Queer Representation

REPRESENTATION, STEREOTYPES AND THE QUEER PRESTIGE FILM

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REPRESENTATION, STEREOTYPES AND THE QUEER PRESTIGE FILM

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Screen Education I No. 76

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www.screeneducation.com.au

TALKING SOCIETY

We’ve come a long way from the ‘mincing fairy’ that frequently featured in silent Hollywood films and early talkies. But just how far? DAVID CREWE assesses the past and present representation of queer people in mainstream cinema and television, and posits that with progress should always come ongoing inquiry.

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The term queer, once a pejorative epithet used to humiliate gay men and women, is now used by academics to describe the broad, fluid and ever-changing expanse of human sexualities. Queer can be used to describe any sexuality not defined as heterosexual procreative monogamy (usually the presumed goal of most classical Hollywood couplings); queers are people (including heterosexuals) who do not organize their sexuality according to that rubric.

– Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin1

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he topic of queer representation in mainstream film and television is a particularly pertinent one for today’s teenagers. Exploring the representation of LGBTIQ2 individuals and themes in a classroom setting not only provides a significant opportunity to examine the stereotypes and social values inherent in mainstream media, but also presents a valuable opportunity for students to question their own understandings of sexuality and gender.

Many teenagers form their opinions regarding queer individuals and lifestyles through the media rather than peers or role models; it is therefore important to critically evaluate these representations in an Australia where same-sex marriage is not legal and, to give but one example, a recent study found that ‘80 per cent of gay, lesbian and gender-diverse students have experienced casual homophobic language in their secondary school physical education classes’.3 Addressing this topic may require careful negotiation; it is important to be sensitive to community standards and create an environment in which students are comfortable expressing their opinions. Undertaking considered analyses of queer representation allows students who may be uncomfortable with such themes to interrogate the social foundation of this discomfort. Similarly, it is important to provide a safe space for teenagers who may be coming to terms with their own sexuality or gender to express themselves openly without fear of ridicule.

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: Zachary Quinto in American Horror Story THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Jared Leto in Dallas Buyer’s Club; Kurt (Chris Colfer) with his boyfriend Blaine (Darren Criss) from Glee (two images)

SISSIES AND SIDEKICKS, VILLAINS AND VICTIMS: QUEER STEREOTYPES The treatment of gays in today’s films is far more complex, and yet so many filmmakers still end up relying on negative stereotypes. In a deceptive twist on tradition, many recent films seem to attempt a politically correct ‘balance’ between negative gay caricatures and more ‘positive’ views of gay people, but in most cases the balancing act ultimately fails, and we are left with hateful images of gay people as murderers or fools.

– Roger Kaufman4 As with members of any minority group, queer people are regularly represented via broad stereotypes in film and television. Stereotypes are not, in and of themselves, negative, and a number of stereotypes can act as useful cinematic shorthand to convey character traits without the need for lengthy exposition. However, while one stereotypical depiction of a queer person may be harmless in a vacuum, the cumulative effect of queer characters framed as weak, ineffectual, asexual or worse can significantly shape the broader society’s opinion of queer people, particularly for young people whose own lives may be without queer role models.

The most enduring queer stereotype is the sissy: the limpwristed, lisping jester – a flamboyant figure of comic relief found in many early Hollywood films. Benshoff and Griffin cite Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn and Grady Sutton as actors who ‘often made careers out of playing these caricatures’.5 While the prominence of the sissy in popular culture has waned, it’s still not uncommon to see a character coded as queer with similar traits – take, for example, John Hurt as a closeted cop in Partners (James Burrows, 1982) or Jeremy Piven’s Versace salesman in Rush Hour 2 (Brett Ratner, 2001). The sissy is not an inherently negative stereotype, but as a trend it carries negative implications; the sissy is generally ridiculous, often asexual (particularly in those early Hollywood films) and rarely a fully-fledged character in his own right.

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While one stereotypical depiction of a queer person may be harmless in a vacuum, the cumulative effect of queer characters framed as weak, ineffectual, asexual or worse can significantly shape the broader society’s opinion of queer people, particularly for young people whose own lives may be without queer role models.

