Do Gay People in Films Always Have to be Stereotypes?

Originally published on www.biggaypictureshow.com

In the past I’ve written about a number issues I have when it comes to gay men in films and films that are gay-centric in particular. One of these issues is that they are usually sold on sex, making us all fit into the sexual deviant paradigm that so many people have afforded us, the other issue I’ve written about is why we have to have gay films – after all why can’t they just be films.

This being said, ‘gay films’ are here and for the foreseeable future they are here to stay, because let’s face it, many Hollywood studios are still reluctant to release a mainstream gay-centric film, despite the success of Brokeback mountain almost a decade ago. This then brings up the issue that most of the gay men that we see in films are the flappy, fashion conscience, witty, bitchy character whose retorts and comments are used for comic affect.

These characters can be found in many rom-coms, such as Bridget Jones’ Diary, as well as teen flicks like Mean Girls. We are undoubtedly being put into more films now and being allowed to be openly gay – and all exposure is good exposure in a way, I suppose. Even if the studios are still a little worried to make us the leading star, at least we are there.

However, I can’t get over the fact that many gay-centric films made by LGBT production companies and filmmakers have to use these characters as well. I’ve reviewed and watched a few films recently that heavily feature characters like this. Yes, there are gay people like this, but would it hurt the filmmakers and studios to feature more down-to-earth, non-stereotyped gay characters in a gay movie? After all, we’re bombarded with these stock characters in nearly every romantic comedy that gets churned out.

It looks as though whilst we are getting some representation in mainstream movies, the issue of being stereotyped will always be there. It’s just a shame that gay centric comedy films and rom-coms don’t display enough diversity, to show other gay men and people in Hollywood that we aren’t all like that stock character they know so well. Perhaps if the entertainment made for the gay community were more varied in its depiction of gay people, a little more of that diversity would seep through into the mainstream.

The Problem With Some Gay Films – Are they sold too much just on sex?

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

I’ve previously written a number of articles about gay men in films and on television, such as why it’s important that gay people are featured in the medium of both film and TV and why it is important that we have films that centre on gay people. I do believe that this is important, but as a gay man I also have a number of issues with many LGBT films.

The problem I have with many gay movies is they look just like soft-core pornography. I say this because after moseying around a branch of HMV, I came across a gay orientated film, however the synopsis and even the name of the movie have failed to stick in my mind. This is due to the fact that after looking on the back of the DVD I was greeted by a number of images of half naked men, some of which clearly depicted a sex scene, and this wasn’t an isolated incident to this one particular film.

I’ve watched and seen advertisements for a number of gay specific films that heavily feature naked men, guys wandering around in speedos or underwear, or full-on sex scenes. Now I’m not a prude or have any issue with seeing half naked men, but it does make me wonder, what happened to a good storyline? Now it’s possible these films do have okay plots, but the marketing suggests the only thing the viewer cares about is the beefcake (and quite a lot of the gay-themed movies themselves seem to think the same).

I say this because there aren’t that many films that feature primarily straight characters that are mainly sold on semi-nakedness and people having sex for no apparent reason, but it often feels that the majority of gay films seem to think titillating the viewer is necessary to get them to watch. Of course there are those films that are on late at night on some of the lesser-known movie channels that are solely about straight sex, but the less said about those the better.

Many gay films are like this, which is perhaps one of the reasons LGBT-themed films only have a very limited audience that doesn’t even encompass all gay people. They just sit on a DVD shelf in a shop and gather dust, only to suffer the fate of the bargain bin. It’s probably one of the reasons why a movie like Brokeback Mountain is such as success as – aside from having big name stars in it – it has a good plot and the sex scenes are used to push the story along.

I have a fear that until some makers of gay specific films realise that not all gay men need to see semi-naked actors parade around in tiny briefs, and would instead much prefer to see a well thought out plot and character development, that many gay films will continue to face the fate of the discount shelf. And equally, if gay movies continue to be sold purely on the sex, it undermines a lot of the good work done by filmmakers who do care about making a good film, but who then see that work ignored in favour of marketing it purely on the semi-nude men – which ensures many who would enjoy it won’t watch it, and those who do are disappointed it’s not the sex-fest the DVD cover promised.

After all, if you want to see naked men acting badly and running around in badly scripted films then, surely you can just watch porn; the sex scenes will probably be better too.

Are Gay Men Considered More Acceptable On Screen Than Lesbians?

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

Gay people have entered the mainstream media significantly in recent times, whether as television or radio presenters or characters in television and film. But something that has to be looked at, is how this representation is mainly of gay men.

