Dennis van Vreden/annocelluloidcloset

Celluloid Closet notes

"The Celluloid Closet is a 1996 American documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on the 1981 (revised 1987) book of the same name written by Vito Russo, and on previous lecture and film clip presentations given in person by Russo 1972–82. Russo researched the history of how motion pictures, especially Hollywood films, had portrayed gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters. It was given a limited release in select theatres, including the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in April 1996, and then shown on cable channel HBO." Source: Wikipedia

homosexuality has been rarely seen on the screen over the last hundred years.
when it was, it was there as something to laugh at, or something to pity
or even something to fear
"these fleeting images were unforgettable and left a lasting legacy"
"hollywood, the great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gay people. and gay people what to think about themselves"
"we are pathetically starved for images of ourselves" Jan Oxenberg

during the 20s 30s
the Hayes code was a voluntary self-censorship inflicted by hollywood
however in 1934 the catholic church made a plan that rated films with A B C (acceptable, morally objectionable, condemned)
they threatened massive boycotts if content was not adjusted. hollywood promised to oblige restricted was:
open-mouthed kissing, lustful embraces, sex perversion, seduction, rape, abortion, prostitution and white slavery, nudity, obscenity, profanity.
Code Director Joseph Breen werd aangewezen om alle plots en scripts compleet te wijzigen volgens de regels. hij deed dit voor 20 jaar.

een boek over een sexueel verwarde alcohol-verslaafde schrijver veranderde in een film met een alcohol-verslaafde schrijver met een wrijvers block. (The Lost Weekend 1945)
a novel about gay bashing and murder became a movie about anti-semitism and murder (Crossfire 1947)

homosexuals didn't get erased from the screen, they were just harder to find.
In the 1936 movie The Vampire's Daughter it became clear that the homosexual was now given the identity of a cold blooded villain, a vampire.

Rebecca (1940) In this movie after Rebecca has passed away, even though it was never mentioned you can see that her housekeeper has an obvious sensuous interest in her wardrobe while she shows them to a visitor of the house. She even opens the underwear drawer and rubs a fur coat against her cheek slowly

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Where a man is clearly suggested to be homosexual by the oriental music that starts when he comes in, and the smell of his perfume Gardenia. And his continuous groping of a stick.

Rope (1948 by Alfred Hitchcock) has two gay villains. based on the murderous lovers based on real life psychopaths Leopold and Loeb

quote reaction on Rebel Without a Cause "It's an offering to an audience to create their own film, rebel was about tenderness, intimacy. it was an attempt to widen the permission to love. When men were supposed to be one way with each other." Stewart Stern (screenwriter for Rebel Without a Cause)

ben hur is gay

Susie Bright, writer, makes a very true remark. When you are watching a movie as a gay audience. That it's amazing how you will watch an entire movie just to see if somebody is wearing an outfit, that you think means that they're a homosexual. "the whole movie can be a dud, but you're just sitting there waiting for Joan Crawford to put on her black cowboy shirt again" (The Black Guitar 1954)

"Most expressions about homosexuality in movies are indirect. And that's interesting because that's how we express homosexuality in life. That we could only express ourselves indirectly, just as people on the screen could only express themselves indirectly. The characters are in the closet, the movie is in the closet and we are in the closet"

Spartacus 1960. when the guy has a line of men in front of him and picks one to be his body servant. then in the deleted scene he is being washed by his servant. he asks his servant if he likes to eat snails and oysters, to which he replies he only likes snails. After that he says that it is indeed a matter of taste. "My taste includes both snails and oysters". The music in this scene is very slow and sensual, music you would put when showing Cleopatra, instead of these two romans.

Advise and Consent (1962) have to watch

55:36