Charles Koehler 0:02 I'm Charles Koehler, and this is Lambda Reports, a weekly program by and for the St Louis Lesbian and gay community. The world forms its views of the often invisible world of lesbians and gays by what it sees and what it hears, and one of the most powerful means of showing this invisible world to the rest of society is through the movies. We welcome our guest today. Dr Silverscreen, welcome to Lambda Reports. Dr. Silverscreen 0:33 Good morning, Charles. Charles Koehler 0:33 Good morning. For nearly eight years Dr silverscreen has written a column on movies and television for the Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph, which is a regional monthly newspaper published in St Louis. He's also broadcast reviews on radio station KDHX, and the second full week of each month, Dr silverscreen can be heard on the St Louis Gay and Lesbian Action Line, a message telephone message service sponsored by Challenge Metro at 367-0084. Dr, Silver screen. What do you like best about being a film columnist for the gay publication in St Louis? Dr. Silverscreen 1:18 Well, I'm a movie lover, and this sort of forces me to go out and see movies regularly, diligently, and I like being able to write about them for a specific audience that I know is out there for gay and lesbian readers. As far as I know, I'm the only person who writes from a gay and lesbian perspective about movies and TV in this area, and perhaps can offer some special insight on movies and TV that the mainstream press doesn't. Charles Koehler 1:54 I see. Well, since we're talking about gay movies specifically, why don't we see more gay characters or lesbian characters in the mainstream American movies? Dr. Silverscreen 2:07 The good old Hollywood film? Yes, because it's big business that tries to reach the largest possible audience without offending anybody or dealing with subjects that they may consider too sensitive for a long time. You know, there were pretty strict codes. Charles Koehler 2:35 Can you tell us a little bit about this? Dr. Silverscreen 2:38 Well, it was really a kind of industry censorship, in which certain kinds of things were not supposed to be shown on the screen, things that were considered under the broad category of morally offensive, which included all kinds of sexual subjects, not just homosexual, but which certainly included that, and so any positive or realistic depiction of gay characters was pretty much out. Nowadays, films are much more open and can present and do present sexual subjects, as we all know, including gay and lesbian, but for the most part, the audience for Hollywood films is, well, mostly suburban teenagers, I would say, for the most part. And so films pretty much take Hollywood films pretty much take their point of view. And of course, we all like to pretend. Society likes to pretend that we don't have gays and lesbians and people like that. And you know, out in the suburbs, and that's just a problem for strange neighborhoods in the city. And so So the issue is either not treated, or it's treated in one of a number of rather stereotypical ways. Charles Koehler 4:09 I see. Well, when, when these audience members do see a Hollywood movies? How? How do you see the gay characters being depicted? Dr. Silverscreen 4:21 If they're depicted at all … Dr. Silverscreen 4:22 if they're depicted at all. Dr. Silverscreen 4:23 … let's remember that the first way that Hollywood treats gays and lesbians is the way that Hollywood has treated black people for a long time, and that is, it doesn't treat them at all. It's invisibility, complete invisibility. Yeah, they're just not there for the most part. Charles Koehler 4:41 Would you say that this is reflective of the mainstream's view of lesbians and gays? Dr. Silverscreen 4:48 Yes, okay, a lot of people, average person, either don't know about them, or if they do, would prefer to think that they're not there, because they're such strange people, of course, but I think we have a direct parallel with the way blacks have been presented in in movies in which blacks are considered an isolated group and not part of the mainstream, and therefore are relegated to special types that we see in the movies. So when we do see gay and lesbian characters, one of the ways that we see them is in stereotypes. Charles Koehler 5:24 Such as? Dr. Silverscreen 5:25 Okay. Even before people were called in, in the movies were labeled as gay or homosexual or lesbian, we saw men who I guess the most popular label for them is sissy men, men who were effeminate, whimsical, what what you might say, and that that is carried through even into the more modern films where the characters are labeled gay. We're talking about the men here in films like The Ritz or Victor Victoria, or even La Cage aus Folles, which has been tremendously popular, but it's because the men in it are seen as being funny caricatures rather than rather than real people. Charles Koehler 6:14 So, in short, they seem to fill, fulfill the average audience, viewers, Dr. Silverscreen 6:21 and they're Charles Koehler 6:21 viewpoint, Dr. Silverscreen 6:22 and they're no threat, Charles Koehler 6:22 and they're no threat, Dr. Silverscreen 6:23 no threat. Now, point, now, the flip side of that, of course, is the gay characters who are presented as a threat, the men in particular, as depraved and violent. You know, the kinds of characters that we saw in American Gigolo and Cruising and Looking for Mr. Goodbar and men who are afraid of being gay, this is a major theme also, and who do violent things. Well, there's a movie called The Detective in which with Frank Sinatra title role in which the killer turns out to be a man who has gay tendencies but is afraid of those coming out, Charles Koehler 7:09 one of the latent homosexuals as Dr. Silverscreen 7:11 right this. This was years before Cruising came along, you know, or you have even a situation like you remember Advise and Consent, where a senator is blackmailed on the because he had a a homosexual incident when he was in the Army, and it's so much for the guy to face that he kills himself. Charles Koehler 7:34 I see. Dr. Silverscreen 7:34 So you know, it's not only dangerous to be gay, but it's be