This document summarizes how gays and lesbians have been depicted in films from the 1920s to present. It notes that early films often portrayed them as villains, pedophiles, or with disguised sexuality. More recent films in the 1960s and 1970s continued to stereotype and sexualize lesbian characters for the male gaze. The document cites sources that discuss how Hollywood subtly got around censorship rules to include homosexual themes and characters between the lines of films.

1. How gays and lesbians are
depicted in film
Emma Tani

2. Why Does this Matter?
• History
– 1920’s-Present
• Hollywood’s influence

3. Trends
• Disguised sexuality
• Lesbians sexualized
• Stereotyping
– Gays and lesbians as
pedophiles
• Boys Beware, Carol
– Gays and lesbians as
villains
• Hitchcock films Boys Beware, 1961

4. Key Findings
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdOlk
wy1Us
– Gigli
• Sexualizing

5. Key Findings
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhi8f9EW
dt4
– Rope
• Disguised sexuality
• Villains

6. Sources (In class)
• Celluloid Closet
– “Hollywood had learned to write movies between
the lines.”
– “If a director was subtle enough or clever enough,
they got around it.”
The Celluloid Closet. Dir. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman. Song Picture Classics, 1996. Film.

7. Sources (outside of class)
• “The creation of a
lesbian film criticism is
particularly urgent,
given the intensified
use of the lesbian as a
negative sign in
Hollywood movies and
the continuing space
assigned to lesbians as
gratification of male
fantasy”- Creekmur,
Doty
Creekmur, Corey, and Alexander Doty. 1995. Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Essays on Popular Culture. Duke University Press.
Basic Instinct,1992

8. Thank you!