Orpheus: A Mirror Hidden Within Itself - Hunter Bardin

     Orpheus is a film about forbidden love and how the characters in the film deal with said forbidden love. While there wasn't much in the sense of outwardly queer characters or themes it was hidden within the lines of the film that wasn't obvious to me the first time I watched it. Orpheus is unable to be with either of the women he loves realistically. First there is Princess Death who being Death itself cannot be in a loving relationship and then later on his wife, who he is forced to not look at unless she would disappear from him all over again. This doesn't stop Orpheus from going into Death's world earlier in the movie to try and save his wife after she had died. While he ends up still losing her in the end, he didn't stop trying despite many of the conflicts. In the end he lost her to just a mistake. One look in the rearview mirror and she was gone. 

    The mirrors played a big part in the film as they were everywhere and most importantly they symbolized death. They were used as the portals for Princess Death and it was the ultimate demise of Orpheus' wife. Mirrors represent a lot outside of the film like the reflection of one's true self or they could be considered to symbolize self reflection. When you think of it as in relation to death though I think it gets even more interesting. Death is consider the ultimate end and the ugly truth of life. When we take that and combine it with the general symbolism of the mirrors you get something like "The Truth within Oneself". This is what started to lead my belief of how this could be considered more of a queer film.

    Orpheus is a film that came out in the 1950s, a time where being homosexual was not considered normal and society tried its best to discourage it as much as possible. It was censored everywhere in the media as we all know and it had to be hidden in films in clever ways. If you look again at the themes of the film "Forbidden Love" and "Truth of Oneself" it starts to become more clear. The forbidden love is easily equated to just homosexuality in general. It was very much forbidden in many places to be queer and just some minor slip-ups could be the end of it all. It was something you couldn't acknowledge much if you were in a relationship at the time and if you were caught it could completely change your life not for the better. There is also the "truth of oneself" where it is more of a personal matter to homosexuality. Just realizing that one is queer is a lot to consider and many people question it for very long periods of time. The mirror shows the truth of your life, in this case death and the desire for that forbidden love that is inside.

    One quote that helps to support this claim from Strings of Desire is, "This moral ambivalence is perfectly expressed in the fetishistic costuming of Death’s agents in Orpheus, with its sado-masochistic overtones—Princess Death’s stylish tight-lacing, which gets both tighter and more explicitly fetishistic when she breaks the rules by killing Eurydice, but also her male minions whose motorcycle garb also includes wide leather waist-cinches." This kind of style can be associated with the LGBTQ+ community and it being associated with death as well helps the link. The second link to queerness to death other than just the forbidden love helps to provide the message of the truth of oneself or the truth of one's sexuality is hidden deep within. I have to say looking back on the film I did quite enjoy it more after analyzing it and trying to uncover the clues hidden within to relate it to queer cinema.