Throughout history, many homosexual individuals have held important positions. However, many more have lived quietly and harmoniously in their communities without support and without protection. Across the globe, most homosexual people are not tolerated or protected, if a hate crime were to occur toward them. Prejudice and Hate are not emotions we are born knowing; it is something we are taught. Society, including family, shapes children into becoming the next generation to fulfill the ideas of the previous generation, including how to either hate, fear, or accept each other. The idea to hate someone or something is based on a basic fear. The fear is usually based on the irrational inability to change and idea or emotion that we were told, as children to fear things that we do not understand. Hate is a bad cycle that is perpetuated by people who are afraid of something they do not understand. To understand another point of view takes courage and an open mind. Many people prefer to remain ignorant about things they hate, then open their minds to understand another perspective. Out of many gay-themed films, three are focused on in this paper. The Birdcage, The Laramie Project, and Milk are three films about openly gay people, their families, and their interactions with society, the media, and each other.
Themes which deal with homosexuality in The Birdcage are centered around an openly gay couple in Miami, Florida who own a drag club and have successfully raised their son into a man. Although this movie does not directly deal with hate, it does deal with fear and prejudice subtly and uses humor to deliver the message about acceptance for differences. The views of open homosexuality in the Miami community where the couple lives seems to support their sexual identity without obvious prejudice. However, the issue of fear comes up when the son announces his plan to marry the daughter of a senator and founder of a coalition for moral codes, which seems to be a group against anything that is not white, Christian, and heterosexual. Troubles for the family begin when the young woman lies to her parents about her fiancé's family to make them sound more acceptable to her parents, she spins a tall tale that the gay couple is heterosexual. The lies are indicative of the typical stories that many gay children feel are necessary to do because the family may not approve. The movie did a good job in portraying the flamboyant and the conservative interactions with each other in an exaggerated but believable storyline. The storyline allows mainstream American to view the complicated problems that many people deal with, although it was not as dramatic as the other two movies were chosen for this paper.
The Laramie Project was a film created as a pseudo-documentary about Matthew Shepard and the events that occurred after his death and the trials of the two young men who beat him and left him to die. The movie starts out by laying the groundwork that the film crew is actually a group from a theater group in New York who want to create a play based on the death of Matthew. They start interviewing people of the town to gain insight into the community and solidify the storyline of the stage play. This movie dealt with homosexuality and the attitudes surrounding small town America. Small towns seem to have little to no understanding of the struggles that gay people deal with on a daily basis. However, there is a strong gay community in and around the university. Most of the town were quick to point out that they had a philosophy of “live and let live” even though that was not exactly true for everyone. The underlying tones of silent bigotry and the way many people allowed themselves to be drug into hate, intolerance, or fear of things they do not understand. The movie highlighted the close-minded religious attitude which may have been the basis for the two murderers’ negative attitudes about homosexuality. Each person that the film crew spoke with had a story to share about his or her interactions with Matthew. It would seem that although Matthew was not portrayed in the film, his interactions with almost all of the townspeople he came in contact with were positive. He didn't have any enemies, and there was no justification for his murder. They two accused attackers admitted to doing so because of his sexuality. The funeral for Matthew drew the attention of people from outside the community and the state of Wyoming. The funeral was so large that although the town had two churches set up for mourners, thousands of people were standing around the outside the packed buildings, they filled a nearby park, and spilled out into the street. This overwhelming support for a young homosexual man was unprecedented in the late 90s. The death of Matthew Shepard was tragic for more people outside the small town of Laramie, Wyoming than the media could even recount. His death seemed to bring the idea of creating safer laws pertaining to violent behaviors against homosexuals, which resulted in legislation that labeled hate crimes. Laws for the protection of non-heterosexual individuals exists at the country level, state level, and in most counties across the United States. The laws to protect homosexuals that had been in place since the late 1970s, because of the groundwork of Harvey Milk.
