Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture Volume (5), Issue (1)

Invited Expert Commentary Queer Depictions in American Cinema: Assumed Identities Martin B. Beaudet FauxMeme Productions, Damascus, OR, USA

Abstract Like most aspects of homosexuality, depictions of gay ‘lifestyles’ and identities were rare in any public forum in the United States, including cinema, prior to the Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969. The subject was treated in most social and academic circles as too vulgar for discussion, let alone depiction, and there was a genuine fear that the very discussion of homosexual behavior would encourage it among those who had never before considered it. In this environment, those who sensed in themselves an attraction to members of the same sex, or any other anomalous gender identity leanings, had only rumor and scandal to inform their sense of identity. For many queer individuals the derogatory descriptions and condemnation that such stories perpetrated resulted in them assuming negatives identities, often leading to self-hatred and sometimes-attempted suicide. This essay will look at the effect of emergent queer cinema and depictions of non-heterosexuals in mainstream cinema on the self-image and psychological well-being of those who identify as queer.

Keywords: Homosexuality, Queer, USA, American Cinema, Assumed Identities Date Received: 30th April 2019 Date Accepted: 29th May 2019 Correspondence should be made to: Martin B. Beaudet FauxMeme Productions 13825 SE 180th Avenue, Damascus, OR 97089 USA Email- [email protected]

Prevailing Views on Queer result of the ensuing liberalization Identities in America of American attitudes toward their There can be no doubt that a queer compatriots has been the turning point in American attitudes assimilation of the latter into toward homosexuality (and related mainstream culture. There is no gender identity issues) was reached better place to observe large-scale when, as a U.S. presidential social change than in television and candidate in 1992, Bill Clinton cinema, two realms where creative voiced support for LGBT rights.[1]A minds strive diligently to reflect predictable, though often ignored, back to us the lives we are living.

Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture 01 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture There is however, ongoing debate identities of many real-life queer within the American queer individuals. community as to whether such assimilation is a positive[2] or negative[3] Allusive Depictions development for queer culture. For The years following World War II those individuals who do not saw many films in which cross knowingly have any queer friends or dressing men played drag for family, the media[4] is often the only comedy. Cary Grant in ‘I Was A Male source of information on what it War Bride’ (1949),[9] Tony Curtis and means to be queer. Cinema in Jack Lemon in ‘Some Like It Hot’ particular can have a profound (1959),[10] and a slew of Jerry Lewis effect on society's shifting attitudes, films from 1950-1956 are the most [5] for better or worse. notable examples.[11]

Cinema Before Stonewall Non-Comedic Queer Characters. In the years prior to the Stonewall Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most Uprising, a night upon which gay respected and prolific directors of men-many in drag-resisted what his time, hinted at a gay male had become habitual police relationship[12] in the psychological harassment of patrons at a thriller ‘Rope’ (1948)[13] is a dramatic neighborhood pub in New York's imagining of the murder of a 14- G r e e n w i c h V i l l a g e , [ 6 ] q u e e r year-old boy by real-life roommates individuals had rarely, if ever, seen Nathan Leopold and Richard people like themselves on television. Loeb. [ 1 4 ] While a homosexual Likewise, any depiction on the Silver relationship is never specified, the Screen until that point, had been sub text is clearly there, the allusive at best, never spoken or message overwhelmingly negative named, and almost without to those who found it: gay men are exception negative.[7] Gay men dangerous psychopaths preying on dominated these depictions, one innocent boys. assumes, perhaps because such were seen as more salacious and This stereotype is teased out to its most gruesome conclusion in t h r e a t e n i n g t o t h e a l m o s t [15] exclusively male writers, directors, Suddenly, ‘Last Summer’ (1959), and producers of the day. Lesbians- wherein Sebastian (portrayed by the bisexual-but-closeted Montgomery or what heterosexual men thought [16] of as lesbians-if they were shown at Clift) uses his beautiful cousin all, were often merely sex objects Catherine to lure young boys for sex and fantasies of straight men. They during an island holiday. The plot were rarely seen as existing apart centers on Catherine's recovery from the men who desired them, from the trauma she experiences and the relationship was often after witnessing the boys mob, kill, i n f e r r e d . [ 8 ] T h e l o n e l i n e s s , and eat Sebastian. The unmistakable desperation, and unlikability of message: the homosexual got what such characters also informed the he deserved.

