Go Ahead, Make Mine Gay

From coming- out dramas to cult comedies, to blockbusters — a list of movies that reflected and represented LGBTQ+ culture on screen

BY NILE FORTNER

While gay characters were frequently used for laughs, stereotypes, or not explicitly stated to be gay in a majority of early mainstream Hollywood movies, the last few years have brought LGBTQ+ films and stories further into the mainstream. They’ve also dominated awards seasons and found commercial success.

In 2017, “Moonlight” made history as the first LGBTQ+ movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The move featuring an all- Black-cast was one big step toward making LGBTQ+ cinema a staple.

Depictions of queer and trans people have been present in the film industry since its inception more than 100 years ago, but because of censorship and prejudices against the LGBTQ+ community, onscreen representation has a long, complicated, and often coded history.

Although LGBTQ+ representation was present in 1970 films such as “The Rocky Picture Horror Show,” LGBTQ+ films were no longer limited by ’90s low budgets. Films with gay and lesbian stories have flourished in the first two decades of the 21st century. The New Queer Cinema was a major influence on the indie film boom of the ’90s and set the bar high for the many queer films to follow.

From coming-out dramas to cult comedies, to blockbusters, this is a list of movies that reflected and represented LGBTQ+ culture onscreen giving stories as complicated, sensual, soul-searching, and unique as the queer experience itself.

1894: THE DICKSON EXPERIMENTAL SOUND FILM

Also known as “The Gay Brothers,” this short black-and-white film showed two men dancing together. In his 1981 book “The Celluloid Closet”, film historian Vito Russo’s name for the film grew popularity online. There isn’t any evidence for the title he gives the film and that the word “gay” was not generally used as a synonym for “homosexual” at the time the film was made.

Also, there isn’t any evidence that Scottish inventor William Dickson wanted to pursue the men—presumably employees of the Thomas Edison studio—as a romantic couple.

According to Russo, “given the lyrics of the song Dickson plays, which describes life at sea without women, it is more plausible that he intended a joke about the virtually all-male environment of the Black Maria”.

Still, this may be seen as one of the earliest examples of same-sex imagery in motion picture history.

1996: BOUND

Before the Wachowskis had the financial pull for their big-budget dreamscapes like returning to “The Matrix” franchise, there was their $6 million budget directorial debut, “Bound.”

The filmmakers also refused to submit to studio pressure on erasing the lesbian romance at the film’s center. The neo-noir following a mobster’s girlfriend, played by Jennifer Tilly, and her ex-con lover, played Gina Gershon, conspire to steal a small fortune from the Mafia.

“Bound” may seem to walk the line of exploitation and that may be because of the directors bringing on feminist writer Susie Bright as a consultant on the movie’s sex scenes. A film that’d traditionally be through a straight and male perspective, finds new life in this genre through a distinctively queer perspective.

1996: THE WATERMELON WOMAN

The film features Black women leaning against a retail counter and talking about women. It’s the ‘90s, so they are wearing overalls, baggy clothes, enormous silk shirts, chokers, and chunky hoop earrings. Writer, actor, and filmmaker Cheryl Dunye’s “The Watermelon Woman” stands as a landmark and classic of the ’90s boom, New Queer Cinema.

The film works as a seminal work of “autofiction” where a young Black lesbian filmmaker named Cheryl, played by Dunye, searches for the identity of a beautiful Black actress who played a mammy character in a 1930s drama.

In the credits, the mysterious actress is listed only as “The Watermelon Woman,” complicating Cheryl’s mission.

Cheryl has told multiple sources such as Vanity Fair and SlashFilm that her movie is clearly based on herself and she also tapped friends and family members, like her mother, Irene Dunye, to make appearances in the film.

The director has a range of works like this, which she dubs “Dunyementaries.” Upon its release, “The Watermelon Woman” made history as the first narrative feature to be released by an out Black lesbian filmmaker.

1997: CHASING AMY

The third movie in writer-director Kevin Smith’s New Jersey trilogy, following on from “Clerks” and “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” stars Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, and follows a comic book writer finding the love of his life, only to discover that she is gay.

When “Chasing Amy” was released over 20 years ago, both lesbian and mainstream culture were wracked with battles over identity, politics, and political correctness. But working as a drama, romance, and comedy, the film redefines the boy-meets-girl formula. Smith’s edgy tone and style make for a good antidote to gender roles to a formula genre.

“Chasing Amy” was a commercial as well as a critical success, grossing over $12 million on a $250,000 budget. The movie has won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male and Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.

The film was more than a turning point for Smith’s career — it coincided with a major shift in media and popular lesbian culture.

Just weeks after “Chasing Amy” was released, Ellen DeGeneres of the sitcom “Ellen” saw her character come out of the closet — kicking off DeGeneres’s legacy as one of the world’s most well-known lesbians.

2015: CAROL

Based on the 1952 romance novel, “The Price of Salt,” “Carol” had been in development since 1997, when Phyllis Nagy wrote the first draft of the screenplay.

“Carol” tells the story of two women in early 1950s-New York who form a secret sexual and romantic affair with each other, and then deal with the consequences that follow.

Therese, played by Rooney Mara, is working retail at a department store. There she meets an older, yet glamorous wearing bright-red nail polish and fur coats woman, Carol, played by Cate Blanchett, who is looking to buy a Christmas present for her young daughter.