PHILADELPHIA AND THE QUEER PRESTIGE FILM For straight viewers, the queer prestige film provides a window to a minority culture (as well as the self-congratulation that accompanies feeling broad-minded enough to look through that window) and potentially humanizes issues that otherwise are defined by polarizing political diatribes and trite catchphrases.

– Matt Connolly9

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There is a rich history of queer and queer-themed cinema with which to examine the representation of LGBTIQ characters, history and themes. I would argue that Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993), described by Owen Gleiberman as ‘the first fullscale Hollywood drama about contemporary gay life’,10 is a useful starting point for a discussion of mainstream queer films. There are countless precursors to Demme’s AIDS drama, of course: Kenneth Anger’s famous 1947 short Fireworks, Basil Dearden’s 1961 film Victim (the first English-language film to use the word

FROM TOP: Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) and Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) from Philadelphia; Beckett in a courtroom ‘homosexual’), and Bob Fosse’s 1972 film Cabaret, which ­features a prominent gay character and collected eight Oscars. But Philadelphia represents a shift towards queer themes in ‘issue’ pictures marketed to mainstream audiences.

Philadelphia earned Tom Hanks an Academy Award for Best Actor as Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer diagnosed with AIDS who successfully sues his law firm for wrongful dismissal. The film also performed well at the box office, with receipts totalling over US$77 million,11 and was prominent in the cultural consciousness of 1993. More importantly, however, it popularised a subgenre of its own – the queer prestige film, which addresses queer themes in a manner palatable to mainstream audiences. Philadelphia may be indebted to Hollywood’s historically stereotypical representation of queer characters, but it also attempts an earnest examination of the bigotry directed towards gay people (especially those afflicted with AIDS).

While it is unlikely that many contemporary teenagers will be familiar with Demme’s film, Philadelphia is educational as a time capsule of broader society’s opinion of homosexuality two decades ago. Despite being considered progressive at the time (Gleiberman’s 1993 review describes it as a ‘scattershot liberal message movie’12), this is a film that includes Denzel Washington as an unapologetically homophobic counsel for Hanks’ character, displaying undisguised revulsion when a man hits on him in a pharmacy and at one point telling the jury: ‘The behaviour of Andrew Beckett’s employers may seem reasonable to you. It does to me.’

The need for an ‘audience surrogate’ who espouses homophobia is hard to understand from a modern vantage point, but it’s not extinct. Last year’s Dallas Buyers Club, for example, works broadly

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There is significant social osmosis between filmic representation and social identification, particularly when it comes to the sissy ­stereotype. Vito Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet 6 posits that the sissy is an unfavourable representation, but prominent gay ­actor/playwright Harvey Fierstein defends this characterisation in the documentary adaptation of Russo’s book.7 For many gay men, the effeminate affectation provides an outlet to establish their identity. Another important observation is that this prominent stereotype is limited to (primarily white) gay men – depictions of lesbian or transgender characters are substantially rarer in early Hollywood (a trend that, arguably, continues in modern film and television).

The introduction of the Motion Picture Production Code (better known as the Hays Code) in the 1930s shifted the queer character in films from a trifling figure of fun to an individual worthy of scorn or pity. The moralistic regulations of the Hays Code forced filmmakers to emphasise the immorality of characters indulging in such sexual ‘perversion’. Queer characters continued to be portrayed as asexual – any explicit presentations of their sexuality was forbidden – and now they would end the film dead or imprisoned, to salve the consciences of contemporary audiences. For example, The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) features two gay villains (played by Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook Jr). References to their sexuality are reserved for scented handkerchiefs and veiled references to ‘gunsels’. Coded or not, they’re inevitably outsmarted by our unambiguously heterosexual hero, Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), before the credits roll. As Trista DeVries puts it, ‘it was okay to have queers on screen, just so long as everyone knew they were terrible people’.8 The Hays Code decayed and was eventually dismantled, but its legacy remains. While many queer characters were reduced to a kind of accessory – stylish gay male characters who advise the female star of the rom-com (Rupert Everett in PJ Hogan’s 1997 film My Best Friend’s Wedding), or ‘alternative’ lesbians to be turned by the male protagonist (Joey Lauren Adams in Kevin Smith’s 1997 film Chasing Amy) – the legacy of the victim and villain stereotypes remained. The villain characterisation was especially evident in mainstream films – Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980), The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) and Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992) are prime examples – while the victim characterisation, found in films from Michael (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1924) to last year’s Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée), became the defining feature of the queer prestige film.

