The Celluloid Closet - Diego Flores

    While watching “The Celluloid Closet” I noticed a running message in Hollywood films decades ago. The running message was that being homosexual was a bad thing and that people should fear them. They showed this by relying on homosexuality as humor. Many peoples perspectives on queers were based on what they saw in the films. Every time they had a homosexual character in the film it was to feel pity for the character or to try to “cure” them. The film industry gave queer a bad reputation which taught people to fear them. This is a big reason why people are afraid of homosexuals. 
 Another fact that had my interest during the movie was that every time they showed a homosexual character in a film, they always died at the end. A lot of times somebody killed them or they committed suicide. Since films always do this with homosexual characters, the audience members think that if you’re homosexual than you’re going to committed suicide. One of the people involved in the movie talked about his experience the first time he had sex. Before he had sex he was afraid because he thought once he has sex with another guy then he’s going to end up committing suicide. He thought this because there was a film where a character had sex with another guy then killed himself because of it. This made many people afraid of being homosexual. A scene in the film that really stood out to me was when it showed the deaths of multiple homosexual character back to back. This stood out to me because it helps build the tension of what queers had to go through decades ago. 
 Towards the end of the movie, it started talking about how now there is starting to be a positive representation of queers in the film industry. They even mention a movie where two queers were the main characters of the film for the first time ever. This was a huge step for homosexuals in the film industry compared to being made as a joke. Many people in the film talked about how queers were desperately looking for a positive representation in movies and now they are starting to get that. This is teaching them not to be afraid of being homosexual but instead proud. Overall, this movie did a great job showing the highs and lows of queer representation in the film industry. 

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  1. Diego FloresFebruary 12, 2021 at 10:52 AM

    During our class discussion on Thursday, we talked about queer representation in today’s film industry. This discussion made me realized that there are still some hidden queer characters in movies and television shows. During the film “The Celluloid Closet”, it talked about how there were some gay characters in films but they weren’t allowed to talk about it or else it would get censored. They still do this in today’s society. For example, one show we talked about in our class discussion was “The Legend of Korra”. The last scene of the show was Korra “going on vacation” with her “best friend” Asami. The final shot of the whole was Korra and Asami looking into each other’s eyes and holding hands. They obviously couldn’t kiss or mention the fact that they both liked each other since it was a nickelodeon show. This was a surprise for many people since they never talked about it in the show but to some people it wasn’t. There were some people who saw the hints that they were both into each other. The fact that they never mentioned that they both liked each other kind of limited the way we viewed their relationship. They could’ve been shown as this powerful queer couple who always have each others back. Since it was considered a kids show they couldn’t mention that so instead we viewed them as best friends until the very end.
    Another discussion we had were stereotypes. Someone in class mentioned how there’s alway two types of guys, the jock and the geek. This reminded me of the show “The Big Bang Theory”. In the show you have four best friends who are the most stereotypical geeks. Each of the guys were scientists who loved comic books. The way they dressed and acted was the stereotype of being a geek. They also had a neighbor who was the stereotypical “dumb blonde”. This is another big stereotype that is shown a lot in the film industry. It’s the “dumb blonde” who always relies on her looks. Some audience members even realized this and complained about it. This made the creators of the show introduce another blonde girl to the show but instead she was a smart scientist. They did this to try to make it look like they aren’t adding into the stereotypes when their whole show is based on stereotypes of different kinds of people.

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