Separate from the underrepresentation of LGBT+ character in film, I think that there's another reason why "straighwashing" is more objectionable.
When an LGBT character is rendered straight in a film, it is often with the purpose of making that character more "acceptable" to an audience. This is why so many queer characters have, historically in film, been effectively "neutered". They are allowed to exist, but they are wiped of any hint of actual sexual desire or activity.
It's also just much more likely that an historical figure would have hidden an LGBT identity, because it wouldn't have been accepted at the time. The idea that, I don't know, Lincoln was gay (or bisexual, or whatever) falls into a more probable space for me than the idea that Oscar Wilde was secretly straight. Know what I mean?
It's also true that having an historical figure be queer generates tension and conflict (by introducing a "forbidden love" element), while making a character straight doesn't.
While on the surface they are "equal and opposite" artistic choices (making a gay character straight; making a straight character gay), I think that they are choices driven by really different motives.
When an LGBT character is rendered straight in a film, it is often with the purpose of making that character more "acceptable" to an audience. This is why so many queer characters have, historically in film, been effectively "neutered". They are allowed to exist, but they are wiped of any hint of actual sexual desire or activity.
It's also just much more likely that an historical figure would have hidden an LGBT identity, because it wouldn't have been accepted at the time. The idea that, I don't know, Lincoln was gay (or bisexual, or whatever) falls into a more probable space for me than the idea that Oscar Wilde was secretly straight. Know what I mean?
It's also true that having an historical figure be queer generates tension and conflict (by introducing a "forbidden love" element), while making a character straight doesn't.
While on the surface they are "equal and opposite" artistic choices (making a gay character straight; making a straight character gay), I think that they are choices driven by really different motives.
But I tend to be very careful about viewing any decision as political in the Foucaultian sense, i.e. the sense that not doing something corresponds to a similar shift in the power balance as doing something. I don’t think that’s the case and I think this is another one of those stealthily prescriptive concepts that have crept up on us.
I don’t dispute the idea that it is more likely that someone was secretly gay and forced to hide their sexuality than that an “officially” gay figure like Elton John had constructed a gay persona to, I don’t know, sell records. But then again, I find that latter hypothesis not improbable - not with regards to Elton John, but contemporary figures, sure! This was touched upon in the Ellen Page thread.
But regardless of the above, that wasn’t my point. I find the idea that how we approach and make art (fine, “commercial entertainment product”, whatever, it’s the same thing in this context) should depend on which groups are or are not misrepresented, sad and, frankly, scary. And I feel about this very strongly.
With regards to making someone straight to make them less objectionable, well, that’s what art/entertainment does all the time! People are made more eloquent, more beautiful, less mean.
Again, I find that preferable to the idea of a dubious kind of social engineering whereby we assume that if everyone is forced to engage with LGBT or otherwise underrepresented, marginalised groups via entertainment and the media, no one will end up having bigoted views and will instead grow to be “more tolerant”. This is simplistic and idiotic, and, more importantly, the whole point of a democracy or a so-called “liberal society” is that people retain the ability to hold, and come to hold, so-called “objectionable” views.
Triple LOL.
Last edited by AgrippinaX; 08-06-21 at 06:38 PM.