Week 10: 80s and 90s Representation of Women and the LGBTQ+ Community

Representation of Women in Early Film History

• Hollywood is usually dominated by men in front of and behind the camera

• Silent era had several women involved like Lois Weber, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford, and Pearl White

• Modern studio system mad roles for women rare

• Women were often love interests, physically weak, and emotionally fragile

• Women joined the workforce, during WWII, the femme fatale archetype was a reaction to women gaining more independence

• American Releasing Corporation determined that films aimed at boys in their late teens brought the largest audiences

First Wave Feminism

• Fought for legal equality and voting rights

Second Wave Feminism

• Fought for reproductive rights and workplace equality

80s

• Decade that featured pushback against Second Wave Feminism

Susan Seidelman

• Studied fashion at Drexel University

• Inspired by Godard, Truffaut, and Bergman

• Received a Student Academy Award nomination for short film at NYU

• First feature, Smithereens, first American independent film to be selected for competition at Cannes

• Directed pilot of Sex in the City

• Directed Desperately Seeking Susan

Callie Khouri

• Studied drama in college before dropping out and moving to LA

• Studied to be an actress before shifting to production and working on music videos

• Wrote screenplay for Thelma and Louise, won Oscar

• Directorial debut was Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

• Created TV series Nashville

Desperately Seeking Susan

• Directed by Susan Seidelman

• Written by Leora Barish

• Screwball comedy

• Madonna’s first major film role

• Impacted 80s fashion

• Critical and commercial success

• Feminist themes

• Cult classic

• Adapted into stage musical

• Selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2023

Thelma and Louise

• Directed by Ridley Scott

• Written by Callie Khouri

• Premiered at Cannes

• Nominated for 6 Oscars

• Subverts buddy film genre

• Finale is homage to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

• Khouri wanted to direct but had trouble getting it produced

9 to 5

• Idea from Jane Fonda

• First draft of the script was written by Patricia Resnick

• Main theme was performed by Dolly Parton, won an Oscar

Fatal Attraction

• A career-oriented woman has an affair with a married man, tries to kill him after the affair ends

• Career women are portrayed as violent and mentally unstable while women who stay at home are portrayed as well-adjusted

Working Girl

• Directed by Mike Nichols

• Tackles sexism in the workplace

• Career is blocked by men and by another woman who wants to steal her work

The Silence of the Lambs

• Directed by Jonathan Demme

• Based on a novel series by Thomas Harris

• One of only 3 films to win Oscars in all five major categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay)

• Only horror film to win Best Picture

• Agent Starling works in a hostile environment and fights against a serial killer who targets women

• Transphobic tropes

A League of Their Own

• Directed by Penny Marshall

• Subverts the male-centered sports film

• Features all-women baseball team during WWII

The Piano

• Written and directed by Jane Campion

• Non-speaking Scottish woman who travels to New Zealand with her daughter due to an arranged marriage

• Critical and commercial success

• 8 Oscar nominations, won 3

• Won Palme d’Or at Cannes, Campion was the first woman to win

All About Eve

• Starred Bette Davis

• Won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay

• Only film to receive four nominations for Best Actress

Norma Rae

• Based on a true story

• Directed by Martin Ritt

• Co-written by Harriet Frank Jr.

• Woman fighting for workers’ rights in an anti-union Southern town

• Nominated for 4 Oscars

• Sally Field won Best Actress

Steel Magnolias

• Written by Robert Harling, also wrote off-Broadway play the film is based on

Fried Green Tomatoes

• Co-written by Fannie Flagg and Carol Sobieski

• Based on Fannie Flagg’s novel

Kramer vs. Kramer

• Part of an 80s pushback against Second Wave Feminism

• Meryl Streep’s character wants to have a career along with being a mother is portrayed as selfish

• Dustin Hoffman’s character is able to have a career and be a single father

When Harry Met Sally

• Written by Nora Ephron

• Directed by Rob Reiner

• One of the best romcoms of all time

• Nora Ephron wrote several other films

Daughters of the Dust

• Written and directed by Julie Dash

• First feature film directed by a Black woman to have a US theatrical release

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

• Directed by Fran Kuzui

• Written by Joss Whedon

• Subverts horror conventions and the final girl trope

• Inspired a TV show, spinoffs, comics, video games

The Joy Luck Club

• Co-written by Amy Tan, based on her novel

• Explores relationships between Chinese-American women and their immigrant mothers

• Critical and commercial success

• Selected for preservation by the National Film Registry

Dickson Experimental Sound Film

• Not explicitly gay, but portrayed two men dancing

• 1894

Early Queer Representation

• Often effeminate and flamboyant men portrayed as jokes

• Either seen as immoral or wholesome/platonic

• Earliest same-sex kiss between two men in American film was in D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance

• First kiss between two women was in Cecil B. DeMille’s Manslaughter

• Kiss between two men in Wings was seen as an example of platonic and fraternal love

• First same-sex kiss between a leading woman and another woman was in Morocco was Marlene Dietrich

Queer Coding

• Way for queer characters to appear in films under the Hays Code

• Shown through behavior, dialogue, clothing

• Frequently sinister, villainous, antagonists

• Often weaker than straight protagonist

Hays Code Censorship

• MPCC censored positive depictions of queer characters and same-sex relationships