dangerous to be thought gay. Now with the women, just as we've had sissy men, then we have the very tough women, or women who are violent and depraved on the black pant, even going so far as to be depicted as vampires. Charles Koehler 8:01 Yes, I understand that that was quite a popular or is quite a popular motif to have the lesbians as as vampires, Dr. Silverscreen 8:11 or you have the in some of the more recent films, the lesbian women as being career women who are very efficient and very stylish but but cold, heartless kinds of characters. Speaker 1 8:24 You know any, any film titles that go with those so depictions? Dr. Silverscreen 8:28 Well, we have the depiction of a lesbian career woman by Candace Bergen in the Group, if you remember that. Or we have the Killing of Sister George, which we have actress and a I believe it was a television executive women. If we get past those, then we may have some more sympathetic stereotypes in which gays are depicted as lonely or as victims, sometimes sympathetically, even as best friend type of characters, but usually as characters who have difficulty making friends, difficulty socializing and so on. Charles Koehler 9:16 Dysfunctional, in other words, any titles in particular pop into mind? Dr. Silverscreen 9:21 Well, I think of the the James Coco character in Only When I Laughed, Marcia Mason's best friend in that film, who is a good guy, but he's lonely, can't make any connection. Oh, you remember the kid in Fame, the one gay character in a High School for the Performing Arts, if you can believe that. And he's the only one. He's the only one who doesn't have any any boyfriend or girlfriend. Or a very sympathetic portrayal, you remember the character in Silkwood, played by Cher Charles Koehler 9:59 Exactly. Dr. Silverscreen 10:00 Ah, who is Silkwood's best friend and is a positive sort of character, but also depicted as basically a kind of lonely, you know, out on her own type of character too, we kind of feel sorry for her. And then, of course, we have the gay character as victim. So these are some of the basic stereotypes. And then we go to another step, okay, in which we have, which are generally films, in terms of Hollywood films and TV shows, which are trying to be positive, but the way they do it is by presenting being gay as a problem, an issue. It's something that you've got to deal with … Charles Koehler 10:46 Such as? Dr. Silverscreen 10:49 Well, there were a lot of those Making Love as an example of a Hollywood film, I think that tried to be positive. But the whole question was, you know, if you're gay or if you're married to somebody who is gay, what are the problems that you have to deal with? It's a problem. Or the TV films like Consenting Adult or Early Frost. You know nowadays, of course, one of the big problems is AIDS. Well, there's no doubt that that's a problem. But to depict gay people, gay men, entirely in terms of victims of AIDS is misleading and actually demeaning. And the whole thing is a we/they kind of presentation … Dr. Silverscreen 11:32 Can you give us any examples … Dr. Silverscreen 11:33 … what do WE do, meaning people who aren't gay, about THEM, that isolated minority? Charles Koehler 11:40 Well, can you give us any examples of films that don't fit any of those previously mentioned molds and do present … Dr. Silverscreen 11:54 In Hollywood films? Dr. Silverscreen 11:55 Yes, in Hollywood … Dr. Silverscreen 11:55 it's almost impossible. It's almost impossible. Some films do have a, you know, an attempt to present gay people in some sympathetic light, Charles Koehler 12:07 Any titles? Dr. Silverscreen 12:08 The Boys in the Band, which now seems very day, it's from 1970 and now seems very dated, because it deals with closeted characters and rather extreme characters in some way. But it was an attempt, at least, to show gay people as human beings making love. Soap operaish as it is, was an attempt to show varieties of love, including even a gay character who was not committed to the mainstream idea of marriage in a committed relationship. The recent Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein should be included, I think, because it follows his stage play and screenplay and just kind of lets all the stops out and says, Okay, here's a human being who is maybe different from what most people expect, but we got to accept Him as He is. Charles Koehler 13:03 Well, we've got just about one minute left, and can you tell us in what kind of films we can expect to see gay characters presented more positively or realistically? Dr. Silverscreen 13:14 As far as American films are concerned, it's the independent films for the most part. And of course, there are many foreign films that have been much more open and realistic in their depiction of gay characters than mainstream American films have. Charles Koehler 13:23 Well, that would probably be topic for a whole other discussion. I think it would you think so, yeah, so, well, do you in just a few seconds we have left, do you think the depiction of gay and lesbian characters in Hollywood will become more frequent or less stereotypical in the near future, in the foreseeable future, Dr. Silverscreen 13:48 I think it's going to take a while, because these changes happen very slowly, just as we don't see a great number of black characters in mainstream films, but we see more than we used to. I think that's what's going to happen with the depiction of gays and lesbians, but it won't happen overnight. Charles Koehler 14:06 Okay, time will tell on that. Well, that's all the time we have for today, but I'd like to thank Dr Silverscreen for being our guest, and I'd like to remind our listeners that some of the films and books that we refer to are available locally through Our World Too at 11, South VanDeventer, their phone number is 533-5322, that's 533-5322, we also encourage you to patronize the Tivoli Theater at 6350, Delmar, in U City, and the Highpoint Theater At 1001 McCausland and Clayton, both of these local theaters have been supportive in showing lesbian and gay related films until next time. This is Charles Koehler for Lambda Reports. Tune us in same time next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai