I Am Me

Tuesday, January 25

I think the fate of gay characters in American literature, plays, films, is the same as the fate of all characters who are sexually free. You must pay. You must suffer. If you're a woman who commits adultery, you're only put out in the storm. If you're a woman who has another woman, you'd better go hang yourself. It's a question of degree, and certainly if you're gay, you have to do real penance--die.

~Arthur Laurents, Screenwriter

By now, the pattern was clear. Characters of questionable sexuality would meet with a nasty end in the last reel.

The Boys in the Band
Making Love
Cruising

Mainstream people dislike homosexuality because they can't help concentrating on what homosexual men do to one another. And when you contemplate what people do you think of yourself doing it and they don't like that.

That's the famous joke: I don't like peas and I'm glad I don't like them because if I liked them I would eat them and I hate them.

Americans, perhaps, are more scared of their sexuality. They're prepared to show violence of all kinds but when it comes to sexuality America is both very self-righteous, and tries to bury it as if it didn't exist.

I don't think, for better or worse, that women are taken very seriously in this area. I think the feeling is, if two women are together, then it's probably experimental or some kind of phase, and if the right guy came along that would all change. So it's something that straight men can watch and not be threatened by. And straight men are the ones that are propelling the industry forward so I don't think it's taken that seriously.

We all end up choosing who we're gonna be in love with the rest of our lives. It seems that's what we're all searching for. Andy found Miguel. Miguel found Andy. That's a love that is borne out of everything that goes into two people deciding to be with each other. It's forged through time. It's a constant--the speed of light. I think that's what Philadelphia is saying. It is all the same. Love is spelled with the same four letters.
~Tom Hanks

The movies could be making us laugh a lot more and cry a lot more if they would actually acknowledge the true diversity of humanity.

***All from The Celluloid Closet***

Kim 3:24 AM |