02 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture Sympathetic Depictions In 1970, just a year after Stonewall, Sympathetic depictions of gay men The Boys in the Band[21] became the prior to Stonewall were rare and, first Hollywood film to address gay again, mostly allusive.[17] The most (men's) lives head on. It remains a notable film that avoids judgement watershed moment for the queer of male-male love is ‘Lawrence of community.[22][23] While it was, by Arabia’ (1962).[18]Lawrence, of today's standards, rife with course, is a classic: the dramatic re- stereotypes and bitchy, miserable enactment of T. E. Lawrence's gay characters, it opened the door to involvement in the 1916 Arab Revolt film makers who wished to depict on behalf of the British Crown. Co- non-heterosexual lives without sub written by Lawrence himself, the text and inuendo. Queer people no film avoids any explicit homosexual longer had to be pathetic, villainous, engagement (just as Lawrence or ridiculous; they could be seen as himself denied any such activity in average, flawed individuals, like his own life), but the film makers anyone else. didn't shy away from male-male intimacy and love between Unveiled But Unsympathetic Lawrence and his beloved friend Capitalizing on the nascent ‘gay Sherif Ali. In fact, Director David liberation’ movement that arose Lean later said, “Throughout, from Stonewall, film makers in the Lawrence was very, if not entirely, 1970s no longer felt the need to hide homosexual. We thought we were the queer identities of their being very daring at the time….”[19] characters. But homosexuality was still illegal in many states Cinema After Stonewall throughout the decade. As a result, The news depictions that emerged film makers felt the need to tread from the Stonewall Inn of drag carefully in their depictions of queer queens resisting uniformed police characters so as not to offend officers and subsequently being industry censors or, more importantly, manhandled into waiting paddy the paying mainstream movie goer. wagons, electrified a largely closeted While queer Americans were finally American gay population. For many seeing themselves on the big screen, in the audience, particularly teens the characters they saw were often and adolescents, it was the first not fully realized and still not acknowledgement that there were allowed happy endings. others like themselves in the world, actually gathering together in Twisted and Tragic public places to socialize. It was also Transgender visibility hit cinema in the first time anyone in America had a big way in 1970 with the release of seen queer-identified individuals The Christine Jorgensen Story,[24] a fight back against an authority that dramatized biography of a male-to- demonized them.[20] It gave LGBTQ female woman, documenting the Americans a new paradigm and led transition from her point of view. to the adoption of new proactive While the film was profoundly identities. 03 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture educational and ground breaking in laundry, raise kids, and work nine- its honesty, producers felt it to-five office jobs. Queers were still necessary to titillate mainstream anomalies and outsiders. audiences with tabloid-headline- emulating promotional art that Cinema Verité: HIV/AIDS screamed “Did the surgeon's knife As tragic as it was, the HIV/AIDS make me a woman or a freak?”.[25] pandemic was a watershed moment for queer cinema.[31]It also marked a Transgender issues were also turning point, albeit a gradual one, played for comedy in 1971's Myra in the depiction of gay men in Breckinridge.[26] One could argue mainstream cinema. Hollywood was that the saving grace of this film was still portraying gay men as victims, that it was panned as “one of the often pathetic, and-where AIDS was worst films ever made”[27] and, as concerned-implied that their such, didn't gain a wide audience. suffering was a natural result of their own choices. The difference ‘Cruising’ (1980),[28] starring Al however, in films such as the made- Pacino, marked a low point in for-TV An Early Frost (1985),[32] was depictions of gay men, featuring a the empathy that depictions of serial killer in the leather bedridden, dying men elicited in community. Gay men were again straight audiences. Even if you seen as victims, getting what they believed that gay sex was sinful, it deserved at the hands of one of their was hard not to shed a few tears as a own, simply for having the audacity sympathetic gay character slipped to engage in sex. away. Straight people could relate to the loss, and the queer community I remember celebrating when, just began to feel their empathy. two years later, ‘Making Love’[29] became the first mainstream film to Queer film makers seized upon the portray two men in love (rather than AIDS crisis to tell their side of the just lust or infatuation),[30] and story, often with more nuance and actually showed them in bed honesty than was allowed in together. Scenes were post-coital, of mainstream cinema. Just a year course, as sex between men was still after An Early Frost, the queer- too much for straight audiences to made Parting Glances[33]painted a contemplate. But even in this film, much more realistic picture of the focus was on the betrayed wife urban gay life, including a character and the selfish behavior of her with AIDS who faced his own death cheating husband. without the suburban-family love offered in Frost. It failed to gain By the end of the 80s, a queer much of a mainstream audience identity was still not seen as however. mainstream or normal: LGBTQ people, according to Hollywood Hollywood wasted no time in depictions, did not shop, do capitalizing on mainstream empathy-a

