The Celluloid Closet - Lauren Collorone

 “The Celluloid Closet” a 1995 documentary film provides an inside scoop of how Hollywood projected people of the LGBTQ+ community back in the day. First and foremost I found it extremely interesting that even though film was not allowed to portray people of the LGBTQ+ community (because of censorship) it was still very much alive and living on the screen even if it wasn’t blatantly obvious. However most of the time being gay or queer wasn’t portrayed in the best light. As said and shown in the documentary most if not all queer people were portrayed as evil or malicious. Which ultimately led to the repetitive storyline of the queer character meeting a very brutal ending. It’s sad to think that this community as a whole was being misrepresented so often. The overall theme of queer people being stereotyped reminds me of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. When AIDS and HIV first became a thing in the 1980’s it was labeled as the “gay disease” simply because people were misinformed on the matter. This is the same exact thing that went on in cinema. Hollywood consistently put out the message that gay people were to be feared so that’s what the public believed. This message was so imbedded in society that even when straight actors were offered to play a gay role it was frowned upon by there agents. In society today I am happy this isn’t the case. Although gay and queer people still do face there everyday struggles it’s good to know that a majority of society is very accepting and welcoming. Today we see straight actors taking on roles of all genders for example Timothee Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name or Cillian Murphy in Breakfast On Pluto. The same goes for gay actors taking on straight roles as well for example Jim Parsons in Hidden Figures or Neil Patrick Harris in How I met Your Mother. It’s amazing to know that cinema and society have become more accepting. Topics of all types can be talked about and highlighted for the world to see no matter how controversial they may seem.         


Comments

  1. Emily SheedyFebruary 11, 2021 at 5:48 PM

    Lauren,
    I liked hearing your thoughts connecting the AIDS epidemic with the movie industry. I agree that the 80s was a very charged time for censoring LGBTQ people or sending the message of fear them. I could definitely see how the AIDS epidemic could've impacted this. Great post!

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  2. Sarah DickersonFebruary 12, 2021 at 3:45 PM

    Hey Lauren! I love all of the points you hit in your post. It stuck out to me as well about how queer people are usually always portrayed as villains or bad guys. It sucks that it was being fought for to get more representation in media and then that is the type of representation they get. But I do agree that recently things have gotten much better because people are so much more accepting of one another. It was also super interesting that you connected the stereotypes being portrayed in media of the LGBT+ community to those that were being spread during the AIDS epidemic.

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