PRINTOutside the system
Gay filmmakers struggle to make it
Jenny McDermott
April 24, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Brokeback Mountain was a breakout hit, but it’s one of few gay-themed films that have become part of mainstream audiences’ film vocabulary. Since the indie scene began, independent gay cinema has held its own among niche audiences before pioneering filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes had breakthroughs. Today, filmmakers are challenged with approaching storytelling in ways that confront personal and social identities — but even with strong examples, the business of marketing remains as major a hurdle as ever.
Kim Yutani, director of programming for Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, says the coming-out story is a long-standing — and overdone — trend in gay and lesbian film. “I’m just looking for stories that are not necessarily about teenage boys coming out or the girl who’s in love with her best friend and it’s unrequited,” she says. “I think people have to approach that in a different, more sophisticated way.”
Harry Benshoff, co-author of the book Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America, agrees. “I haven’t seen a lot of interesting queer work lately,” he says.
New Queer cinema, such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, provides some relief. These films are more in-your-face and self-reflective. “It calls attention to itself, how form and style also contribute to the meaning of sexuality,” Benshoff says. Filmmakers have also used these New Queer aesthetics in films that aren’t explicitly gay; I’m Not There, for example, used queer understandings of identity. “It’s about identity and how history and media contribute to identity,” he says.
These films, too, have problems reaching audiences. Yutani says it’s a shame mainstream audiences are missing out on films that have something to say. “There are a lot of talented filmmakers that a mainstream audience should really enjoy,” she says.
The two-tier system of the megaplex and the art house used to marginalize gay film. If films were to reach the megaplex, they needed a major star to carry them; otherwise, they’d go to the art house, where fewer people would see them. The creation of subsidiaries within the major studios has changed this and resulted in hybrid films that start in the art house and later hit the mainstream.
But in order to avoid the stigma of the gay label, these films, such as Far from Heaven, are marketed as prestige pictures rather than explicitly gay or lesbian films.
“The makers of these films don’t want to label their films as gay or lesbian, Benshoff says. “If something is labeled gay, it could be shunned by mainstream audiences. They get ghettoized.”
