We often hear people praise a gay movie, saying things like "This is not a gay movie, but a love movie" or "Although the movie is indeed about the love story of two men, it is a 'gay story', but when the movie completely withdraws the so-called 'gay element', there is no identity and no social discrimination, so that the love story of two people is no different from heterosexuality and even complete gender replacement." ”
The presupposition behind these praises is that a "gay element" is completely negligible, and the story can even be directly interchanged with heterosexual or indistinguishable films, and should not be limited to the rather limited label of "gay movies", but should be broadly called romance films or other films. And the subsequent labels have become more praiseworthy because of their certain universality. As a result, what People emphasize in Brokeback Mountain is the intensity of love and its unfading long time; the praise for "Call Me by Your Name" (hereinafter referred to as "Name") is much the same.
Many people compare these two films together, so it is conceivable that there will be such similar "praise". And to some extent, the two films also have some similarities, such as they are different from the gay movies we see in general, that is, they do not focus on identity or social discrimination, which are common so-called "gay elements" (such as "God Bless Bobby", "Pride", "When We Rise", etc.).
Stills from Brokeback Mountain
In Brokeback Mountain, the feelings between the two men are largely isolated from the outside world, so "Brokeback Mountain" itself is a utopian image, and love takes place in it; in "Name", because the story also focuses on summer love within six weeks, many viewers think that it does not involve those "gay elements" at all. As a result, both films weaken other aspects because of their main love, but attentive viewers will still see from many clues, even the direct events in the story, that the entire "gay element" has always shrouded these two stories. Not just these two films, but all the gay films that came before and now.
Therefore, it seems that it is first necessary to define what a "gay film" is. Obviously, it is first and foremost a very late genre of cinematic storytelling. The documentary "Celluloid Closet" points out that although Hollywood movies have involved gay characters since the day of their birth, most of them are some of the jokes used to joke and ridicule. This situation continued for a long time, until with the rise of the gay movement in the West, gay films began to appear gradually, and always actively developed in independent films, but the mainstream film circle still has a long way to accept it. (When Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" was released in the United States in 2005, wasn't it still resisted by many opposition groups?) Thus, gay cinema arose around the 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, when Hollywood was still hiding from gay subjects, british director Basil Dieldon filmed the film Victim, the first to break this "open secret." And this film is not only the first English film to directly say the word "gay", but also bravely exposes the social reality that sexual orientation became smeared, blackmailed and feared in that era. From the current point of view, it seems to gather many of the "gay elements" that we now call, both the protagonist's entanglement and pain of his own sexual orientation and the slow identification process, as well as the discrimination and persecution of social reality. Therefore, when it became one of the most important films in the history of modern gay cinema, it also constructed a model for the genre of "gay cinema".
Stills from Call Me By Your Name.
So we can say that when people look at films like Brokeback Mountain and The Name in such a way, they find that they are so inconsistent that they give rise to the scene we pointed out above, that is, whether there is any continued value in the genre of "gay films". To a certain extent, this is an inevitable process of the development of Western gay cinema to this day (in fact, it can also be said that it is the product of the normalization process of a once stigmatized group gradually coming out of the shadows), that is, from the previous concealment, mocking and ridicule to the subsequent resistance to these stigmas. Therefore, we will also find that most of the gay films born in the 1960s and 1970s discuss the psychological, physical and spiritual conditions of the gay community after a long period of oppression and pathology, as well as the various difficulties faced in real life. One of the most typical of these is William. Friedkin adapted "The Boys in the Band" in 1970 based on the play of the same name. Through his description of the lives of several young comrades, the director reflects the various repressions they faced in the society at that time and the many mainstream aversions to gay stigma that they faced in their bodies and minds.
In this film, we clearly see that identity and the entire social environment as well as the dominant ideology are difficult to cut. Although these young comrades have a good self-identity, because these psychological models are directly derived from the external social structure, there is an internalization phenomenon, that is, the mainstream concept of society becomes part of their self-identification, which makes this identity unstable and may collapse at any time. Like The Victim, the Band Boy model will be seen repeatedly in gay films that follow. So in "Brokeback Mountain" and "Name", are there these typical "gay elements"? In my opinion, there is obviously.