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Philadelphia’s problem is more subtle and insidious than the obvious patronization present in the sidekick flicks [films where queer characters – usually gay men – are reduced to ‘sidekicks’ for the leading lady]; it’s a picture of suffering so glamorized and Ralph Laurentasteful that any real pathos is lost. Hanks played a comfortable, well-off WASP [white Anglo-Saxon protestant] professional who finds himself on the wrong side of a system that had previously enabled him to live a gratifying gay-yuppie lifestyle. Opting to ignore the brutal ironies inherent in a story that practically begged for farther-reaching social commentary or even black humor, the filmmakers allowed it to become a Hallmark-sentimental bit of fluff that inadvertently trivialized the Big Issues it wanted to drive home.15 Hanks’ character is, like so many of the gay characters that preceded him, a victim. To its credit, Philadelphia avoids indulging in the queer stereotypes found in other mainstream films of the era – the exaggerated affectations, limp wrists and so on that can be found in The Birdcage (Mike Nichols, 1996), or in In & Out (Frank Oz, 1997), wherein the protagonist (Kevin Kline) discovers he’s gay through dancing to Diana Ross’ version of ‘I Will Survive’.

But, inadvertently or otherwise, Demme’s film recalls decades of queer characters who suffer for their sexuality. And when it comes to mainstream depictions of queerness, they are not alone.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO …

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from the same template as Philadelphia – investigating the discrimination associated with AIDS and homosexuality (and how the two are intertwined), in this case from the perspective of the heterosexual, overtly homophobic Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey).

Given that the real Woodroof is rumoured to have been bisexual,13 the implication is that even today mainstream audiences expect a straight central protagonist, with queer characters presented as secondary characters to bear the brunt of the suffering (as Jared Leto’s transgender character, Rayon, does in Dallas Buyers Club).

Andrew Beckett is arguably more of a symbol than a person.

Demme stated at the time that the goal of the film was to ‘to reach people who don’t know people with AIDS, who look down on people with AIDS’,14 but this has limited the depth of the characterisation. Andrew is a noble martyr, without negative emotions; he’s apparently suing his employers out of a sense of injustice rather than spite. He is a sympathetic gay character in a mainstream media that didn’t have many, but those sympathetic aspects are arguably largely unnecessary.

Despite his relationship with Miguel (Antonio Banderas), he’s essentially asexual in the film (the closest Andrew comes to expressing physical sexuality is in a dance with Miguel – there’s not even a kiss).

Andrew’s supportive family, apparent affluence, and even the casting of Hanks – an inoffensive, likeable, charming actor – all seem calibrated to overcome the assumed biases of contemporary audiences, as Christopher McQuain argues:

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THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Capote; The Birdcage; Brokeback Mountain

The most successful producers and directors look at the bottom line … To do that, they feel they must be risk-averse and stick to a formula.

That formula, unfortunately, doesn’t include casting a gay person in a gay role, or any role. As a result, gay actors tend to be offered sub-par roles in gay movies by studios that don’t have the resources to produce quality work and market their films aggressively enough to be serious Oscar contenders.

– Kelvin Lynch16

QUEER AS TELEVISION

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Today, countless transgender youth will hear the message that they can be who they are and still achieve their dreams – nothing is out of reach. Laverne [Cox]’s success on a hit series is a clear indication that audiences are ready for more trans characters on television.

– GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis18

ABOVE: Queer as Folk

The modern television landscape features a broad range of queer representations – characters that embrace stereotypes, transcend stereotypes or eschew them altogether.

