Research 3

The Celluloid Closet

"A documentary surveying the various Hollywood screen depictions of Homosexuals and the attitudes behind them throughout the history of North American film."

Stand-out quotes -

"When it (homosexuality) did appear, it was there as something to laugh at, or to pity, or even something to fear"

"Hollywood, that great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think of gay people, and gay people what to think about themselves"

"That hunger I felt as a kid looking for gay images was to not be alone" - Harvey Fierstein, Actor/Screenwriter

Susie Bright (writer) on the lack of proper representations of homosexuality in film -

"You feel invisible, you feel like a ghost, a ghost that nobody believes in - there's this sense of isolation"

"Join the club! There's a whole group that is not represented" - Whoopi Goldberg, actress

"From the very beginning, movies could rely on homosexuality as a sure fire source of humour"
- The Florida enchantment (1914)
- Algie, The Miner (1912)
- The Soilers (1923)

"In this case, we learn from the movies what it is like to be a man or a woman, what it means to have sexuality" - Richard Dyer, film historian

Wanderer of the West (1927) sees the character 'Clarence the Clerk' quoted as "One of nature's mistakes in a country where men were men"

"The sissy; Hollywood's first gay stock character"
- Our Betters (1933)
- The Gay Divorcee (1934)

"The sissy made everyone feel more manly - or more womanly - by occupying the space in between"

"He didn't seem to have a sexuality, therefore Hollywood allowed him to thrive"
- The Broadway Melody (1929)
- Myrt and Marge (1934)

"They were a cliche, I don't care if there were a gay cliche or what, I thought they were disgusting, unfunny, had no business being in it, and I never understood why people laughed" - Andrew Laurents, Screenwriter

"I liked the sissy. Is it used in negative ways? Yes, but my view has always been 'visibility at any cost'. I'd rather have negative than nothing - that's just my particular view, and also because I am a sissy" - Harvey Fierstein, Actor/Screenwriter

Call Her Savage (1932) - "Hollywood's first peek at a gay bar"

"Sissy characters in movies were always a joke.... When a man dresses as a woman, the audience laugh - when a woman dresses as a man, nobody laughs" - Jay Presson Allen, Screenwriter