"Brokeback Mountain" original author Anne. Pru once made it clear that her novel mainly reflects the great damage that homophobia can cause. In Ang Lee's films, The seemingly utopian two-person kingdom of Brokeback Mountain is never truly independent of the world, but is always restricted and gazed by the outside world. The first is Anis and Jack's own rejection of gay status, which reflects the dominant ideology of the society and the world in which they came from, grew up and lived; the gaze of the boss who hired them (there is a scene in the film where the boss uses a telescope to see the intimacy between Anis and Jack). These two forces influence each other and even converge in the end. With these two aspects of oppression on display in Brokeback Mountain, Jack blames Anis for not being willing to follow his advice at the time, and the two live together (because Anis has seen the tragic end of a comrade since childhood, and his education tells him that "two men cannot live together"). This idea was wildly popular in psychology in the 19th and 20th centuries; upon hearing of Jack's accidental death, Anis immediately thought that he might have been killed by homophobes... These are very important plots, and they are also the original driving force for the operation of the whole story. And isn't the main thing that these plots are concerned with is the so-called "gay element"?
In "The Name", people only focus on the six weeks of intimate and profound love between Elio and Oliver, ignoring the "gay element" before and after this process, and even after this process. Why can't Elio pursue Oliver as boldly as he pursues a girl? The answer is obvious, because it was a small town in northern Italy in 1983, and its closed conservatism can be imagined (from el salvador's friends discussing politics at the dinner table and the mussolini statue on the old lady's house where they begged for water, it is a constant reflection of that era). So when Elio finally took great pains to reveal his heart to Oliver, Oliver remained uneasy and asked the former to forget about it. The reason is still very obvious, both because they are of the same sex, but also because of the rejection and suppression of the whole social environment and ideology.
Many people say that there is no identity in this movie, which seems to me to be a big mistake. The long temptation and proximity between Elio and Oliver is itself a process of accepting one's own feelings. During this, Elio was troubled by it several times, such as the scene in the attic, where he told Oliver that he was ill. Isn't the idea of "sick" the greatest stigma that Western medicine and psychology have had against gay groups since the 19th century? Through the means of pathology, on the one hand, the social institutions play a role in healing comrades, on the other hand, under such public opinion, the internalized comrades accept the concept of their own "illness", and thus produce a series of unhealthy psychology, such as self-loathing and suicide. Therefore, Elio did not really feel at ease that he had fallen in love with Oliver's same sex from the beginning. He was tormented by this reality all the time. During this time, he tried to socialize with girls and have a relationship. And isn't this a very typical self-"correction" process for some comrades?
In addition, when they finally have an intimate relationship, Elio's momentary cold reaction makes Oliver panic. His first fear was that Elio would blackmail him. Thus a brief misunderstanding arises between them. But it is clear that Oliver's uneasiness did not come for no reason. Just as the comrades shown in "The Victim" are blackmailed by outlaws who know their secrets, the very thing means danger. And the emergence of this danger is also closely related to the concept of the whole society.
In "Name", many viewers will be shocked by the strong intimacy and lust between Elio and Oliver, but ignore that the reason why this lust affects people's hearts is directly derived from the same-sex taboo, that is, the denial and suppression of this behavior by society. Taboos bring excitement, and stealing the forbidden fruit is always frightening and exciting. Isn't that the emotion that Elio and Oliver had when they first did it?
Through the above brief analysis, I would like to point out that whether it is a film like "Brokeback Mountain" or "Name", which focuses on love, it is still impossible to get rid of those so-called "gay elements", as long as the protagonist is of the same sex. In this regard, we can almost give a very broad and seemingly superfluous definition of "gay film", that is, as long as it is a film about comrade, it should be called a gay film, and comrade himself is the most important and core "gay element".
Stills from "Queer as Folk."
In the American drama "Looking", identity and social pressure have disappeared a lot compared to before. The whole story is about the lives, emotions, and encounters of several young gay men in San Francisco. Compared to Queer as Folk at the beginning of the century, it has a more limited "gay element." We can even say that this is a drama in which the protagonist happens to be gay. Andrew. Hagrid's film The Weekend is similar. Two young comrades had a date over the weekend, and some conversations. If the protagonist is changed from two men to a man and a woman, the story still holds. So, in such a situation, what is the use of the "gay movie" type label?
Andrew. Hagrid's film The Weekend.
