LGBTQ+ Cinema, or: You've Not Represented Me Yet

N.B: This article will use the word “queer” interchangeably from “LGBTQ+”, the terminology is not meant to cause offense to those who are a part of the community. It is being used in a reclaimed sense and the author identifies with the queer community.

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From 1934 until 1968, the Motion Picture Production Code was in place for all cinematic movies filmed and produced within the United States of America. These days, if you are interested in the history of film at all, you have probably heard of this code being called the “hays code.”

It’s known as the Hays Code after Will H. Hays, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, and the man responsible for the code’s creation. Hays was hired by Hollywood studios in 1922 as a way of regulating the content they created, in an attempt to move away from the scandals that Hollywood was becoming embroiled in.

Essentially, the code existed to rehabilitate the Hollywood image into one that was more family friendly, law abiding, and socially conservative.

The code listed rules that directors, screenwriters and producers had to adhere to so their films would include ‘acceptable’ and ‘moral’ content. Certain characters, plotlines and events had to be portrayed in specific ways, or the filmmakers would face their film losing financial backing and their careers being blacklisted.

The rules of the Code were strictly enforced until the late 1950s, when they were finally weakened due to: the increase in popularity risqué foreign films; the presence of controversial directors; television shows taking risks and new directions; and the intervention of the US Supreme Court.

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The Code was strictly opposed to any depiction of sex, drugs or profanity (including oh my god and jesus Christ) being said by the ‘good’ characters. Similarly, the Code warned strongly against anything which might discredit the, “institution of marriage”, and it cautioned filmmakers that good judgement must prevail when they showed characters committing any kind of lawbreaking or immorality. If a character was depicted indulging in illegality, they then had to receive comeuppance or punishment for their wrongdoing within the film’s narrative.

In short, the code had a strong white, Christian perspective on what was good and what was bad.

It adhered to the 1950s American ideal of the Nuclear Family. That is - a married husband and wife with their two children. In this family, everyone would be heterosexual and gender roles would always be directly adhered to: mums would stay at home to care for the children whilst cooking and cleaning, fathers would spend their days working and earning the family’s money.

No one in a good Nuclear family would have sex outside of marriage, take drugs, or do anything that could be considered immoral or anti-Christian. They would go to church on Sundays and they would love their American flag and anyone who dared to do step outside of these rigidly defined lines would, according to the Hays Code, be immoral, and receive punishment accordingly.

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Looking at the contents of the Hays Code now, through a twenty-first century lens, so many of the rules it set in place feel ridiculous and bizarre. There is an urge to dismiss its presence as an odd blip in American film history and nothing more, because so much of it feels completely irrelevant.

It’s hard to picture a blockbuster now where it would be scandalous for a character to say oh my God or for someone to take drugs on screen, so why is it still worth talking about?

Well.

I want to point out that the Hays Code was in effect for almost the entire duration of what is referred to as, “the Golden Age of Hollywood” – a period that encompassed the 1920s through to the 1960s – and is still commonly regarded as a turning point for modern day cinema, due to the film techniques that were adopted by directors in this time.

Therefore, despite the urge you might feel to discredit everything the Hays Code encompassed, the standards it initially enforced continue to have a strong influence on film language and tropes, even into our modern-day blockbusters.

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I’m sure you’ve gathered by now – but in case it’s not obvious – the Hays Code was completely opposed to any portrayals of characters that weren’t heterosexual.

There was no space to create a generally moral and good character that also happened to experience same-gender attraction. What this meant was that any film created during the reign of the Hays Code wanting to include queer themes or characters, had to present those themes and characters as a negative and immoral choice.

Essentially for almost forty years, if LGBTQ+ people wanted to exist visibly in films, they had to accept they wouldn’t be allowed a happy ending.

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Historically, the lack of space for queer characters to be openly visible in film and media has led to many queer themes existing as purely subtext.

There was room for characters to act in ways that were gender non-conforming, or camp, that implied homosexuality, but their identity as confirmed queer people wasn’t permitted to be openly stated within the actual dialogue of the movie.

Often, even without this verbal confirmation of queerness, LGBTQ+ imagery and traits were still relegated to the immoral or villainous characters.

Indeed, the effeminate or ‘sissy’ man who acts as the foil to the heterosexual, traditionally masculine main character is a disturbingly pervasive trope that has lasted well into the modern day. You need only look at the high voice and effeminate lisp that Samuel L. Jackson adopts for his portrayal as the villain Valentine in the 2015 film Kingsman: The Secret Service to see this sort of thing in action.