Examining queer representation through mainstream films alone disregards the medium that provides the most exposure to queer characters for young people – television. The success of shows like Will & Grace, which debuted in 1998, and Queer as Folk, which debuted in 2000, demonstrated that there was an audience eager to see multidimensional queer characters on their television sets (admittedly, in two very different formats – Will & Grace is a frothy sitcom, indebted to lighthearted films like In & Out, while Queer as Folk, with its explicit sex scenes, veers closer to the unabashed sexuality of independent queer cinema).

The modern television landscape features a broad range of queer representations – characters that embrace stereotypes, transcend stereotypes or eschew them altogether. Modern Family prominently features a gay couple, Mitch and Cam (Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet), and Glee includes a range of gay and bisexual characters, as does Netflix newcomer Orange is the New Black, which is notable for the presence of a prominent transgender character played by a trans actor (Laverne Cox). All these shows have been successful commercially and critically, each attracting multiple industry award nominations and wins.

And there are many others: the mounting number of television shows with significant queer roles includes supernatural melodramas like Teen Wolf and True Blood, the horror miniseries American Horror Story and gay drama Looking (a clear spiritual successor to shows like Queer as Folk). ‘Golden age’ shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men and The Wire also found time to examine queer themes and develop robust queer characters.

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It’s important to distinguish between independent queer cinema – defined by B Ruby Rich as the New Queer Cinema17 – and mainstream films that incorporate queer themes/characters.

That distinction can be difficult to make. Broadly, we can classify independent queer cinema as largely driven by queer filmmakers, while the mainstream equivalent is a cooption of these themes for mainstream (read: straight) audiences, but where to draw the line is not entirely clear.

The Academy Awards present a useful shortcut here; as a behemoth of cultural tastemaking, the Oscars have come to represent a gatekeeper between experimentation and acceptance – a bridge between the arthouse and the mainstream. The legitimacy of a film like Philadelphia is bolstered substantially by Hanks’ Academy Award nomination (and subsequent win), the golden statuette serving as reassurance to bourgeois audiences that this is ‘worthwhile art’ (and, by extension, reassurance that mainstream audiences shouldn’t feel guilty about avoiding independent queer cinema).

While students’ definitions of what is and isn’t mainstream will vary wildly depending on cultural context, the Oscars are a convenient – if admittedly imperfect – way to narrow the purview of this analysis.

The discussion around the significance of the Academy Awards is an interesting one in and of itself, presenting the opportunity to discuss the specifics of the industry (for example: Who votes for the Academy Awards? How are these decisions made?) and how society’s standards are informed and reinforced by the films lauded by the Academy – and vice versa. Even without explicitly discussing these points, these should be clear from the trend evident in the kinds of films receiving Oscar attention over the last two decades since Philadelphia. Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999), American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999), The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002), Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005), Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008), Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006) and Dallas Buyers Club, among others, demonstrate that the Academy tends to prefer depictions of homosexual or transgender characters that don’t stray too far from films produced under the Hays Code. The majority of these films, like Philadelphia, portray their queer characters as (often asexual) victims, many of whom do not make it to the final credits.

The exceptions – Colonel Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) in American Beauty, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) in Notes on a Scandal – are instead given villainous roles; both Cooper and Dench play closeted, manipulative characters whom the audience is not expected to sympathise with.

This is not to detract from the quality of these films, necessarily; to focus on Fitts’ apparent villainy is to ignore the underlying queer themes subverting American Beauty’s suburban setting, or the apparently happy gay couple played by Scott Bakula and Sam Robards. Equally, it’s hardly fair to dismiss the power of Milk as a heartfelt biopic simply because it faithfully chronicles the assassination of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn). But identifying the trends in the queer films recognised by the Academy both focuses the discussion around queer representation and provides a wealth of material to analyse.

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It’s important to note that these shows are not without their own issues. Modern Family was justifiably criticised for eliding displays of physical affection between Mitch and Cam, overtly addressing this issue in Season 2 episode ‘The Kiss’. American Horror Story has included conscious efforts to address queer themes, but the brutal, sexualised murder of a gay couple (played by Zachary Quinto and Teddy Sears) in Season 1 was undeniably problematic.

