Reflection Two

Last week we watched a film called "The Celluloid Closet," I found this film very interesting. Before taking this class I never put much thought into how the media subliminally tells us how to act and react to people who were different. This film was very eye opening and showed the ways homosexuals were being portrayed in movies, if they were being portrayed at all. The few roles that had homosexual characters had them portrayed as either killers, seducers, or killed at some point in the film. Another aspect of the film I enjoyed was the historical shift of homosexual representation through time. Homosexuals were being portrayed in film (more so in Europe) and then the Legion of Decency came into affect and the only way to have a homosexual character was to be able to subtly relay that message to the audience.

I found it shocking to see how the myths of homosexuals were  being perpetuated and more importantly how they originated in the way they were represented in film. One actor in the film mentioned that he would prefer negative representation over no representation. These representations perpetuate these myths but also allow a homosexual audience to identify with a character. As someone who had people in movies that looked like them, I find it very sad that there are many people who have difficulty seeing someone like themselves in the media.