Camp villains continue to be incredibly popular within animated films too. A quick Google search of “gay Disney Villain” brings up thousands of articles pointing out the inherent flamboyance and drama of Disney animated villains implies a certain connection to LGBTQ+ communities. At times, this connection is not just implication, but almost overtly stated; The Little Mermaid’s Ursula was modelled after famous drag queen Divine.

I am not claiming to be the first person to talk about this link between Disney villains and queerness, either. There are several articles and video essays that do a far better job on the subject than me. In fact, even removed from an academic film setting, the reality of, “gay Disney villains” is so common that it has now been openly embraced by the queer community themselves.

However, as fun as it is for LGBTQ+ people to dress up as Maleficent or imitate Jeremy Iron’s Scar, I feel it is worth reiterating that:

For decades of film history, queer characters have been forced to be hidden in subtext, villainised, or both.

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Here, I am going to ask you to pause for a second if you are heterosexual. I want you to take a moment to think about the films that you have seen, both animated and live action. Now, if you could, let me know how many movies there are that feature explicitly depicted or stated queer characters.

Once you’ve done that, eradicate any films where the character in question is a villain.

Now, eradicate Brokeback Mountain from your list too.

How many films are you left with? One, maybe? Two? Perhaps, if you are particularly into cinema and new releases, you can think of three or four.

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I would invite even the most enthusiastic film buffs amongst us to argue with me that – outside of Brokeback Mountain ­– films that centre LGBTQ+ characters simply don’t seem to get the widespread, commercial attention of their contemporary films centring heterosexuality and straightness.

Whilst I’ve enjoyed a lot of new films that feature LGBTQ+ characters or heavy themes of queerness, it seems that much of the population don’t hear about them at all. Foreign films such as Portrait of a Lady on Fire, or indie films like Shiva Baby might receive incredibly positive critical reviews, but they still only run for limited releases in select cinemas, and often their acclaim spreads purely through word of mouth rather than any actual marketing budget from the film companies themselves.

Indeed, the only queer films I can think of in recent years that have been granted truly significant marketing budgets and campaigns have been biopics that feature incredibly successful musicians as their subject matter, who just so happen to also be queer (and often male, too.)

These are films like Rocketman, which tells the story of Elton John’s life, or Bohemian Rhapsody, which follows the rock band Queen and their bisexual frontman, Freddie Mercury.

Even then, Bohemian Rhapsody has been heavily criticised for its treatment of Freddie Mercury’s sexuality. The movie chose to focus significantly on his heterosexual relationship with his ex-girlfriend, whilst sanitising his gay relationships and portraying the same-gender attraction he experienced and acted upon as something the character should be ashamed of.

Similarly, Rocketman’s narrative shows the entirety of his unsuccessful heterosexual marriage, and ends before their version of Elton John meets David Furnish, the love of his life and a man he’s been with for almost thirty years. Whilst the film is nowhere near as uncomfortable with depicting the queerness of its main character - unlike Bohemian Rhapsody – there’s still the feeling that it doesn’t fully commit.

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It can be easy for heterosexual people to claim that there’s no need for the LGBTQ+ community to continue to harp on about representation. There is some truth to this after all – if we ignore large budgets and media attention - the amount of films that depict queer lives and stories have come a long way since 2005’s Brokeback Mountain.

Despite this, however, the clear majority of highly regarded cinema is still marketed and told for heterosexual audiences. Even though 2016 saw a landmark achievement at the Oscars after Barry Jenkins’ beautifully crafted film Moonlight, about gay man Chiron, won the award for Best Picture (famously beating out favourite to win, La La Land), the 2020 Oscars had no films that focused on any queer themes whatsoever.

On top of this, the LGBTQ+ people that are represented tend to be overwhelmingly cisgender and male. It’s rare you see films featuring lesbian love stories that receive as much critical attention as their gay counterparts. (The few in recent years that I can think of are: The Favourite; The Handmaiden and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and two of those are foreign language films, with very minimal Hollywood influence.)

Rarer again are films that represent the transgender community. Films like Dallas Buyers Club or The Danish Girl were written and acted by cisgender people, which generates harmful discourse. The act of casting cisgender males like Jared Leto and Eddie Redmayne to play transgender women inadvertently feeds into reinforcing the problematic and pervasive idea that transgender women are no more than cis men in dresses. This, of course, could not be further from the truth.

Yet – even with shows like Euphoria, Sense8 or Orange is the New Black casting transgender women to play transgender characters – Hollywood still seems to be tragically behind on this.

