Representation of Homosexuality

1. Representation of Homosexuality 1980s Jamie Bidwell and Elliott Hamilton

2. 1980s- Social Trends • Referred to as the “Greed Decade”, reflecting the social and economic climate of that period • Decade witnessed a large religious revival and rise of conservatism- began with backlash against disco music • Alcohol and drug awareness campaigns grew- Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” and D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) • Role of women in the workplace increased • Gay issues entered public awareness through talk-shows (Oprah Winfrey)- gave gay, bisexual and transvestite people a degree of media visibility not seen before • Songs with high frequency of sexual innuendoes became mainstream- Prince, Frankie Goes to Hollywood • Political correctness became a concern in politics • Increased perception of AIDS being a “gay disease”

3. 1980s- Homosexuality • World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. • Research identified HIV virus as the probable cause of AIDS. • Actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. Disease became high profile news. • Effort put into gay and lesbian liberation movement was diverted into fighting the AIDS epidemic. • First gay and lesbian studies department at a US university or college founded at the City College of San Francisco. • Same-sex acts by male gays was decriminalised in Scotland. • Same-sex acts by male gays was decriminalised in Northern Ireland. • Denmark became first country to recognise same-sex partnerships. • The Department of Defence revealed gay recruits to be “just as good or better” as heterosexuals. Government tried to suppress this document unsuccessfully.

4. 1980s- THE AIDS CAMPAIGN Britain, 20 years ago. This was a time when people thought AIDS could be caught from sitting on a toilet seat. In the mid 1980s, there was intensifying media coverage on this disease and the fact there was no known cure. Victims were placed in two different groups- haemophiliacs who were labelled “innocent victims” and gay men and drug addicts, who were frequently referred to as “authors of their own misfortune”. The then Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, James Anderton, referred to people “swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making”. Government decided it must do something. Conservative Secretary of State for Health Norman Fowler and the Deputy Prime Minister Willy Whitelaw were asked to devise a national public awareness campaign. They commissioned an agency, TBWA, to make the adverts which would shake a nation into taking charge of its own sexual health.

5. Kevin Thomas, Head of Art with the advertising firm said of the advert “There really was a lot of ignorance around at that time- people still saw it as a gay disease. I was thinking about the amount we didn’t know about AIDS. We seemed to know so little- and that’s why I thought about the iceberg”. Leaflets were sent to every house in the country. A week of educational programming began. Family TV presenters were demonstrating condom usage on prime time television. Norman Fowler believed the campaign to be a great success. “I think the campaign was extremely effective. The follow-up material shows that people understood it, they remembered the campaign and most of all it actually did change habits. It did modify habits”. The government allocated £73 million at the time to the development of the AIDS education campaign. Since then, it has never received the same kind of funding. It seems that once a campaign has been shown to be successful, it is ticked off and the government move onto the next moral panic instead of developing ongoing campaigns to highlight these issues continually.

6. My Beautiful Laundrette This film is based on the Asian community living in Britain and the struggle for economic and social equality. Although the primary ideology of the film is the London Asian community, there is another significant plot-line. It also tackles the issues of homosexuality in the 80s which occurs between Omar and Johnny (behind closed doors). Similar to the text “Far From Heaven”, the representation of homosexuality does seem to take a backseat to the fight against racial prejudice. However, there is one distinct scene which clearly shows representation of homosexuality as it does contain a sex scene and contrasts two different sides of the supposed “debauched” culture of the 80s. Omar and Johnny are in the office of the laundrette and are engaging in sex on the office table. Meanwhile, in the laundrette the rich uncle (who also owns the laundrette) is dancing to classical music with his mistress. There is a two-way mirror in the office that allows Omar and Johnny to see the two dancing but doesn’t allow the uncle and his mistress to see into the office. It is the only scene that can be explicitly referred to as “gay”, meaning it is the scene that does show a representation of homosexuality that can be analysed using Dyer.

7. Richard Dyer • English academic specialising in cinema • Professor of Film Studies at King’s College • Active and influential figure in English Gay Liberation Front • First gay cinema event at the National Film Theatre organised by him in 1977 In “The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations”, Dyer suggested that pejorative (offensive) terms are a part of reality and that words change the way that we think about people. Thinking of a word to use against someone means it has become part of reality and becomes a subjective term against the person. Link to Dyer in “A Beautiful Laundrette” • Some aspects of the film that reflects Dyer’s theory include: • The ignorance of homosexuality to the rest of the community (totally oblivious) • The lack of equality. Johnny and Omar hiding their secret • The political correctness of Homosexuality. Still considered illegal Doesn’t relate entirely to Dyer as it fails to show any homosexual stereotype which most films will include.

8. An Officer and a Gentleman • Released in 1982 by Paramount Pictures • Follows Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) and his progress through Naval Officer Candidate School and his problems with black drill sergeant Louis Gossett Jr. to prove whether he is “a steer or a queer”. • Interesting to note, in same year “Tootsie” was released, featuring a cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman • The representation of homosexuality in this text is very implicit and is not as overt as “A Beautiful Laundrette”. Most of the homosexual representation is very negative and dismissive of gays (lines such as “steer or queer” speak for themselves) and fits in well with the social context at the time- to dismiss homosexuals from the military and deny any input they provide (even though, as mentioned before, it has been proven homosexuals are “just as good, if not better” as heterosexuals in the military). • The opening sequence, when the drill sergeant is deconstructing each individual and utters the line “Are you a steer or a queer?” is about as overt as the homosexual representation can get. Based on the implicit personality theory (general expectations built up about a person) we can assume that the drill sergeant is completely intolerant of homosexuals and so is typical of the average person in the 80s.

9. The text does also suggest, but only very possibly, that there is latent homosexuality between Gere and Worley, his friend in the college. Although there is never any physical notion of this possibility, there is a certain type of respect akin to the “Sam and Frodo” relationship in “LOTR”. It could be considered a form of hero worship though, but is always open to interpretations in different ways. Conclusions The 80s was the decade that the public had to realise that there were changing social trends and people in danger from mass epidemics of AIDS. The AIDS campaign, although thought to be successful, rarely changed people’s opinions about AIDS and homosexuals, because the government expected the campaign to be the “be all and end all” of homosexual discrimination and would progress towards a better understanding of AIDS in too short an amount of time, leading to dwindling campaigns in the 21st Century and a step closer to the ignorance first seen 20 years ago. The 80s was the year that homosexuality was thrust into the limelight in a much larger way than before- at the beginning they seemed to be film noir stereotypes with updated clothes but then towards the end of the decade they started to get some form of positive reception and programming. It seemed too much to be two steps forward and one step back, when nobody was on the same page as to homosexual representation and in the end it is merely a dulled footnote on the gay liberation movement with few positive moments arriving too late.