Richard Dyer: Gays in Film (Jump Cut)

"Gayness should express itself on film."-(P.1)

"Indeed, as Clair Johnson has pointed out, the very obviousness of the conventions in commercial cinema may mean that it is easier to manipulate in progressive ways than the hidden conventions of 'art cinema'."-(P.2)

"Oppression enters into straight relationships of course, partly through the legacy of puritanism in its various forms and partly through the oppression within straight relationships of women by men."(P.3)

"To show gay people 'realistically' on the screen means to show them in conventions of the prevailing cinematic realism. This kind of depiction in turn means to reproduce the ideas and assumptions about how gays really are which prevail in society."-(P.5)

"No term is more frequent in gay criticism of the cinema than 'stereotype'."-(P.5)

"Where gayness occurs in films, it does so as part of dominant ideology."-(P.6)