04 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture full decade into the AIDS pandemic -with individual as just another character the release of Longtime Companion in the story. (1989),[34] a cinematic diary of the demise of a man with AIDS, from The Lost Language of Cranes diagnosis to death. With numerous (1991),[38] a British family drama, is household names among the cast, it one of the only queer films-before or finally laid bare for queer and since-to deal with cross-generational mainstream audiences alike, with queer identities in one household: a unflinching honesty, the tragic bisexual father and a gay son, both nature of the disease. struggling with the challenges of their identities and their relationship Post-AIDS Cinema to each other. Once AZT and other drug “cocktails” began to transform AIDS into a The documentary ‘Paris is Burning’ manageable disease rather than a (1991)[39]chronicled for the first time death sentence,[35] depictions of on film the “ball culture” of actual queer life in cinema began to change drag queens (as opposed to as well. The newly found voices of Hollywood caricatures) and, more queer film makers that the AIDS importantly, revealed to both queer pandemic brought to the fore during and straight audiences, the the 80s led to the depiction of other diversity of queer culture. The film facets of queer life-predominantly featured numerous Black, Latino, that of gay men-during the early and transgender individuals. In 90s. Many early queer stories were 2016, the film was selected for coming-of-age dramas about preservation in the United States coming out. But the subject matter National Film Registry by the soon became much more diverse. Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or New Queer Cinema aesthetically significant.”[40]Queer As queer film makers broadened the identities were here revealed in all scope of their stories and the quality their diversity. of their film making entered the professional realm, the term New Post-Pandemic Hollywood Queer Cinema[36] was used to Hollywood, always ready to describe the phenomenon. capitalize on social trends, was quick to jump on the bandwagon One of the first in this new category with its own films about queer lives. was Todd Haynes's Poison (1991),[37] Still cautious, aware of the a sci-fi horror anthology loosely sensibilities of straight audiences, based on the novels of Jean Genet. film makers started offering gay Here, the stories departed from the characters and subplots that were heretofore chronicling of gay no longer accusatory or incendiary. experiences, telling larger tales into Queer observers were finally to see which gay characters were themselves in a broader range of seamlessly woven. It marked the more ordinary identities. “normalization” of the queer 05 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture Modern Depictions be gay were shaped not by In the 25 years since New Queer experience (for we were too young to Cinema broadened the range of have much) but by what we saw on queer characters depicted in the Silver Screen. (Television American cinema, they have evolved censorship prevented that medium from Hollywood's anomalous freaks from contributing queer images for and quirky sidekicks to fully consideration). And what we saw realized individuals appearing in all was not positive. As Sky Gilbert, facets of life. American cinema, Professor of English and Theatre whether mainstream, in die, or Studies at the University of Guelph, queer, now offers us a wide diversity Ontario, tells us, “It is in media of stories featuring queer protagonists representations of gay men and supporting roles. that…'stealth homophobia' most clearly shows its face.” [44] Just two years ago, Moonlight,[41] a coming of age story about a gay Yet, as stereotypes have given way Black man, won the Oscar for Best to more diverse and more accurate Picture, as well as two others. This portrayals of queer lives in would have been unthinkable just American cinema, it has altered not 20 years earlier. Indeed, it was only the attitudes of main stream stunning even in 2017. A year later, audiences, it has also changed the Call Me By Your Name,[42] a story way we see ourselves in the queer about a gay adult-teen summer community. As McClaren says,“film romance, won the Oscar for Best [has a] dual role as reflector and Adapted Screenplay. In previous influencer of society.” [43] decades such a story would have been called obscene and would Art imitates life, life imitates art. It's never have made it into theaters, let hard to tell in which direction this alone receive Hollywood's highest maxim is most evident. In the case honor. of queer identities, both happen simultaneously. A film maker, Conclusion queer or straight, depicts the queer In a 2016 essay,[43] political scholar experience onscreen. Thousands of Catherine McClaren points out, LGBTQ individuals perceive this “Stereotypical images have a depiction as representative of particularly powerful effect on themselves, internalizing either adolescents who seek representation permissive or prohibitive mores, of themselves in media and develop aligning their behaviors and their own personalities based on the identities with those depicted. With expectations they see on the each succeeding generation, these screen.” depictions, and the mores they engender, become more diverse and As a queer youth in the 1960s, my inclusive. There is no longer a single perceptions-like those of many in queer identity in film and television. my generation—of what it meant to Of course, there never was in real

06 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture life. Moviegoers are finally able to talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/ see that. 04/how-movies-can-change-our- minds/ (Accessed on: 27 May References 2019)

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07 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture 13. Rope (1948) Directed by Alfred Directed by William Friedkin Hitchcock [Film]. Burbank: [Film]. Los Angeles: National Warner Brothers. General Pictures