The first thing I want to point out is that whether it is "Seeking" or "Weekend Time", they are the product of the normalization of gay cinema (gay groups). Therefore, I do not deny the "abnormality" of gay films in the sixties and seventies, but say that with the deepening of the sexual minority movement and the struggle for rights, their living space and various possibilities have changed drastically compared with before, and this change is reflected in the film, and there will be a variety of stories, from the exploration of identity, social pressure to the daily life and emotions of a new generation of comrades, and some problems encountered in it. The more freedom, the more choices, and therefore the more possibilities. But in any case, this is not a one-size-fits-all or one-size-fits-all problem, it needs to be repeatedly expressed, repeatedly reminded, repeatedly struggled and repeatedly fought.
In his book Covering, american jurist Kenji Yoshino pointed out that society tends to treat homosexuals in three stages: first treat them as a disease and treat them; subsequently, society no longer forces this group to change themselves, provided that they must pretend to be "normal" heterosexuals on many occasions; today, this group is no longer corrected, and many times do not need to be disguised, but society still requires them to downplay some of their own characteristics and keep a low profile, which the author calls "disguise". Isn't the "certain qualities" that Kenji Yoshino refers to here the same "gay elements" that we have repeatedly mentioned above? So when people praise Brokeback Mountain and The Name with this, aren't they creating a disguise for the process? It makes these "gay elements" more acceptable, more popular or more "normal" by diluting or even stripping them away.
In this "disguised" ideological operation, one may wish to eliminate the differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, but the criteria for this elimination itself are prescribed by heterosexual power. Calling a film without a "gay element" less obvious "gay element" a romance film or xx film that the general public loves, seemingly for equality, is actually a process of "normalization" of gay cinema – and this process, as the Frankfurt School points out – is itself one of the means by which mainstream ideology operates.
With the disappearance of the category of "gay movies", all films whose protagonists are gay have begun to become like traditional heterosexuals, dressing, behaving and talking like them; similar life stories, emotional states; similar family patterns, friendships; and similar sexual concepts... Homosexuality has now become the same as heterosexuality, except that they like different objects. Isn't that the best future? But isn't that exactly the reality That Marcuse portrayed in his One-Dimensional Man?
The question is not what is bad about "becoming the same", but what is the standard for "being the same" here? Traditional concepts of love, love stories, and all life patterns, psychological and mental states, etc. are all constructed around a very distinct heterosexual relationship. These relationships are then naturalized as "truth" or "normal," but power remains so great after them. The story of "Weekend Time" can indeed be replaced by a heterosexual story, but then they are no longer discussing the problems that comrades personally feel. The same is true of Seeking.
Why is assimilation a matter of vigilance? Why, at this time when there is an opportunity to completely throw away the stigma label, we are once again emphasizing the importance of this label? My concern is that we end up with the "pour the bath water along with the kids" situation, i.e. when we tear off these stigmatizing labels, we also tear away our own uniqueness and differences. This is perhaps why people emphasize the importance of "queer". For what ultimately sets people free is not what we all have, but what is unique to us. Therefore, the "melting pot" is not a good means, because it implies coercion and even violence, and the colorful "salad" can produce a wonderful taste, which is the state we should pursue.
The movie "Stonewall Storm".
In the movie "Stonewall Storm", the middle-class "normal" comrades hope to use this on the one hand to put an end to people's misconceptions about the gay community, such as femininity, women's appearance and perversion, etc., on the one hand, to win the support of the government. But their efforts have always had limited results, so when the young comrades who are living on the streets, the costumed queens who have been repeatedly humiliated, and the boys with feminine temperaments can't stand it, the stone wall riot becomes a ceremony for the gay community to come out.
I have always felt that in the gay community, it is not the comrades who are brave and stiff in suits and look like straight men, but the comrades who are dressed up and feminine. They make no secret of their differences, do not compromise, and enjoy it in this way to disgust and disgust the mainstream society, stimulating their stiff and preconceived nerves. This is the beginning of change, and the most powerful driving force for change. And to test the enlightenment and democracy of a society, this is the best thermometer.
As they become less "gay," we should pay more attention to the pitfalls (many of which may be unconscious) behind the comments and appreciations people make about them. Labels, of course, limit the lives of a group and individuals, but labels are often closely related to self-identity. What matters is not even whether you are willing to call yourself "gay", what matters is the queerness that exists in those stigmas. Being the "other" does not mean tragedy, sometimes it is the place of truth.