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.

We Remember: The Celluloid Closet

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

Over the decades there have been numerous films that have openly centred on gay people and gay themes, then there are those that explored it more covertly with undertones of homosexuality.

One film took a look at a huge selection of these films, from early Hollywood cinema that enforced the production code that labelled homosexuality under the bracket of sex perversion preventing the display of gay themes, to more recently where a number of films have been able to explore homosexuality.

The Celluloid Closet began its life as a book back in 1981 and was written by Vito Russo. Then in 1996 it was turned into a documentary film narrated by the ever-talented Lily Tomlin.

The film takes a look at 100 hundred years of Hollywood cinema and explores the way in which they tackled homosexuality, from the beginning of cinema with the often present effeminate male character, that although was never openly stated as being homosexual, relied heavily on a stereotype that was developing in society. To the days of the production code that didn’t allow a man and woman to be shown in bed together, never mind two men. This is where homosexual themes in cinema went underground and became more covert, up until the 1960s when the gay rights movement began and the production code was finally disabled, allowing homosexual themes to be explored more openly.

The film is a great documentary for anybody who is interested in film and anyone who is interested in the representation of homosexual characters within film history. It gives you a great insight into how a number of negative representations began surrounding homosexuals and how these started in the medium of film, and helps you see how being gay in not only cinema but in society has come a long way since the early 1900’s.

I think it’s a great documentary, and is extremely important when discovering the history of LGBT cinema. The film should be seen by everyone in order to help them understand how the powerful movie companies repressed homosexuality and how this had a lasting effect. It also helps you see that although it was repressed it is still there in an enormous amount of films, and shows the viewer that gays in cinema have come a long way, even since the 1980’s never mind the 1930’s.