14. Wikipedia, Rope (film) [Online]. 22. Wikipedia, The Boys in the Band Retrieved from: https://en. [Online]. Retrieved from: https:// wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_(film) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_i (Accessed: 2 May 2019) n_the_Band (Accessed: 2 May 2019) 15. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz 23. Cohen, Sascha, (2015) How One [Film]. Culver City: Columbia Movie Changed LGBT History Pictures [Online]. Retrieved from: http:// time.com/3742951/boys-in-the- 16. Wikipedia, Montgomery Clift band/ (Accessed: 27 May 2019) [ O n l i n e ] . R e t r i e v e d f r o m : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo 24. The Christine Jorgensen Story ntgomery_Clift#Personal_life (1970) Directed by Irving Rapper (Accessed: 2 May 2019) [Film]. Beverly Hills: United Artists.

17. Wikipedia, History of homosexuality 25. The Internet Movie Database, The in American film [Online]. Christine Jorgensen Story Retrieved from: https://en. [Online]. Retrieved from: https:// wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ho www.imdb.com/title/tt0065549/ mosexuality_in_American_film mediaviewer/rm2680856320 (Accessed: 2 May 2019) (Accessed: 3 May 2019)

18. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Directed 26. Myra Breckinridge (1970) Directed by David Lean [Film]. Culver City: by Michael Sarne [Film]. Los Columbia Pictures Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox.

19. Wikipedia, History of homosexuality 27. Wikipedia, List of films considered in American film: World War II era the worst [Online]. Retrieved from: to 1960s [Online]. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi t_of_films_considered_the_worst# story_ofhomosexuality_in_Americ Myra_Breckinridge_(1970) (Accessed an_film#World_War_II_era_to_196 3 May 2019) 0s (Accessed: 2 May 2019) 28. Cruising (1980) Directed by 20. Wikipedia, Stonewall riots [Online]. William Friedkin [Film]. Beverly Retrieved from: https://en. Hills: United Artists. wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots (Accessed: 2 May 2019) 29. Making Love (1982) Directed by Arthur Hiller [Film]. Los Angeles: 21. The Boys in the Band (1970) Twentieth Century Fox.

08 June 2019 Indian Institute of Sexology Bhubaneswar Indian Journal of Health, Sexuality & Culture 30. Wikipedia, Making Love [Online]. 38. The Lost Language of Cranes R e t r i e v e d f r o m : h t t p s : / / (1991) Directed by Nigel Finch en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Lo [Film]. London: BBC Video. ve#Themes (Accessed: 3 May 2019) 39. Paris is Burning (1991) Directed by 31. Kramer, Gary G., (2017) Bad times Jenny Livingston [Film]. Passaic, make great art: The AIDS crisis and N e w J e r s e y : A c a d e m y the New Queer Cinema [Online]. Entertainment and Offwhite Retrieved from: https:// www. Productions. salon.com/2017/02/11/ bad- times-make-great-art-the-aids- 40. Wikipedia, Paris Is Burning (film) crisis-and-the-new-queer-cinema [ O n l i n e ] . R e t r i e v e d f r o m : / (Accessed: 3 May 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa ris_Is_Burning_(film) (Accessed: 3 32. An Early Frost (1985) Directed by May 2019) John Erman [Film]. Burbank: National Broadcasting Corporation 41. Moonlight (2016) Directed by Barry (NBC). Jenkins [Film]. New York: A24 Films. 33. Parting Glances (1986) Directed by Bill Sherwood [Film]. New York: 42. Call Me By Your Name (2017) Key Video. Directed by Luca Guadagnino [Film]. New York: Sony Pictures 34. Longtime Companion (1989) Classics. Directed by Norman René [Film]. Los Angeles: The Samuel Goldwyn 43. McLearen, Catherine (2016) Company. Homophobia in Film, Political Analysis: Vol. 18 , Article 2. [Online]. 35. Corbett, Meecha (2010) A brief R e t r i e v e d f r o m : h t t p s : / / history of AZT [Online]. Retrieved scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcon from: https:// americanhistory. tent.cgi?article=1034&context=pa si.edu/blog/2010/09/a-brief- (Accessed: 27 May 2019) history-of-azt.html (Accessed: 3 May 2019) 44. Gilbert, Sky, (2018), Homophobia: Old problem, new disguise in 'Love, 36. Wikipedia, New Queer Cinema Simon' [Online]. Retrieved from: [ O n l i n e ] . R e t r i e v e d f r o m : https://theconversation.com/ho https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne mophobia-old-problem-new- w_Queer_Cinema (Accessed: 3 May disguise-in-love-simon-93269 2019) (Accessed: 27 May 2019)

37. Poison (1991) Directed by Todd Haynes [Film]. New York: Zeitgeist Films.

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