A New Dawn for Gay Cinema?
In recent years we have seen more and more gay cinema, which is fantastic. But yet, for such a liberal arts community, we still haven't reached a completely contemporary place of acceptance, where gay films can be made without subliminal messages, suggesting this specific lifestyle is wrong or immoral. Or where actors who are gay, can live their lives out in the open. Although, there have been so many great ‘gay oriented’ movies in past years such as, “Brokeback Mountain”, “Milk” “Boy’s Don’t Cry”, “Capote”, “A Single Man”, and one of my favorites, “My Summer of Love.” “My Summer of Love” is one of my favorite movies of the new queer cinema movement. A friend of mine, Natalie Press, stars as a lonely and lost girl in rural England, being pushed by her brother to become an evaneglical Christian. She meets the alluring and sexy Emily Blunt, by chance one day, and Emily Blunt’s character leads her into a love affair that lasts over the course of one summer. What I love about this movie is that there is only one brief sex scene between the two characters. The love between these two people is shown through time spent together, doing such things as riding bikes through the country, sharing their most intimate secrets, and taking mushrooms and going to a disco class for old people. I love that the director, Pawel Pawlikowski, made the choice not to play into the sex appeal of lesbians for the benefit of certain members of the audience. He simply told a real love story that could have been about any two people. This is something that I really love about “Brokeback Mountain” as well; neither character was played as a flamboyantly gay person. They were played as real people who happened to fall in love.
The one thing that disappointed me about “My Summer of Love,” was the secondary storyline, where Press's character's brother be raids and forbids her from spending time with, the person who she thinks could be the love of her life, simply because she is another woman. Her born again Christian, yet very hypocritical brother (who hits her in one scene), is such a disappointing addition to this movie, that I feel it would have been better served without. It also reminds us of the age old and played-out message that homosexuality is wrong. I understand that the director may have been trying to speak out against bigots like the brother character, but I feel it was an unnecessary addition to the film. I think the message of open and accepting love would have been better transferred into the minds of the audience without this distracting addition.
The Academy should be somewhat praised for giving more attention, in recent years to gay cinema, yet still many of the films they have chosen to recognize, such as Brokeback Mountain, still contain underlying messages that homosexuality is wrong. By Jake Gyllenhaal's character being killed in the end of the film and the two main love interests not being able to live a full life together, it subconsciously reinforces these old adages. I don't believe the writers or director Ang Lee, intentionally slipped this message into the film to make use believe these dated notions, yet some audience members could derive them subconsciously.
All the movies listed above were either nominated or critically acclaimed. The time when we should praise the Academy, is when they nominate a movie with gay content that doesn't contain these subliminal messages, because the whole world notices these films, and when it’s a movie like, “Milk,” the world becomes more educated and perhaps open minded. Even if it just makes them more ‘OK’ with watching a gay oriented movie, something is being accomplished, even if the all the formulas aren't perfect yet.
The expansion of the openly gay community into the entertainment world has brought new outlets to the public such as, “Logo.” Logo is a channel geared toward gay, bisexual, and transgender people. They have shows such as, “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which is a contest show in which drag queens compete to be the best drag queen they can be. I think it’s great that a show like this can exist on television (even if it is on an obscure cable channel and seems to make a mockery of these people). I believe we may be on the verge of a new era, where you are less and less defined by your sexuality.
It’s very sad to see how the studio system used to (and still does) treat actors once they are openly gay, dropping people from contracts simply because of their sexuality is utterly wrong. Although, I have heard that Warner Brothers covered up James Dean’s homosexuality by setting him up with dates and girlfriends. It seems as though, as long as you were not open about your sexuality in the past, the studio would overlook it, but this doesn’t make it right. Even today, actors who are gay are not usually open about it, there are very few who are brave enough to be and they usually suffer because of it by being given only gay oriented roles.
As a side note I find it very interesting that we as a country are more paranoid and prejudice toward gay people than countries like France and Italy. Yet, we have been making great strides in our cinema world to expand the way we think and to get rid of our previous stereotypical visions of gay people, still not enough is being done. And as it stated the out text book, perhaps the reason for this prejudice is due to the fact that we started out as a very conservative and religious country, but I think there are a growing number of people (especially in major cities) who are evolving to a new way of thinking, thanks to films like the ones listed above and to filmmakers and critics who are willing to be brave by making films that represent a growing community around the world.
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