What stood out to me the most while watching The Celluloid
Closet was the idea that as humans, we have this inherent need to see ourselves
represented in the media we consume. Namely movies and TV shows, but we all listen
to certain music for certain reasons that usually have to do with how we are
feeling at a certain time in our lives, or read books where we can directly
identify with a character or two.
Going to a movie and seeing a character who is just like you has a way of making you feel a lot less alone. It is for this reason that movies like How to Be Single usually come out on Valentine's Day weekend alongside the newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation. The sappy Valentine's Day couples will go see The Notebook 2.0, the best friend group of single girls will go see How to Be Single. (So what does that leave single guys? Deadpool.) And that's not to say there aren't plenty of exceptions. It's just a marketing strategy, but it's one that I'll totally admit to buying into. Me and my equally-single best friend went to see How to Be Single Valentine's Day weekend, not that either of us actually needed a lesson on how to be single. Do something long enough and you kind of become an expert on your own but it's whatever I don't care I'm not bitter. ANYWAY, the movie was good, better than I thought it would be, and it's because I could identify with more than one of the characters. I left the movie feeling like someone out there understood me, understood exactly how it feels to be me. I know that if I'd gone to see the Sparks movie, I wouldn't have left with that feeling. I can't identify with it because I'm not in a relationship right now (I've also never rowed a canoe through a pond of white swans, but I guess that’s life).
But it got me thinking, in relation to The Celluloid Closet, what it must be like to never see yourself represented on screen that way. I can see how damaging it could be, at a time when the “LGBT” label didn’t even exist, at a time when you were already plagued with thoughts of how broken you were, how wrong you were. If the movies depicted what was normal, and they never depicted you, how could you ever see yourself as normal? Since the documentary was made, we as a society have made leaps and bounds in our cultural acceptance of various sexualities. TV shows like Modern Family depict an actual "modern family" (almost to an extreme), and movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower show characters who are able to unapologetically embrace their own sexuality. This website shows the 2015 stats for LGBT representation on TV and it’s more extensive than ever, so maybe today's LGBT youth have it better. A website like this displays how far we have come as a society in one aspect, but it’s important to remember that we will always have a little farther to go.
Going to a movie and seeing a character who is just like you has a way of making you feel a lot less alone. It is for this reason that movies like How to Be Single usually come out on Valentine's Day weekend alongside the newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation. The sappy Valentine's Day couples will go see The Notebook 2.0, the best friend group of single girls will go see How to Be Single. (So what does that leave single guys? Deadpool.) And that's not to say there aren't plenty of exceptions. It's just a marketing strategy, but it's one that I'll totally admit to buying into. Me and my equally-single best friend went to see How to Be Single Valentine's Day weekend, not that either of us actually needed a lesson on how to be single. Do something long enough and you kind of become an expert on your own but it's whatever I don't care I'm not bitter. ANYWAY, the movie was good, better than I thought it would be, and it's because I could identify with more than one of the characters. I left the movie feeling like someone out there understood me, understood exactly how it feels to be me. I know that if I'd gone to see the Sparks movie, I wouldn't have left with that feeling. I can't identify with it because I'm not in a relationship right now (I've also never rowed a canoe through a pond of white swans, but I guess that’s life).
But it got me thinking, in relation to The Celluloid Closet, what it must be like to never see yourself represented on screen that way. I can see how damaging it could be, at a time when the “LGBT” label didn’t even exist, at a time when you were already plagued with thoughts of how broken you were, how wrong you were. If the movies depicted what was normal, and they never depicted you, how could you ever see yourself as normal? Since the documentary was made, we as a society have made leaps and bounds in our cultural acceptance of various sexualities. TV shows like Modern Family depict an actual "modern family" (almost to an extreme), and movies like The Perks of Being a Wallflower show characters who are able to unapologetically embrace their own sexuality. This website shows the 2015 stats for LGBT representation on TV and it’s more extensive than ever, so maybe today's LGBT youth have it better. A website like this displays how far we have come as a society in one aspect, but it’s important to remember that we will always have a little farther to go.
As a gay man myself, I find it much easier now to connect to certain characters than when I was actually a teenager. Most of the time, Hollywood still doesn't get it right, but for now, it's what we have. But hey, if Deadpool gets a boyfriend in the next movie, I'm sold!
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