On television, minor roles continue to be presented as stereotypes – the mincing fairy or the butch lesbian – while full-time roles tend to have these qualities smoothed out thanks to the inherent strengths of the television medium: time. Whereas films are restricted to roughly two hours to tell their story, television series are afforded dozens of hours to develop their characters. Roles that may have read as broad stereotypes are fleshed out as the episode

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THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Mitch (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cam (Eric Stonestreet), the committed gay couple from Modern Family; transgender actor Laverne Cox plays trans character Sophia in Orange is the New Black; Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) is one of True Blood ’s queer characters; Michael K Williams as openly gay gangster Omar in The Wire; the cast of Will & Grace, one of the first sitcoms to have openly gay main characters

count increases, and this tends to flatten out stereotypes and add necessary depth. Compare the way Community’s Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) – whose sexual preference is never specified, though it clearly encompasses a proclivity for both dalmatians and Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) – developed into a fully-fledged character while the queer characters in the same series’ queer-themed episode ‘Advanced Gay’ aren’t so lucky, acting as flamboyant, glittery window-dressing.

Modern Family, to give another example, is established on a bedrock of stereotypes, queer or otherwise. Sofia Vergara embodies the shrill yet voluptuous Latina stereotype, while her on-screen husband (played by Ed O’Neill) is constructed in the tradition of the emotionally reserved, no-nonsense, gruff father-in-law. It’s not particularly surprising, then, that both Mitch and Cam regularly exhibit behaviour consistent with the sissy stereotype: effeminate mannerisms, flamboyant traits, a fondness for musicals, the ‘wife’/‘husband’ dichotomy, etc. But while the show might reinforce these stereotypes, it also challenges them – for example, by establishing Cam as a football player with a rural background and by presenting a healthy, committed same-sex relationship.

The long-form storytelling that television enables also tends to allow for less conventional, more complex queer characters. Take President Obama’s favourite character from The Wire, antihero gangster Omar Little (Michael K Williams). He’s a shotgun-toting outlaw who steals from drug dealers, and he’s also openly homosexual. Omar is a long way from the conventional depiction of a gay man, but it’s easy to imagine scenes establishing his sexuality

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INVESTIGATING QUEER REPRESENTATION IN FILM AND TELEVISION Lessons considering queer representation may require rules in order to ensure that students are respectful and considerate in their approach to the topic. Discussing expectations with your class such as ‘Avoid offensive language’ and ‘Listen to and be respectful of others’ opinions’ before beginning the unit is recommended.

Teacher preparation: •

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Create a list of examples of queer characters in mainstream media, especially in films and television programs that your students have expressed an interest in.

Familiarise yourself with the history of queer representation in cinema; the Celluloid Closet documentary presents a broad overview of the history of queer representation; segments from this film may be useful to provide context for your students.

Watch (or re-watch) key queer prestige films, particularly Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain.

Task 2 – Trends and stereotypes in the representation of queer characters •

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ACTIVITY 1 QUEER CHARACTERS IN FILM AND TELEVISION Task 1 – Queer characters in mainstream media •

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Before establishing that the context for this activity will be an investigation into queer representation, ask students to write a list – roughly twenty items long – of television and film characters. You may wish to be more specific – for example, ask for ‘iconic’ characters or ‘favourite’ characters.

Discuss the characters that students have listed; ask the students to identify any trends across the kinds of characters chosen throughout the class. It’s worth briefly discussing stereotypes at this stage as a foundation for future discussions regarding representation: What is a stereotype? Do any of these characters fit into known stereotypes?

After some discussion, ask the students to identify which, if any, of the characters on their list might be classified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or otherwise queer. This question in and of itself may prompt a discussion about ‘coded’

queer characters, whose sexuality or gender identity may not be explicitly identified in the diegesis but is strongly implied.