Milk is the title of a movie written about the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly-gay city supervisor in San Francisco, California. Harvey Milk moves with his lover, Scott Smith from New York. They couple open a camera shop, and Milk becomes interested in making life better for the gay community. In the beginning of the film, police round up gay men and arrest them at gay bars. The men seem embarrassed, but they are all well-dressed, giving the viewer the mental image that gay men could be in any business, wearing a suit like anyone else. The police seem to enjoy pushing the gay men into the paddy wagon while the men seem to be horrified that their lives may be ruined based on their sexuality.
Harvey White dictates his last thoughts into a tape recorder in the event that his life may be taken early. As he does this, scenes from his life are played out, including Harvey speaking to crowds of people such as the LBGT community. He seems to be a powerful speaker and gains support from every group he talks to. While he continues to speak into the recorder, his memories include how gay activities are visible targets for hate crimes, although those are not the words he chooses to use. The tape that Harvey is recording is only to be listened to in the event that he is assassinated, which is the eventual end of his life. Harvey and Smith begin their relationship in the subway staircase in New York, on Harvey's 40th birthday. Harvey has decided that he wants to do something extraordinary with his life, and his new lover wants to go on the journey with him. The couple packs up and drives across the country to end up in California. After moving, Harvey grows his hair long and has a hippy look. They get an apartment above a vacant shop that they end up acquiring and turn it into a camera shop. They meet their first negative attitude about gays with a short interaction with the shop owner across the street. The shop owner was visibly upset about seeing Harvey and Smith openly kissing in front of their new shop and told them that if they open it, the police will shut them down and made sure they knew that gay men were not welcome there. However, this did not stop Harvey Milk from following through on his plan to do something great with his life.
Although the shop owner across the street was rude and unsupportive, Milk and Smith opened the camera shop. Patrons of the camera shop seem to be many gay men, which sparks a conversation between the couple about how to use the store as a base for gay activism. One of the ideas is to list all the local businesses that are gay-friendly and tell people to only buy from those stores. The non-gay friendly stores loose profits and close, leaving the street to be filled with gay-owned businesses. The shop owner that was mean in the beginning had a change of attitude when he realized the gay community bought loads of liquor, and if he was nice to them, they would buy from him.
Over a couple of years, the camera shop starts to become the headquarters for Milk’s gay activism and a new chapter begins in Milk’s life. One of his first actions was to take on Coors Beer for the worker’s union. He convinced the gay community to stop buying the beer, which resulted in the company caving into the demands of the worker’s union. This action gave him the public support he needed to begin his journey into public office. Unfortunately, not everyone was supportive of Milk. For example, the police and the LGBT community had a tense relationship that seemed to be a delicate dance of arrests and protests, which was the basis for Milk’s decision to run for a public office.
Safety for the LBGT community was a huge concern. One idea was for individual gay men to wear a whistle to blow if they were in trouble. Although this method worked most of the time, there were situations that the police ignored. Because of the way the LBGT community was treated by police, Milk started to form his campaign and gain support to run for public office. He receives death threats that he does not take seriously. His partner, however, is scared by the idea of losing him and attempts to convince Milk to step away from politics. Milk eventually wins in 1978 and makes several strides in gay rights laws before he was killed by a coworker a year after his election.
Although the gay community has won many battles for acceptance, integration, and protection, they still have many more battles to fight. It seems that there are several valid venues to spread the word, the film industry has the edge on opening doors and societies minds about the LGBT community at large. Friends and Family Relationships are often strained when someone openly announces he or she is not straight. The best thing that society can do is to open up, accept each other, and celebrate our differences. No matter who tries to get in and close the blinds to non-heterosexuals, the gay people will always be present, even if they have to be underground to do it. That is the way it has been since the dawn of human history. All three movies are examples of the gay community and social reactions to those people. If society is educated, they will no longer fear that which they do not understand. Educating the masses takes a bit of finesse and film media is a good way to accomplish that task.
Works Cited
Milk. Dir. Gus Van Sant. Perf. Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch. Focus Features, 2008. Film.
The Birdcage. Dir. Mike Nichols. Perf. Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman. United Artists. 1996. Film.
The Laramie Project. Dir. Moisés Kaufman. Perf. Christina Ricci, Steve Buscemi, Kathleen Chalfant. Home Box Office. 2002. Film.
