: Cinica Estetico

Queer Eye, 2003-2007. TV Series, Created by David Collins and Davis Metzler, USA: Bravo Original Productions

Russo, V., 1987. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. Edition revised, USA: Harper & Row

Rebel Without a Cause, 1955. Film, Directed by Nicholas Ray, USA: Warner Bros. Pictures

Rebecca, 1940. Film, Directed by Alfred Hichcock, USA: Selznick Internation Pictures

Small Town Gay Bar, 2007. Film, Directed by Malcolm Ingram, USA: View Askew Productions

Skins, 2007-Present,. TV Series, Created by Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, UK: Company Pictures

Tinkcorn, M., 2001. Keyframes: Popular Cinema and Cultural Studies. Routledge

Tinkcom and Villarejo,  M and A., 2001. Keyframes: Popular cinema and culrural studies. Pyscology Press: 17

Teletubbies, 1997-2001. TV series, Created by Andrew Davenport, UK: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Victim, 2010. Film, Directed by Matt Eskandari, USA: Pierce/Williams Entainment

Will & Grace, 1998-2006. TV Series, Created by David Koham. USA: KoMut Entertainment

Wonder Boys, 2000. Film, Directed by Curtis Hanson,  UK: Brist Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Russo, V., 1987. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. Edition revised, USA:

Its prime merry action is to show how the exemplifications of homosexuals in the media, focusing on Hollywood films. Russo’s The Celluloid closet was an incredibly, valuable and influenced the essay a great deal. The book gives broad understanding of the depiction of gays from the birth of cinema right up to the 80s. For me the book and the film worked great together, helping me find theory’s and examples then visually backing them up. After finding the book I found that it was the later converted into a documentary in 1995. From reading chapters of this book I got a good mental image of the hardship and personal torment that gays have had to deal with from there unwanted representation in film. Homophobia has always been preserved with weakness as the defining feature of gay personality. For me this was an indispensable part of my research. The only down side to it was that it lacked critical and more academic theories. This book not only helped me with ideas and concepts but also showed me a hidden world in film that before this essay I had never seen before.

The Celluloid Closet, 1995. Film, Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman. USA: Arte

The Celluloid Closet, one of the most significant pieces of media I have used for this essay makes it clear that in over 100 years of movies, homosexuality has only been depicted on the screen rarely and seen then only as a joke or something to be scared of. When I watch this film I found myself leaving the culture I was brought up with and relating to the characters that the film talks about. I tried to bring the passion I got from the film and hand it over to the essay. Saying this one of the down sides to this is that it is really one sided. It showed me that America has always been hiding homosexuals on screen, and that gays wanted to be see, to   be heard and have acknowledgment.

The Celluloid Closet as a movie was a captivating, knowledgeable, and compelling film for my essay.

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 200

The book for me helped in understandings what self and social identity is and the differences of them both. What I found really well about this book was that it was not too academic and easy to get my head around. One of the negatives of it being less academic was that the vocabulary used was not as descriptive as some of the other books. What I found this book to have that the other did not was a real identification of a transforming society, showing that times are changing.

The quote I chose to use from the book, “A person may make use of diversity in order to create a distinctive self-identity which positively incorporates elements from different settings into an integrated narrative.” for me illustrates that gay people (or any ‘odd ball’ of society) may use the very thing of which they are torn down because to change it and create there own identity. Doing this transforms society and creates a new tolerance or stereotype, giving each (gay) person their own pre made narrative/background.

Tinkcom and Villarejo,  M and A., 2001. Keyframes: Popular cinema and culrural studies. Pyscology Press: 17)

“Compounding the matter was that homosexual men and women have served very different functions with the regimes of sex/ gender representation, gay men more often seem as weak-willed (coded as effeminacy or pathological in their capacity to desire other men, while women were capable of romantic friendships and sentimental alliances…”

Keyframes supplied a really interesting quote for me to use in the essay, It talks about the different roles gay and lesbians charters play in films. I was not expecting this from Keyframes as it appears on the surface to be a very general book about popular and cultural cinema but provided far more depth then most other books that only discuses straight people and gay people rather then the differences of homosexuality in the different sexes.

Barron, M., 2004. Gay & Bisexual Young Men, Body Image: Stereotyping & Bullying. Thesis, (MA). Brunel University, London.

This thesis was very useful as it gave be an incite into the ‘real’ world and how people with out a previous judgment on gays end up having due to the way media represents them.

Gauntlettt, D., 2002. Media, Gender and Identity An introduction. Routlegde: London P.21

I read Media, Gender and Identity" as I wanted to find out about misrepresentation as a whole rather then just homosexuals so I would be able to relate them both. I found it tremendously beneficial as it gives thoughts and points that was not discussed in any other books. I found Gauntlett to be very non-bios in his methodology and that is exactly what I was looking for as I wanted to give both sides of the story as best as I could. One of the other good things about this book was how up to date it was as only published in 2004.  Along with A Celluloid Closet it influenced by essay the most on how I talk about gender, identity and sexuality.