Therese and Carol form a bond and friendship causing Carol’s soon-to-beex-husband to become suspicious of the nature of their relationship, as Carol has had an affair with another female friend in the past.

It’s a queer movie directed by a queer filmmaker, director Todd Haynes seems to let the camera linger on many shots on how Carol and Therese look at one another.

Their scenes are sometimes wordless but speak volumes because the two actors communicate with their bodies and faces telling the story. Haynes frames a lot of scenes through doors and windows looking at Carol and Therese suspiciously as though he (and the spectator) can only see them through the dominant culture’s perspective, skewed, to one-sided and remote until they’re fully together. The same goes for when he shoots them in mirrors. They look at themselves and one another even when they’re alone together, as though the relationship is always framed.

“Carol” was nominated for six Academy Awards and in 2016, the British Film Institute named Carol the best LGBT film of all time.

2015: TANGERINE

Shot on an iPhone 5, an indie film called “Tangerine” managed to gross nearly a million dollars on a $100,000 budget and wowed film festival crowds.

The official synopsis for the film is “After hearing that her boyfriend/pimp cheated on her while she was in jail, a sex worker and her best friend set out to find him and teach him, and his new lover, a lesson.”

“Tangerine” does hit tragic notes in its plot; however, it transports the viewer directly into the realities of Black and Afro-Latinx Trans sex workers.

The movie also serves as a message for how mainstream films can have a better approach to telling real and honest stories, especially from the Trans community.

“Tangerine” shows how this kind of resolve doesn’t have to be costly — just compassion, self-reflection, and creative

respect to valuable voices and listening to them when they tell their stories.

2019: BOOKSMART

“Booksmart” follows students Amy and Molly thinking their academic overachieve selves gave them a leg up on their high school peers.

But on the eve of graduation, the best friends suddenly realize that they may have missed out on the special moments of their teenage years. Determined to make up for lost time, the girls decide to cram four years of fun and wild parties into a chaotic one-night adventure that no amount of book smarts could prepare them for.

One of the first conversations we hear between Amy, played by Kaitlyn Dever, and Molly, played by Beanie Feldstein, in Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut is about lesbian sex. Amy is just a teenager with a crush, and that crush happens to be on a girl.

Amy’s story differs from other lesbian characters in mainstream teen movies. Her story is not focused on coming out – she has already been out for a couple of years – and her sexuality is never the joke or a punchline which would be the case in a lot of comedies.

The film also doesn’t indulge in cheap tragedy, as so many movies about young LGBTQ+ people tend to do.

Lesbianism is never made to seem like a fetish or a “hot scene”. Amy’s sex scene is clumsy, funny, and not at all sexy and not filmed for the typical straight male gaze.

[Sidebar] I SEE GAY PEOPLE

With outspoken actors, trending hashtags, and news stories, it’s no secret that the award shows for movies have had a lack of diversity and representation.

In recent years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which is the organization that votes on the Oscars has made eff orts to improve its membership. In addition to creating new milestones, the 2022 Academy Awards and Oscars are breaking some new ground with LGBTQ+ cinema and the community.

Actress Ariana Debose scored a nomination and win for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anita in 2021’s “West Side Story.” DeBose identifies as queer and came out to her grandparents in 2015. DeBose took home the Golden Globe for her performance. As winner at the 2022 Oscars in March, she became the second actor to win in this role, as Rita Moreno earned an Academy Award for her performance as Anita in the original 1961 film.

Kristen Stewart received her first Oscar nomination for her work in “Spencer,” Pablo Larraín’s thriller about Princess Diana and the oppressed environment that led to her downfall.

Stewart has earned critics’ awards for her previous roles such as in “Personal Shopper” and “Clouds of Sils Maria.” But “Spencer” finally led to her first Oscar nomination. Incidentally, the film explores queer themes in both subtle and fanciful ways.

Front-runner for Best Picture was widely considered to be “The Power of the Dog” – a neo-Western movie that explores

the queer dynamic in a relationship between two men, both played by non-LGBTQ actors.

The 12-time Oscar-nominated Netflix film works as a slow-burning drama and as a study of masculinity. Based on the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog” tells the story of three men all who relate to their masculinity in diff erent ways.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Phil Burbank in the film, explained to “People Magazine,” that “The character's toxic masculinity made him project hate on the world, and for the world, hate on him, and I think his sense of loneliness is exacerbated by that and his sense of jealousy."

Metaphors are sprinkled throughout “Power of the Dog” such as in a darkened barn in 1920s Montana, a handsome young man named Peter slowly inhales a cigarette (a phallic symbol). He carefully places it in the mouth of an older man – Phil, a cruel cowboy - but doesn't let it go. Phil, looking Peter in the eye, takes a long, hard drag.

Cumberbatch also added, "I think it speaks to a time of intolerance and a lack of acceptance where people couldn't live any kind of their authentic self."

The 94th Academy Awards aired on ABC on March 27, 2022. LGBTQ+ movies have come a long way from the stereotypes and laughs mainstream Hollywood thought everyone wanted.

Whether it be the history of LGBTQ+ films or recent award shows, representation in cinema has and continues to excite.