The direction of the subsequent discussion will vary depending on student responses – if very few queer characters have been chosen, for example, the discussion might revolve around why this is the case, and whether this is a reasonable reflection of the number of queer characters represented in film and television. Alternatively, the discussion might revolve around why these particular queer characters might have been selected over other options.

Divide the students into small groups and ask these groups to create a list of queer characters only, following the same guidelines given in Task 1 (that is, roughly twenty items long).

Are there any trends evident in the characterisation of the characters chosen? (For example, how many queer characters are non-white? Women?)

Ask the students to list gay/transgender stereotypes and discuss whether these are evident in the characters chosen.

Are these stereotypes realistic? Discuss how unrealistic stereotypes can be harmful and can colour people’s perceptions of queer individuals. Are stereotypes necessarily harmful? Why might filmmakers choose to use stereotypes?

Provide the following definitions (the source quote is on the next page if you’d like to read that in full) and discuss as a group whether or not the queer characters listed by the students follow these trends, and whether or not this description is consistent with students’ experiences of queer representations.

SISSY: A comedic role, defined by effeminate mannerisms, used to make men seem more manly and women more feminine.

VICTIM: Queer characters shown to be miserable, treated unfairly, depressed and unable to fit in to the norms of society. A common occurrence featuring this type of gay character involved their death at the end of the film.

VILLAIN: Shown as monsters who lacked a conscience and had no remorse. This portrayal revolved around how homosexuality was a flaw or human disorder.

THIS PAGE, L–R: Boys Don’t Cry; Queer as Folk; Brokeback Mountain; Mad Men

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omitted from a ninety-minute film. The television medium presents and, increasingly, leverages the opportunity to develop more substantial queer characters than those generally seen in cinema.

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Task 2 – Oscar-nominated films with queer themes •

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ACTIVITY 2 HISTORY OF QUEER CINEMA

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Task 1 – Philadelphia as queer prestige cinema •

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Introduce students to Philadelphia; depending on time available, this could involve a complete screening of the film, selected excerpts, or simply the trailer (available on YouTube).

Discuss the film’s representation of Andrew Beckett as a gay man. Is it a realistic depiction of a gay man? Topics such as Andrew’s apparent asexuality, his supportive family and his lack of anger are all worth discussing.

Consider Philadelphia in the context of 1993. Demme’s 1994 interview with Rolling Stone is useful in this regard, particularly Demme’s discussion of the choice to not include a same-sex kiss in the film because ‘I didn’t want to risk knocking our audience back twenty feet with images they’re not prepared to see.’20 Can Philadelphia be classified as ‘queer media’? MediaSmarts21 repurposes the four sections of Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin’s Queer Cinema: The Film Reader22 into three criteria for identifying queer media: 1.

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Auteurs: Has this media product been created by queer people?

(Demme is not openly gay, but screenwriter Ron Nyswaner is.)

Forms: Does this media product rely on ‘queer aesthetics’? Is it concerned with queer issues?

(This subject would require a significant amount of time to fully cover, but it’s worth discussing the notion of ‘queer aesthetics’ – camp, specifically, but also the notion that queer media tends to be radicalised and disruptive, often manifested as a kind of formal fluidity – in the context of Philadelphia, whose aesthetics are consistent with the mainstream cinema of its time.)

Reception: Has this media product been widely embraced by queer people?

(A more difficult question to answer – yes and no, but I would argue this is the most important question to discuss, as it prioritises the importance of a queer perspective on such products.)

Ask students to select a film produced after Philadelphia that has queer themes or character(s) and was nominated for an Academy Award. The selected films do not necessarily need to satisfy Benshoff and Griffin’s criteria (though students are encouraged to consider these criteria). For example, Philomena (Stephen Frears, 2013) could be considered, given that Philomena’s (Judi Dench) missing son is revealed to have been a gay man who died of AIDS. Alternatively, Frozen (Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee, 2013) could qualify if a student were able to coherently argue that Elsa’s (Idina Menzel) arc is an allegory for coming out.

