Breakthrough Black and Latino Roles on the Big Screen

2007 has not exactly been a banner year for the portrayal of gay characters on the silver screen in the U.S. Indeed, the small screen has become the go-to medium for quality gay characters, from the wonderful array of portrayals on Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters to the budding gay teen romance on As the World Turns. But if there is a relative drought of mainstream gay characters in film, the current landscape for big-screen presentations of black and Latino gay characters is practically barren. In fact, except for the upcoming release of Maurice Jamal’s Dirty Laundry, “it’s barely a landscape,” notes veteran television producer Kevin E. Taylor. “It’s a window garden at best.”

With so few representations of gay men of color currently at the box office, we decided it was time for a look back at the breakthrough gay roles for black and Latino men in film (an examination of breakthrough Asian roles will follow in another article). We sought out some of today’s most well-known black and Hispanic writers, producers, and social critics for their take on which roles about gay African American and Hispanic men were the most noteworthy.

“ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN”

The earliest major depiction of a substantial black gay character in American film was “Bernard” in The Boys in the Band from the 1970 screen adaptation of the off-Broadway play of the same name directed by William Friedkin. Bernard was the lone black gay character in the film and he pined away for the handsome and wealthy blond boy who lives in the house where his mother worked as a maid.

“Where do we start with Bernard’s character? How many stereotypes were there?” asks the New Jersey-based Kevin E. Taylor, an award-winning producer with Black Entertainment and author of Jaded, a black gay romantic novel.

Like the other characters in the film, Bernard was played by the same actor who originated the role on the stage — in this case Reuben Greene. His character “was everything stereotypical about black gay men trying to blend into the white gay community in the post-liberation era,” critiques Taylor. “And what a portrayal. Quiet. Sterile. Scared.”

“He just wanted to be around,” says Taylor. “Nothing much to say or do. Treated like fodder, he was barely there.” Critics also point to the film’s dialogue, which contains several instances of racial taunts directed at the one black character in the ensemble. “But Bernard stays at the party!” says Taylor. “He stayed there...trying...hoping...pleading...to be seen and appreciated and hopefully...loved. The early ‘Bernards’ were always on the outside looking in.”

Bernard’s role in The Boys in the Band introduced what would become the template for many other black gay film characters in mainstream productions — the so-called sassy sidekick. According to Taylor, this stereotype was “defiant and proud, but desexualized. A sassy eunuch.”

While the typecast might be expected in the 1970s, it has continued to this day in gay-themed American films, according to j. brotherlove, the Atlanta-based LGBT social critic and Southern Voice columnist who blogs at thebrotherlove.com. “It’s extremely difficult to think of a good portrayal of a black gay character in film, and that is disturbing.”

Unfortunately, the explosive growth in black-centered film productions that began in the seventies has not translated into a growth in gay characters in either terms of quality or quantity. “Mainstream black films are notoriously irresponsible in depicting LGBT persons of color,” says j. brotherlove, describing most of these roles as the proverbial “snap queen,” or “truck-driving, man-hating lesbian, or some other form of comic relief.”

One of these roles was Antonio Fargas’ almost iconic portrayal of Lindy the drag queen in the 1976 cult classic Car Wash. “Oddly enough, I loved Fargas’ character for just that same reason,” BET’s Kevin E. Taylor fondly recalls. “I had met him and knew him many times. I had seen him in the ‘hood. He was a take-no-prisoners kind of queen who had learned to survive the black homo-hatred and misunderstanding.”