When we see gay couples or a singular gay person in a film or on television, it is almost always gay men and very rarely a lesbian or lesbian couple. But why is this? Is the media and society in general more accepting of gay men that it is of gay women?

In recent times gay men have been shown in a particular light – we all know the stereotype of the fashion conscious, confident, out going, opinionated gay man who regularly springs up in TV programmes and films. When partnered with a straight woman, this coupling looks like a sure fire hit – just look at Carrie and Stanford in Sex and the City.

This cool trendy image of the gay man has also seeped into public consciousness as well, because as a gay man, how often have you bumped into someone on a night out or just with friends and heard the phrase, “I’ve always wanted a gay friend.” However you never hear someone say the same about having a lesbian friend, maybe because some people still have the image that lesbians are Dr Martins wearing, radical feminists in dungarees and checked shirts. It’s a stereotype that I can’t say I’ve actually come across in real life, and there aren’t many, if any, straight man and gay woman or straight woman and gay woman pairings in our regularly viewed entertainment.

But why is this? Is it because of the image that has been broadcast everywhere of gay men and the use of celebrities such as Graham Norton, Alan Carr and Gok Wan that have made gay men much more accessible and fashionable than women? We do have lesbian television presenters such as Sue Perkins, but let’s be honest, her time on television can’t really be compared to the constant presence of her gay male counterparts.

When it comes to gay men on television and film, there isn’t as much representation as there could be, especially in film, where lead gay characters are few and far between, but there are still significantly more gay men than there are lesbians.

Programmes such as Queer as Folk and Will & Grace helped bring gay men into the mainstream media and they have become staples ever since, but if Will was straight and Grace was a lesbian, would the programme have been as big as it was? The answer is probably no, because the stereotype conveyed in society of a gay man seems to add more comic value than that of a lesbian.

This continues throughout television where gay couples on British TV in Eastenders and Coronation Street have been major successes and have been given many major storylines (there have been lesbian storylines, but beyond the girl-on-girl kiss in Brookside, haven’t seeped into cultural consciousness in the same way). In film, Brokeback Mountain was a major Hollywood success both financially and personally for gay men, as they hadn’t had that type of exposure in a Hollywood movie ever, but there hasn’t been a major mainstream film based around lesbians.

Ok, there was The Kids are Alright in terms of movie representation, and there have been hit shows in the form of The L Word and Lip Service, but the majority of viewers for these programmes seem to be lesbians or people who already back the LGBT community, whereas programmes like Queer as Folk became a surprise hit with a large number of diverse viewers. The character of Sophie Webster has also played one of the bigger characters in Coronation Street recently, and being a lesbian the character is one of the most high profile in terms of lesbian representation, but why did it take them so long to introduce a lesbian character when they’d already had a few major gay themed storylines at that point?

We may never know the real answer, but hopefully the representation and acceptance of gay females on television and in film will improve, in the same way that it did for gay men. Sue Perkins is currently writing a new sitcom for BBC2 concentrating on a lesbian vet. How well it will do is another matter. But with representation increasing, hopefully we will see gay women and men on our television screens in a bigger quantity and more regularly. Who knows, the next big gay film in Hollywood may just centre around a lesbian. Here’s hoping.

The production code may have come down but we still aren't mainstream

Originally published on www.biggaypictureshow.com

After the production code was brought in during the 1930s it became much harder to show several different things on the Hollywood Screen.

There were restrictions on the length of time a couple could be seen kissing, whether you could show a couple in bed together, even a scene from Disney’s Snow White had to be cut because she was shown in bed with the seven dwarfs, and then there was the restriction of showing homosexuals on screen due to what was know as sex perversion.

However after existing in Hollywood for over thirty years the final part of the code, which just happened to be the section concentrating on sex perversion, came down in 1968, finally allowing homosexual characters to be shown in Hollywood films.

There had been gay characters shown in films prior to 1968, but these films were from countries such as Italy and Great Britain, but with the dominance of the Hollywood film they hadn’t made enough of a global impact.

After the production code had fully come down gay people were finally being shown in some films, but we had a very odd portrayal as throughout the 1970s and 80s we were mainly shown in a negative light, usually as villains or victims.

As the 1990s came around gay people finally began to get a slightly better portrayal, that meaning that we weren’t necessarily tragic or villains, as we were now cast in the role of the ‘gay best friend’ in several Hollywood rom-coms, where we minced about helping our girl friends shop for the perfect shoes. Hello stereotype. But we were far from leading characters.

Over this period of time we were getting more of a leading role in some independent films such as My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant, but these were seen by limited audiences and we were once again just missing out on the mainstream, and we weren’t leads in big blockbuster films.