As with Philadelphia, students are encouraged to consider the cultural context of their chosen film, researching reviews and news articles written at the time of the film’s release (this will, naturally, be easier for recent films).

Students should present a written response outlining the film’s representation of its queer character and/or themes, drawing a conclusion as to whether this representation is balanced or beholden to previously discussed stereotypes. This response should consider some of the following questions (from MediaSmarts’ ‘Queer Representation in the Media’23):

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Who created this media text? What is its purpose?

Whose voices and interests are being represented?

Whose are absent?

What do the images and narrative being deployed say about queer people?

If the representations in question utilise humour, are queer people in on the joke or are they the joke?

ACTIVITY 3 COMPARISON OF QUEER REPRESENTATION IN TWO TEXTS Task 1 – Comparing Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain •

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Play the scene from Philadelphia in which Andrew recounts his liaison at the Stallion movie theatre (from approximately 1:26:45 to 1:30:10), then the scene from Brokeback Mountain in which Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) are reunited (from 1:00:10, or the start of Chapter 12, to 1:01:30).

Ask the students to consider what the comparison of these two sequences achieves. The intent of this comparison is to demonstrate how Philadelphia’s framing of Andrew’s brief, darkly lit encounter at the Stallion provides a forbidding atmosphere, reinforced by the dizzying camerawork used in the court scene. While this is apparently intended to evoke Andrew’s illness-inspired nausea and disorientation, in context it strongly suggests that a physical expression of gay sexuality is shameful – especially troubling given the scene appears to be from Andrew’s perspective.

The corresponding Brokeback Mountain scene, on the other hand, suggests a more complex consideration of queer sexuality (even beyond the fact that Ennis and Jack’s embrace is more intimate than any moment from Philadelphia). The key difference between the two scenes is that the revolted reaction in Brokeback Mountain is specific to a subjective perspective – that of Ennis’ wife (Michelle Williams) – while Philadelphia’s stomach-churning cinematography attempts to embed that perspective in its protagonist and its audience.

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Gay characters had a place in cinema since its early beginnings; they were even present in early silent films. Since that time, they’ve had three distinct roles. Initially, they had a comedic role and were known as the ‘sissy’. Throughout the usage of this stock character, we were taught to laugh at and pity them. They were also used to make men seem more manly and women more feminine. The second character we were introduced to was the ‘victim’, who had us feeling pity for gays and lesbians. These characters were always shown to be miserable, treated unfairly, depressed and unable to fit into the norms of society. A common occurrence featuring this type of gay character involved their death at the end of the film. These movies once again reinforced the notion that being gay was some sort of horrid anomaly which led to a life filled with hopelessness and despair. The final portrayal revolved around how homosexuality was a flaw or human disorder. To represent this, the film producers conceived the gay characters as the primary antagonist or ‘villain’ of the movies. They were shown as monsters who lacked a conscience and had no remorse.

– Nabeel Ali, Brendan and Raven19

Task 2 – Cinematic comparison of queer media

4 September 2014.

Matt Connolly, ‘Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and the Queer Prestige Film’, Reverse Shot, issue 24, 2009, <http://www. reverseshot.com/article/brokeback_mountain_milk_and_ queer_prestige_film>, accessed 4 September 2014.

10 Owen Gleiberman, ‘Philadelphia (1993)’, Entertainment Weekly, 24 December 1993, <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,309047,00. html>, accessed 4 September 2014.

11 ‘Philadelphia’, Box Office Mojo, <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ movies/?id=philadelphia.htm>, accessed 4 September 2014.

12 Gleiberman, op. cit.

13 Ryan Buxton, ‘The Real Ron Woodroof “Had Relationships with Gay Men,” Says a Friend of the Dallas Buyers Club Subject’, Huffpost Live, 6 February 2014, <http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2014/02/06/ron-woodroof-gay-dallas-buyers-club_n_ 4740155.html>, accessed 4 September 2014.

