I was wondering what people think are the worst things moviemakers (and television producers count too) do to gay material and characters? What do you think? So far I think contenders for top offenses include:
- Converting homosexual characters from real life or successful stories into heterosexuals. This is a big offense because frankly heterosexuals are 90% of the planet and they have their own stories without taking any of ours. This can be done directly or by omitting any reference to their sexual orientation. Movies that do this include TROY starring Brad Pitt, MAN WITHOUT A FACE starring Mel Gibson, MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL starring John Cusack, MARTIAN CHILD starring John Cusack, THE ENGLISH PATIENT starring Ralph Fiennes.. I'm certain there are more...
- Including gay characters but neutering them. This is fine if all the straight characters are neutered too. It is patently offensive however when everyone except the gay characters show affection (kiss, fool around, etc). It is even more offensive (if that' s possible) when even the ugly straight characters show affection and hook-up but the hot, model-like gay characters act like they had their sex drive lobotomized out of them! Even producers of heterosexual porn know to use good-looking guys over below-average joes because the audience of heterosexuals wants to see hotties in hook-ups over uglies any day (it may be shallow but it is nonetheless true). Producers of non-porn leave the straight audience wondering what is up when two good-looking guys who the story says are gay fail to hook-up in any meaningful way - not even having a romantic kiss. By not showing gay characters have the same drives and affection as straights, producers send the message it is okay to mistreat gay people because look, "they" aren't like the "rest of you" - "they" don't show affection like the "rest of you" - "they" don't even have romantic feelings like the "rest of you" including a sex drive! Treating gay characters differently sets them apart in a way that doesn't reflect reality; that's offensive! (history note about neutering gay people: the USA was the first nation to create modern eugenics laws in 1907 whereby gay people, and other "undesirables" such as disabled people and pregnant single women, were forcibly sterilized. Hitler admitted these USA laws inspired him for the Holocaust. These laws were ruled constitutional (legal) by the U.S. Supreme Court and remained on the books until the mid-1980's).
- Placing the setting in an area known for its gay population but not having any gay characters or just having token characters. How many dramas take place in Washington DC but have a scant few gay characters, if any. Have you been to Washington DC, do you know how many gay people work in government?! It would fall apart if they all left. Politicians come and go, while the gay governmental infrastructure of DC is eternal. This goes for places around the world too.
Any others that should be included...
Submitted by
on Tue, 2008-04-15 15:37.
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4. Turning real gay people into mincing queens or evil trolls ala Braveheart.
5. Including gay characters solely as the villian
6. Including gay people for the titillation or the ick.
7. Using gay stories as the "AIDS victim storyline" or "gay bashing storyline" but never as a real character who has anything to contribute as a person.
8. Always (always, always, always, always) playing the gay character as weak or in need of protection by the "real" men.
One question, though. Who was "straightened out" in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? I read the book long ago and saw the movie again recently (OK, part of it. I fell asleep) and I don't know who should have been gay but wasn't.
Garden
Homo into Hetero..
For your number one you can add John Nash (Russell Crowe) in "A Beautiful Mind".
And does T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in Lawrence of Arabia count for your number one?
Lawrence of Arabia
I definitely think it belongs, since the movie excludes any reference to his sexual orientation. Any gay person who reads the opening dedication poem in T.E. Lawrence's book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom about his time as a soldier knows he is talking about his prematurely-deceased boyfriend, Salim Ahmed. Who would not wish to free the people of the one you love? It is dedicated "To S.A." and reads...
To S.A.
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came
Death was my servant on the road, till we came near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and
took you apart:
Into his quietness
So our love's earnings was your cast off body to be
held one moment
Before earth's soft hands would explore your face and
the blind worms transmute
Your failing substance.
Men prayed me to set my work, the inviolate house
in memory of you.
But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift.
What I find very intersting about point number three is...
the fact that many gay people work in Government. As we all know, not a SINGLE Federal Government in the U.S. has overwhelmingly supported LBGT rights. It's totally acceptable for gays to WORK IN Government, yet it's NOT acceptable for gays (and our basic human RIGHTS) to be ACCEPTED and RECOGNIZED BY the Government. Hmm...
Sorry if this sounds stupid but I am in fact a Canadian. I admit I don't know a great deal about American politics and so...does anybody want to add anything here? Enlighten me please. :)
Regards,
dgd417
I would also include the "incidental gay comic relief moment"
Mary Richards protects Murray
Also does anyone remember the episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" when the gang are in LA for a TV news convention. During a banquet a man asks Murray to dance, and Mary throws herself on Murray like a grizzly bear (complete with a teeth baring grimace) protecting her cub.
What if you were Gay!!!
The basic premise of any story can usually be summed up in a single statement, like a "what if" question.
1. What if one day you wake up and find out you are gay?
Making Love (1982) deviates form the premise, but that's pretty much it. I hate to remember these stories, so don't ask me to list them.
This premise is at best unenlightened, but mostly works the straight-male fear that being gay is some how like The Body Snatchers (1956.) You're straight one day, living a straight life and then suddenly you're forced to navigate a 'gay life style.' Recently the premise has been used to comic effect, in films like Chuck and Larry (2007). What if one day you wake up and have to pretend you are gay?
I have never met a gay man who didn't know that he was gay by puberty. (14 years old) I know that other experiences do exist, I just haven't met those folks. Most people know at least by the time they are feeling sexual. Odd thing is some dudes don't relate sex with emotion until they are in there late 20s, or even later. Some folks are pretty much a-sexual until later in life, if ever. So, their sexuality may be something they discover later in life. But the "What if one day you wake up and find out you are gay?" premise never takes any of that into consideration.
Corollaries to that are, "What if one day you wake up and find out your kid is gay?" and "What if one day you wake up and find out your husband is gay?" These premises usually are a sub plot for a movie or TV drama, but can be the basis of an exploitation show like Dr. Phil, where estranged wives can vent and a guest psychologist can list the "10 signs that your husband is gay."
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Great list so far
Those are great additions to the list of offensive use of gay material and characters, so we have ten really good ones. I think an eleventh one for the list, which is sort of a variation on neutering gay characters, is:
11. Only gay in the village syndrome. The character, often really good looking, is alone and too dim-witted to locate others of the tribe, so he is de facto neutered, which could lead to another...
12. Gay character as way for straight female character to be heartbroken. Straight female character (with low self esteem) fauns over hot gay guy only to learn, after much angst and contrived plot devices, that alas he is out of reach (and yet still neutered because he is written with offense #11 in mind, or she is written as too selfish, shallow, or dim to hook him up with another guy).
13.
Introducing a gay
Introducing a gay character then having them start sleeping with women.
Don't trouble yourself Doctor -- I'm a celebrity, I'll write my own prescription.