Have you ever had an encounter with a homophobic, racist, sexist, or xenophobic person and want to yell at the top of your lungs that they should leave their ignorance behind and graduate to the twenty-first century? While Hollywood is still making great strides in learning lessons about diversity on the screen, I think it is the time the movie industry takes action in producing better LGBTQ films. You may be wondering why I am suggesting this call to action- well, I hope the following content will answer that question and raise some more.
Here is a (condensed) interview I conducted with a gay man, who requested to remain anonymous, about how his life has been impacted by watching Hollywood depictions of LGBTQ lives.
Q: What is it like to watch LGBTQ films?
A: I think that I watch gay films because, maybe this is just me, but I like to see people “like me” on the screen. But gay films tend to always end in a sad manner, for no reason. It always leaves me a bit sad, I suppose.
Q: What’s the sadness? Where does it come from?
A: I think it’s because of how we are depicted. It seems like gay films always follow the same few story lines: coming out, self-loathing—which then turns into someone becoming a prostitute or just being all “loose” with their goods, OR someone dies of AIDS. By seeing gays depicted in the same way, over and over again, it sometimes feels like all of us might succumb to the same paths as the people in these films. Which, I mean, isn’t usually a happy ending, at least, not like the ones in “straight films”. It's kind of like society is telling us that we can’t have that happy ending that we want.
Q: Can you describe in more detail, how you feel when you watch gay films in comparison to straight films?
A: I like watching straight films more because the stories are just better. I was a Disney princess kind of kid, and getting to watch all of these Disney princesses find their happy endings was just something that I really wanted. I think that straight movies often times, just portray happy endings, maybe not in a realistic manner, but in a way that just makes you feel optimistic. Gay films always tend to have an ending that feels incomplete or just sad for no reason. And I get the word isn’t all about happy endings, but like, throw a dog a bone every once in a while. Straight films just bring out that hopeless romantic side of me, and it’s something that doesn’t necessarily happen with gay films. If I start rooting for the gay couple in the movie, it usually just blows up in my face because something bad is going to happen to them. It just breaks my heart; they never get the happy ending.
Q: But what is it like growing up and watching straight people fall in love and as role models for relationships?
A: Well, I don’t know if I was just a really unaware child, but I don’t think I noticed that gay couples weren’t really a thing until I started watching gay movies. So...I was like 17 when that happened. As a little kid, I didn’t care who played the leads in the love story, as long as it was happening, I was fine. But when I turned 17 and started thinking about getting married (I wanted to skip college and be a trophy husband at the time), I started paying more attention to the movies I watched. What continued my interest in watching gay movies- well, I just wanted to see how the world thought we (gays) felt love.
Q: Do you hope that the narratives of gay lives will be expanded in the movie industry?
A: Well, when I think about gay films that exist today, it kind of makes sense that they follow a pretty similar story plot. Don’t people tend to write about their experiences? Films about gays that came out in the 70’s to the 90’s tend to revolve around the AIDS epidemic and the consequences of coming out in a culture that revolved around a certain kind of “masculinity”. It makes sense that gay films of that time were about the events happening at the time. Forty years later, you can see the changes in the narratives of gay films. As the LGBTQ community becomes more integrated into mainstream society, I believe our films will also begin to become as complex as straight films, and truly be able to explain concepts like “love” in all its depth.
If you found this interview and topic interesting, here is a link that can teach you more on the subject matter! Thanks for reading!
