The first two weeks began with an introduction to gay and lesbian film scholarship in the aftermath of gay liberation in the 70’s. We began our discussion with Stonewall and the politics of visibility, denouncing stereotypes and promoting positive representation of LGBTQ in the media. For a long time the representation of gay people in the media was very negative, if there was any representation at all. Week one we watched “The Celluloid Closet”, which is a documentary about queer representation in Hollywood. It went through the progression of all the different characters we have seen gay people negatively portrayed as (ie. “fairies”). While the film is not up to date and is missing at least two decades of queer cinema, much of the critiques it makes about the film industry are still relevant today.
In our introduction to gay liberation we were also given a basic understanding of gay culture, as cinema is apart of culture and culture is inextricably tied with the queer community. We read Gay Male Culture by Richard Dyer, which talked about how culture is societally viewed as “other” and feminine, therefore it is a place where gay men can find belonging because they are also deemed other and feminine. Culture gives queers a place to build a community without judgement. Because it is a place where people can be different culture also helps shape gay identity, it is something they are allowed to consider theirs so they strongly identify with it. This is why it’s so important to understand culture in order to understand queerness.
We also watched the film “Loose Cannons” directed by Ferzan Özpetek which tells the story of a Gay man struggling with coming out to his family. The film parallels leaving the family business with coming out as gay, it is an act of betrayal against your family unit and goes against what your family expects and wants of you. The main characters plans to come out are foiled when his brother does it before him, his role then becomes the main care taker of the family while they deal with the loss of his brother; at one point his father goes as far to say “you’re all I have left”. The film highlights the complexities of coming out and being public with ones identity even modernly, and how some gay people have to choose between their family and being themselves.
“Coming Out” was a large topic of discussion in class. For a long time, someone was not gay until they came out and publicly identified as such. It has become such a large part of Western gay culture we have a national coming out day. It was a large part of the liberation movement, queer people were tired of hiding and pretending they didn’t exist for the comfort of others. Coming out and being public was an act of rebellion against a heteronormative society that wanted to keep gay people hidden. Now, it has become sort of nuanced, the idea that someone has to come out to be considered gay can reinforce heteronormativity because it assumes everyone is straight until stated otherwise. It’s a very convoluted issue, but now a days its much more up to the individual and what they feel is necessary for their journey. 