• Queer characters often suffered tragic ends

• Opened the door for queer coding

Post-Hays Code Representation

• Greater representation after the Hays Code ended

• Often more sympathetic, but still tragic

• Often portrayed as exotic and alien to cishet audiences, but were more confident in their identities

John Waters

• From Baltimore

• Directed independent, cult films featuring Divine like Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, and Female Trouble

• Directed Hairspray, adapted into Broadway musical

• Surrealist, trashy, camp, transgressive style

Representation in the 70s and 80s

• Television featured openly queer characters in the 70s, like All in the Family and The Corner Bar

• Starsky and Hutch feature two detectives that were often shipped together by audiences, writers leaned into this interpretation

• Conservative shift in the 80s, mainstream depictions became more pessimistic

• Homophobia and transphobia were played for jokes

• Independent films were often more sympathetic

New Queer Cinema

• Independent movement in the 90s

• Influenced by avant-garde and experimental film

• Featured queer characters, challenged stereotypes, referenced AIDS crisis

• Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Cheryl Dunye, Greg Araki, etc.

Gus Van Sant

• Studied cinema at Rhode Island School of Design

• Known for Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, Psycho remake, Elephant, Milk

• Openly gay, likes to make films about characters on the fringes of society

Cheryl Dunye

• Born in Liberia, grew up in Philadelphia

• Attended Temple University and Rutgers University

• First Black lesbian to direct a feature film (The Watermelon Woman)

• Directed numerous episodes of TV

Jonathan Demme

• Worked with Roger Corman in exploitation film

• Won Oscar for directing The Silence of the Lambs

• Directed Philadelphia off of previous success, one of the first mainstream films to address HIV/AIDS in the US

Trans Representation

• Men in drag were often laughed at

• Trans characters were often villains and sexual predators or had tragic lives

Neil Jordan

• Worked in children’s television

• Films range from low-budget to mainstream

• Directed The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, and Breakfast on Pluto

The Watermelon Woman

• Written and directed by Cheryl Dunye

• Part of New Queer Cinema movement

• Considered the first feature film directed by a Black lesbian

The Golden Girls

• Created by Susan Harris

• Ran from 1985 to 1992

• Progressive for its time since older women were less threatening

• Tackled sexuality, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, addiction

• Won numerous awards

• Favorite with queer audiences

• Featured positive representation of a lesbian character

My Own Private Idaho

• Directed by Gus Van Sant

• Adaptation of Henry the IV and Henry the V

• Premiered at Venice International Film Festival

• Initially mixed reviews, cult classic

• Important part of New Queer Cinema

• Difficult to find mainstream actors to take roles

• River Phoenix helped develop his character and make his character’s sexuality more overt

Philadelphia

• Directed by Jonathan Demme

• One of the earliest mainstream films to tackle HIV/AIDS

• Mainstream actors opened the door for more actors to appear in queer films

The Boys in the Band

• Directed by William Friedkin

• Based on the off-Broadway play by Mart Crowley

• One of the first mainstream films to focus openly on gay characters

Desert Hearts

• Written by Natalie Cooper

• Directed by Donna Deitch

• One of the first feature films to feature a positive portrayal of a lesbian romance

Parting Glances

• Written and directed by Bill Sherwood

• One of the first film roles of Steve Buscemi

• One of the first films to deal with HIV/AIDS

Boys Don’t Cry

• Real life story of the murder of Brandon Teena, a trans man

• One of the first mainstream film to feature a trans protagonist

• Violence against a trans character, tragic ending

• Brought trans issues to a mainstream audience

• Won several Oscars and other awards

• Selected for preservation by the National Film Registry

Different From the Others

• Directed by Richard Oswald

• Released in 1919 when homosexuality was illegal in Germany

• First feature film with explicitly gay characters

• Sympathetic to queer characters and aimed to educate the public on homosexuality’s criminalization

• Banned in 1920

• Nearly all copies were destroyed by the Nazis

• Only one partial print of the film exists today

Dog Day Afternoon

• Based on a true story about a man who robs a bank to pay for his trans girlfriend’s gender affirming surgery

• Directed by Sidney Lumet

Ode to Billy Joel

• Sympathetic depiction of a gay character who commits suicide when he is outed

A Very Natural Thing

• Realistic portrayal of a gay couple

• Has a happy ending, a rarity for gay films at the time

Cruising

• Directed by William Friedkin

• Part of a more conservative shift in the 80s

• Portrayed gay men as sexual deviants who seek out danger

• Received significant backlash from LGBTQ+ groups

Paris is Burning

• Part of New Queer Cinema

• Directed by Jenni Livingston

• Landmark in representation of ball culture in the 80s with Black and Latino trans communities

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!

• Helped bring drag culture to the mainstream

• Mainstream celebrities playing drag queens in a positive light

• Has a happy ending

Interview with the Vampire

• High profile actors playing gay characters

• Directed by Neil Jordan

• Based on Ann Rice novel

Breakfast on Pluto

• Slightly more positive portrayal of a trans character than The Crying Game

• Directed by Neil Jordan