History of homosexuality in American film

[3] The terms "pansy" and "sissy" became tagged to homosexuality and described "a flowery, fussy, effeminate soul given to limp wrists and mincing steps".

[3] Because of his high-pitched voice and attitude, the pansy easily transitioned from the silent film era to the talking pictures where those characteristics could be taken advantage of.

This called for the inclusion of more controversial topics such as prostitution and violence, creating a demand for pansies and their lesbian counterparts to stimulate or shock audiences.

The media publicity surrounding several high-profile celebrity scandals and the danger of church-led boycotts also pressured the leadership within the film industry to establish a national censorship board, which became the Motion Picture Production Code.

The stage play contained a storyline of two teachers being accused of having a lesbian affair, yet the film version created a heterosexual love triangle between two women and one man.

Many critics stated that the film version of The Children's Hour was more enjoyable with the absence of the lesbian characters when compared to the original stage play.

[11] Nico Lang of Harper's Bazaar said Disney's 1941 film The Reluctant Dragon "is extremely queer, even if it's not necessarily gay".

He appeared in drag in the films At War with the Army, Scared Stiff, and Money From Home and routinely adopted effeminate mannerisms and gender ambiguous role-playing with his partner Dean Martin.

That the homosexuals in Rope were connected to the arts, as were many of those investigated, seems apt in view of longstanding suspicions about the politics and sexual practices of people so engaged.

[2]The censorship code gradually became liberalized during the 1950s and 1960s, until it was replaced by the current classification system established by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1968.

This meant that films with objectionable content did not necessarily need the approval of the Hollywood Production Code or religious groups to be successful.

[14] During this post-war era, mainstream American cinema might have advocated tolerance for eccentric, sensitive young men wrongly accused of homosexuality, such as in the film adaptation of Tea and Sympathy (1956), but gay characters were frequently eliminated from the final cut of the film or depicted as dangerous misfits who would fall prey to a well-deserved violent end.

[15] The code was relaxed somewhat after 1961, and the next year William Wyler remade a more faithful adaptation of The Children's Hour with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.

[15] After MacLaine's character admits her love for Hepburn's, she hangs herself; this set a precedent for miserable endings in films addressing homosexuality.

Advise & Consent (1962) depicted a married senator who is being blackmailed over a wartime homosexual affair, and was the first mainstream American movie to show a gay bar.

Lawrence's sexuality remains ambiguous, director David Lean had Peter O'Toole play his version of the desert hero as a gay man.

[15] Inside Daisy Clover in 1965, based on the novel of the same name, was another early example to depict an expressly gay or bisexual character who, while forced to marry a woman for his career, is not uncomfortable with his sexual orientation and does not commit suicide or fall victim to murder.

[15] In America, efforts at creating complex gay or bisexual film characters were largely restricted to people such as Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger.

The film, based on a play of the same name, was often hailed in the mainstream press as presenting a "landmark of truths", but was often criticized for reinforcing certain anti-gay stereotypes and for failing to deal with LGBT-rights and showing a group of gay and bisexual men who are all unhappy, miserable, and spiteful.

In contrast, Fortune and Men's Eyes (1971), was co-produced by MGM, dealt with the issue of homosexuality in prison, and depicted gays in a relatively "open and realistic, non-stereotypical and non-caricatured manner".

The slowly growing acceptance of homosexuality in film continued into the early 1980s, with the addition of two new factors; the rising political clout of Christian fundamentalist groups, committed to a conservative, traditionalist social and economic agenda, and the emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

As mainstream American films began to depict or make reference to the pandemic, the ignorance about the disease, including the idea that if one is gay, then they must have AIDS, spread.

All of these initial films and television movies about the pandemic followed a similar demographic pattern in that person living with AIDS was a white man from a middle-class or upper-class family, who was usually somber and emotional.

Alongside these independent films, mainstream Hollywood increasingly began to treat homosexuality as a normal part of human sexuality and gay people as a minority group entitled to dignity and respect.

Initially, most of these Hollywood depictions were in the context of campy, funny characters, often in drag on some sort of adventure or farce, while teaching a lesson in tolerance, if not equality.

Other films such as Monster (2003), Milk (2008) and Carol (2015) all feature famous actors and actresses portraying homosexual characters searching for love and happiness in oppressive societies.

[32] In July 2017, In a Heartbeat, an animated short film produced by Ringling College of Art and Design and funded through Kickstarter, was released.

This short Pixar film revolves around Greg attempting to hide a framed photo of him and his boyfriend, Manuel, from his parents, out of fear for their disapproval.

[36] Strange World which was released on November 23, 2022, features Ethan Clade, who is the first gay lead character in a Disney animated film.