The Celluloid Closet and Gay Cinematic History
The Celluloid Closet. A documentary on homosexuality as it appeared in (primarily American) film from the Edison shorts, through the Hays Code, to the early 90s. Very well researched, featuring examples from numerous movies, including some obscure ones from the 10s and 20s that seemed to be on the brink of disintegration (many have now been restored and re-released). There were also numerous interviews with very well-informed people: screenwriters for these movies who talked about how they skirted the censors; prominent gay and lesbian authors who described how these movies were blazed into their minds as teens; etc. It did a fine job documenting Hollywood attitudes at least through the mid 80s. But then the last 20 minutes or so, when they discussed the late 80s to early 90s (the film is from 1995), it seemed they didn't know what to say other than that there was suddenly much more visibility from a variety of viewpoints. I guess that the history was too proximate to filter down to the main trends. A solid documentary. 8/10
With now 10 years hindsight, here's how I'd continue the documentary. The late 80s and early 90s was the era of AIDS dramas and coming out stories. On the one hand, you have the disease that weighed so heavily on homosexuals and also brought out society's ugly side, laying bare prejudices and the social divide. Of course such a subject would occupy gay filmmakers, as it should have. On the other hand, the increased voice of gays and lesbians meant they could finally reveal their moment of self-discovery and be proud of it. Gays in earlier films were primarily people with no history prior to being gay. They were already apart from "normal" people, already adults ingrained as homosexuals. They might spring up from the bowels of society or else had some mental imbalance--something that separated them from the possibility that they could have been borne of "normal" people. The coming out story breaks down that thought. Not only is it an important moment in gay people's lives, but it also showed to straight people that their best friends, or classmates, or neighbors, any one of them had the possibility of turning out gay. Gays did not originate on the fringes of society but got pushed there from the mainstream America where they originated.
As for the late 90s and early 00's, I don't have the distance to judge well. I'd say that overall not much changed. Straight, mainstream cinema started featuring gay characters regularly, but mainly for comedy based on one-dimensional stereotypes--not at all different from the "sissy" characters of the 20's and 30's. There would be light chastising of latent homophobia, but to me it always seemed meaningless because of how artificial the setup of the "lesson." Films by gay filmmakers had dropped the AIDS storylines, but the coming out story continued and through bad filmmaking a lot of it has lost its emotional punch. There've been a few good gay themed movies that I've seen from the last 10 years, but the majority has been a huge load of crap. The only other change that I've observed is that in the early 90s, all these straight male actors wanted to play gay because suddenly it became an asset to their resume, as opposed to a career killer. Of course, "playing gay" meant kissing another man or tenderly putting your hand on their shoulder. When it got to something heavier and more real, like Brokeback Mountain, the career-ending talk reared its head again. Much of the stigma in Hollywood is gone, but there's still enough to keep full-fleshed gay characters from appearing in mainstream studio-promoted movies. You may think Brokeback is a counterexample, but the studio was convinced it would only be a small scale arthouse movie: an arty filmmaker, low name actors (at the time), and a . It opened in very limited release (3 cities) and only slowly started adding more theaters in urban areas before getting wide release about 4-6 weeks later. It's funny, but it's like what Susan Sarandon said in Celluloid Closet about the success of Philadelphia: the public is always ahead of the studios in terms of readiness to handle more provocative material. Hollywood's still got a ways to go before it's ready to show gay people as something beyond the stereotype and as being appealing for something other than a flamy, fun personality.
With now 10 years hindsight, here's how I'd continue the documentary. The late 80s and early 90s was the era of AIDS dramas and coming out stories. On the one hand, you have the disease that weighed so heavily on homosexuals and also brought out society's ugly side, laying bare prejudices and the social divide. Of course such a subject would occupy gay filmmakers, as it should have. On the other hand, the increased voice of gays and lesbians meant they could finally reveal their moment of self-discovery and be proud of it. Gays in earlier films were primarily people with no history prior to being gay. They were already apart from "normal" people, already adults ingrained as homosexuals. They might spring up from the bowels of society or else had some mental imbalance--something that separated them from the possibility that they could have been borne of "normal" people. The coming out story breaks down that thought. Not only is it an important moment in gay people's lives, but it also showed to straight people that their best friends, or classmates, or neighbors, any one of them had the possibility of turning out gay. Gays did not originate on the fringes of society but got pushed there from the mainstream America where they originated.
As for the late 90s and early 00's, I don't have the distance to judge well. I'd say that overall not much changed. Straight, mainstream cinema started featuring gay characters regularly, but mainly for comedy based on one-dimensional stereotypes--not at all different from the "sissy" characters of the 20's and 30's. There would be light chastising of latent homophobia, but to me it always seemed meaningless because of how artificial the setup of the "lesson." Films by gay filmmakers had dropped the AIDS storylines, but the coming out story continued and through bad filmmaking a lot of it has lost its emotional punch. There've been a few good gay themed movies that I've seen from the last 10 years, but the majority has been a huge load of crap. The only other change that I've observed is that in the early 90s, all these straight male actors wanted to play gay because suddenly it became an asset to their resume, as opposed to a career killer. Of course, "playing gay" meant kissing another man or tenderly putting your hand on their shoulder. When it got to something heavier and more real, like Brokeback Mountain, the career-ending talk reared its head again. Much of the stigma in Hollywood is gone, but there's still enough to keep full-fleshed gay characters from appearing in mainstream studio-promoted movies. You may think Brokeback is a counterexample, but the studio was convinced it would only be a small scale arthouse movie: an arty filmmaker, low name actors (at the time), and a . It opened in very limited release (3 cities) and only slowly started adding more theaters in urban areas before getting wide release about 4-6 weeks later. It's funny, but it's like what Susan Sarandon said in Celluloid Closet about the success of Philadelphia: the public is always ahead of the studios in terms of readiness to handle more provocative material. Hollywood's still got a ways to go before it's ready to show gay people as something beyond the stereotype and as being appealing for something other than a flamy, fun personality.