Celluloid Closet - John Cunningham

 As a child, I lived a very sheltered life. My hometown was small, my school was small (and Catholic), and I was an only child in my small (also very Catholic) family. Needless to say, I was not taught (nor did I see) much about of other walks of life outside my own. Due to my upbringing, this documentary was quite eye-opening for me. It unveiled the plights of a group of people that I had never truly understood the gravity of.

Now, in all honesty, I'm not much of a movie watcher (aside from your standard "haha look at the funny animated Disney guy" when I was much younger), so most if not all of the content in this documentary was new to me. However, I remember learning about the various film censorship boards in the United States during my "History through Film" class in high school. I had heard how stringent these boards were, but I hadn't the slightest idea that they were so strict to the point of outright disallowing any mention of homosexuality in movies. I also had no idea that my beloved Catholic caretakers were the ones who spurred this spiteful movement through their threat of a boycott. This is blatantly contradictory to the message they preached to myself and many other children of "loving thy neighbor". 

A point of interest that I noted in this documentary was the common theme of homosexual individuals/characters being placed in roles in which they are in some way looked down upon. One such instance is the common use as a comedic relief in these older movies. Another method of this was to place them in a position of villainy. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", in which two homosexual men are shown choking the life out of another man and then explaining how it felt exhilarating to do so. 

In summary, this documentary did an excellent job of explaining what it set out to explain and managed to enlighten a previously ignorant individual (me) to the subjugation of homosexuality by Hollywood and the Catholic Church in the 1900s. I would also like to add that it was interesting for me to see Tom Hanks speak on this matter as I've always seen him as a very mainstream actor.

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  1. AnonymousFebruary 10, 2021 at 4:00 PM

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    1. AnonymousFebruary 10, 2021 at 4:01 PM

      (Editted)

      Hi, John!

      I think it's really cool that you were comfortable enough to share your upbringing with us to reinforce the effectiveness of this documentary! I like how you pointed out the contrast between the casting of queer actors in comedic relief roles and as villains to convey being look downed upon. One example that I would have loved to see would be the queer-coding of Disney characters, such as Jafar (Aladdin), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Scar (The Lion King), to name a few.

      I also thought the inclusion of Tom Hanks in the documentary was interesting for his role in Philadelphia.

      Delete

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