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Now, some people argue that representation within fiction has no bearing on representation within reality. Something doesn’t need to be portrayed within a movie in order for the general social consensus to be positive.

Whilst I can see the logic in this point, overall, I disagree.

I know that representation within fiction is important, because I know how important it’s been for me.

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I can still remember the first time that I saw Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who kiss both the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, the way that the simple action of depicting a man love people who were both man and woman made me sit up and take notice.

Oh, I thought, there I am.

I can still remember the excited way my friends and I would share media content with LGBTQ+ characters amongst ourselves. The obscure foreign language movies that we would pirate in the dead of night just to find the tiniest sliver of our own experiences on screen. Even now, in 2021, I am still overwhelmed with appreciation for Rachel Bloom’s show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend having multiple characters identify with the label bisexual openly, without skirting around the word.

Despite this, despite how truly appreciative I am of all these opportunities for representation, I’m uncomfortably aware the vast majority of them are, like with transgender representation, still within television.

Now, I would never discredit television's ability to change cultural perception, nor the role that it plays in our general media conversations. However, the fact remains that many shows air to much, much smaller audiences than any Hollywood film would reach.

Popular culture is just that, popular, and yet for every queer child or LGBTQ+ young adult, they continuously find themselves unrepresented and unsupported by the media that they love.

Seeing yourself represented within the media you consume is a privilege many people don’t even realise is a privilege. Being able to turn up to a movie theatre and see yourself in any of the movies screening, in any of the characters, adds an element of enjoyment and enrichment to the movie going experience that too many people are excluded from.

Whether we like to admit it or not, Hollywood produced films say something about our current culture. Large franchises like MARVEL and Star Wars are supported and loved by millions of people all over the world, they’re billion-dollar properties and –

they don’t have a single confirmed queer character within them. *

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It makes no difference whether you think that we have achieved equality because straight, male celebrities like Harry Styles can be seen in public wearing nail polish and skirts.

The fact remains that openly gay celebrities like Lil Nas X are still harassed and bullied on Twitter and social media to a near constant, incredibly severe degree.

The fact remains that incredibly public figures, such as J. K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, has come out against the transgender community, openly opposing their ability to safely access hormones and healthcare.

The fact remains that politicians in parliament have appeared wearing anti-transgender slogans, and the UK is consistently partaking in driving up transphobic rhetoric and vitriol.

The fact remains that the actual Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has said openly homophobic statements, including calling gay men, “Bum boys.”

It does not matter that you think it’s unimportant to show a man kissing another man in your favourite superhero film, because I know for a fact that large corporations making confirmed, public action to show that they are actually supportive of queer people (outside of using them as a financial resource) would make a huge difference.

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Surveys have shown the majority of LGBTQ+ people (well over 60%) in the United Kingdom are still scared to do something as simple as hold hands with their partner in public.

At the end of the day, despite how far we’ve come, there are still countries where it’s illegal to be gay at all. LGBTQ+ marriage was only became legal for the whole of the UK in 2020, after intervention from Westminster finally made it happen in Northern Ireland.

Queer people doing something as simple as existing openly can expose them to threats of violence, harassment and acts of aggression.

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Cinemas in the United Kingdom are only just beginning to open back up after eighteen months of lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic. Films that were due to release years ago are only now making their appearance on the big screen.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from going to their local cinema. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun, or dismiss anyone’s joy at seeing new movies that are coming out. Hell, one of the films I went to see recently was Kurupt FM: Big in Japan, where I and my partner were a rarity in the audience for not being part of a large group of lads.

However, I do want people to start thinking more critically about the media that they consume. I want people to ask themselves who the film they’re seeing is actually for, who watching actually gets to transport themselves to another world. Who actually gets to be represented in the media that they enjoy?

It may be that the Hays Code is no longer required to be adhered to, but when large corporations like Disney are still too scared to showcase queer love as more than a background shot that could be easily edited out, there’s no denying that its influence is still sharply felt.

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Films are supposed to be a transporting experience. Through movies, we can see beloved pieces of literature brought to life, we can see new worlds and meet characters that we never could have imagined. Where else could we see superheroes? World’s exploding? Rivers made from chocolate and spaceships the size of planets?

Yet, all the wonder and spectacle means nothing if producers, directors and screenwriters are still too scared to imagine the very real, very simple possibility that a woman might love another woman.

That a man might love another man.

That gender identity can be fluid and changeable.

That queer people are real, and present, and deserve to be seen, and deserve to be respected.

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*(No, I am not counting the brief lesbian kiss in the background of a shot in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, because it was a brief kiss in the background of a shot and neither of the characters were named or had dialogue.)