It wasn’t until the 2000s with the release of Brokeback Mountain that we finally saw a mainstream Hollywood Blockbuster depict two gay men as the lead characters, alas they were very tragic figures but it was a true portrayal of the time. But since this we have still not seen many big Hollywood films featuring gay characters as leads.

Yes there was Milk and The Kids are Alright that both garnered much success, but this is only two where there could have been many more.

Maybe its Hollywood’s fear of not appealing to a big enough audience or maybe it is the fear of the actors to not be seen as gay and alienate a large section of their audiences, that we will never know.

But what we can see is, whilst these fears hover around behind the doors of Hollywood it looks as though we haven’t come tremendously far in the last 40 years, so maybe we will just have to wait another 40 and live with the fact that we do have exposure in many indie films these days. Every little counts after all.

Why Do We Have Gay Films?

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

I’ve been wondering recently why when it comes to films do we have ‘gay films’ and not just films?

It is easy to see why some films get lumbered under this specific category of movie; it may be theme, especially if it’s dealing with LGBT issues, the leading actor or actress if they have a large gay following or are gay themselves. The director who may have a history of directing these so called ‘gay films’ or even the studio/distributor – Peccadillo is well known for its LGBT orientated movies.

So yes, there may be films that do cater more towards the gay community, which in itself is a good thing for gay people who sat and watched films for decades before someone was able to depict something well known to them. But it isn’t just gay people who enjoy these movies, the same way that gay people don’t just enjoy ‘gay movies.’ It appears that every movie with the slightest hint of a gay narrative is automatically classed as a gay movie, but you don’t see every other film in Hollywood that concentrates on the relationship between a man and woman classed as a straight movie, do you?

Films such as Brokeback Mountain and My Own Private Idaho are often considered to be LGBT films due to the storylines involved. In those cases it’s the gay romance between the two leading characters in Brokeback Mountain and the presence of gay hustlers within My Own Private Idaho.

But in the equal society that we now supposedly live in, where gay people are treated the same as straight people – with the same rights and the same representation in the media (supposedly, at least) – it is surprising that these films can’t be seen for what they are, before they are lumbered into the LGBT category. After all, Brokeback Mountain is the story of unrequited love that we see all the time in films and My Own Private Idaho is another narrative that we regularly see on the big screen and on television, a story about a young person coming of age. However, due to the presence of gay people within these narratives they automatically become ‘gay films.’ Any other film harbouring these narratives wouldn’t be labeled so quickly.

It feels as though it is about time that Hollywood wasn’t so black and white when it came to their movies – after all we’ve had colour for over 70 years. It’s about time that films like these stopped being categorised by the slight difference in their plotline and were recognised for the films that they truly are.

We Remember: Brokeback Mountain

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

In the latest instalment of We Remember we are taking a look at probably the most pinnacle moment in movie history when it comes to gay characters on screen, Brokeback Mountain.

Now I myself have a little bit of an issue when it comes to this film, fair enough it is a good film and the lead actors are brilliant in it and it was a huge moment for the gay community to see two very successful actors play gay for a big movie production. But my issue is that I don’t think it deserves the huge amount of praise it gets, yes it is good but I didn’t really think it was Oscar worthy?

Now there are probably a number of people who would like to sit me down now and tell me why this film was Oscar worthy and I would welcome them, but for the time being let’s just discuss the film.

For gay cinema goers this film was a definite stand out as the gay community finally had a huge blockbuster movie that centred around two closeted homosexual characters who were completely in love but because of the times they couldn’t be together, and that is extremely sad and this is heightened by the fact that this sort of thing would have happened to a huge amount of gay men back then, who would have got married, had children and repressed their homosexuality.

The best thing about this film has to be the fact that after a while you stop thinking about the fact that these two men are gay, and just watch it as an up to date love story for the 21^st century, and this is probably why it did get the praise it got and the awards it received.

I mean who would have thought that twenty or thirty years previous to this, that there would be a film with two hugely respected and well known Hollywood actors playing gay characters in a huge film that centred around them? And who would have thought that it would have grossed over $100 million at the box office? Not many that’s for sure, but it was about time it did happen.

All in all this film is a land mark in gay cinema, and I think it may be a long time before another film like this comes along, and the acting from both Jake and the late great Heath Ledger was absolutely brilliant.

So it is a definite watch for anyone who is gay or just enjoys cinema with a gay twist. I think after writing this I must go back and watch it again and see if I still stand by the opinion that it didn’t deserve Oscar glory.