14 Jonathan Demme, quoted in Anthony DeCurtis, ‘Rolling Stone Interview: Jonathan Demme’, Rolling Stone, 24 March 1994.

15 Christopher McQuain, ‘You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby?: Life Outside the Celluloid Closet Poses New Conundrums for Queers Looking for Silver-screen Mirrors’, The Film Journal, issue 3, 2002, <http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue3/ longwaybaby.html>, accessed 4 September 2014.

16 Kelvin Lynch, ‘Why Can’t Gay Actors Win Oscars?’, LGBTQNation, 1 February 2011, <http://www.lgbtqnation. com/2011/02/why-cant-gay-actors-win-oscars>, accessed 20 September 2014.

17 B Ruby Rich, ‘New Queer Cinema’, Sight & Sound, vol. 2, no. 5, September 1992.

18 Sarah Kate Ellis, quoted in Glenn Whipp, ‘Emmys 2014: Transgender Actress Laverne Cox Makes Emmy History’, Los Angeles Times, 10 July 2014, <http://www.latimes.com/ entertainment/envelope/tv/la-et-st-emmys-laverne-cox-trans -orange-is-the-new-black-20140710-story.html>, accessed 4 September 2014.

19 Nabeel Ali, Brendan & Raven, ‘The Celluloid Closet and Stereotypes’, Documenting Myths 10, 1 March 2013, <http:// documentingmyths10.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/5-celluloid -closet-and-stereotypes.html>, accessed 4 September 2014, emphasis added.

20 Demme, op. cit.

21 ‘Queer Representation in Film and Television’, MediaSmarts: Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy, <http:// mediasmarts.ca/diversity-media/queer-representation/queer -representation-film-and-television>, accessed 23 September 2014.

22 Benshoff & Griffin, op. cit.

23 ‘Queer Representation in the Media’, MediaSmarts: Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy, <http://mediasmarts.ca/ diversity-media/queer-representation/queer-representation -media>, accessed 4 September 2014.

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As a final task, ask students to contrast two scenes from their Oscar-nominated film from Activity 2 and a film or television show from which they chose a queer character in Activity 1.

This comparison should demonstrate the similarities and differences between the two texts, and students are encouraged to focus on elements beyond the narrative to investigate cinematic aspects such as cinematography, soundtrack and acting. Students should write an essay or prepare a multimodal presentation demonstrating their findings.

CONCLUSION The consideration of queer representation in the Media classroom presents a rich opportunity for students to both consider the potentially harmful stereotypes in film and television’s presentation of LGBTIQ characters and think about how these stereotypes reflect – and influence – mainstream society’s perception of queerness.

Equipping students with the ability to critically analyse such representations empowers them to be active participants in a world that is gradually becoming more open-minded and queer-friendly.

David Crewe is a secondary school teacher and writer (predominantly on film) based in Brisbane, Queensland. He is the founder of ccpopculture and a regular contributor to The 500 Club and The Essential. SE Endnotes Harry M Benshoff & Sean Griffin (eds), Queer Cinema: The Film Reader, Routledge, New York, 2004.

2 LGBTIQ: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, intersex and queer.

3 Katie Silver, ‘Homophobic Bullying Commonplace in High School Physical Education Classes, New Research Suggests’, ABC News, 9 August 2014, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014 -08-09/homophobic-bullying-commonplace-in-school-pe -classes/5660234>, accessed 4 September 2014.

4 Roger Kaufman, ‘It’s Time to Out Gay Stereotyping in Films’, Los Angeles Times, 24 January 2000, <http://articles.latimes. com/2000/jan/24/entertainment/ca-57137>, accessed 4 September 2014.

5 Benshoff & Griffin, op. cit.

6 Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, rev. edn, Harper & Row, New York, 1987.

7 The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, 1995.

8 Trista DeVries, ‘From “Sissy” to Brokeback Mountain: A Brief History of Queer Cinema’, Toronto Film Scene, 13 May 2013, <http://thetfs.ca/2013/05/13/from-sissy-to-brokeback-mountain -a-brief-history-of-queer-cinema/#.U_KP3WN2GM2>, accessed 1

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Screen Education I No. 75

L–R: In & Out; Will & Grace; Milk; Glee

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