Argumentative Research Paper

Ashe Matteson

English 170

Professor Skylar Locke

2 April 2023

Queer Identities in Film: How Can We Do Better?

With the Oscars having recently passed, This provides a great opportunity to talk about film and the kind of non-conventional representation we see emerging in contemporary entertainment. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) won a total of 7 Oscars. It was the winner of the Oscar for best leading actress, Michelle Yeoh, who made history as the first Asian woman to win an Oscar, as well as Best Picture. Not only did it win an impressive number of Oscars, but was nominated for quite a few as well. Stephanie Hsu plays the character Joy Wang in this film, the lesbian daughter of Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh).

This is an important moment for the queer community as well, since this is an Academy Award-winning film featuring a queer supporting character. It gives a new take on sexuality in films, and is the level of representation we need to see in mainstream media. However, when it pertains to queer representation in film, this is not often the case. Queer representation in film has been lacking in the past, and needs to become more normalized. This film is hopefully a step in the right direction. Films in the past have not had a lot of explicitly queer characters; with much of it being limited to harmful stereotypes that skew the public’s perspective of the queer community.

Queer representation is not necessarily what the film industry is known for. In 2020, a study done by independent scholar Ellie Lockhart showed that only 2% of films up until then had explicit queer representation (Berlatsky). Lockhart defined “explicit” queer representation as a character that either outright states their sexuality or queerness. Instead, lot of films will do something that has been dubbed “queerbaiting,” where a character in a TV show or movie will be implied or hinted at that they are queer to gain the interest of more potential watchers, but their sexuality is never addressed and is left as something to be merely speculated. This type of incomplete “representation” is harmful for the queer community, because it gives us something to look forward to in a show, queer representation. Instead, we are left in the dark with unanswered questions about a character and never given the closure of having explicitly queer portrayal in a TV show. A lack of queer representation in films can be harmful to the community, since this is something that reflects who we are as people and as a community, and gives us something to relate to in a show and character.

It is very common in TV shows and movies (though much more common in TV) that writers will add a queer character to give variety to their cast– this is called tokenization. Despite their efforts, many times this character will end up being a cisgender, gay, white man. This is a very common trope that you can see throughout different film media such as Modern Family (2009) and Love, Simon (2018). This character trope is not inherently bad, but it has become the “norm” when it comes to queer representation in shows, and it perpetuates a stereotype that is quite common in society. Reinforcing this stereotype, especially in mainstream media like TV shows, can be very harmful to those who are not a part of the queer community, since they will often take this depiction at face value and start to associate it with the entire community. As an alternative, instead of keeping this harmful cycle, film media could follow the examples of good queer representation in media, such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) and The Owl House (2020). This highlights a point also made in the same interview with Lockhart, where Berlatsky notes, “You’d rather see lesbians assassinating people than facing discrimination.” (Berlatsky) A show with a plot that isn’t centered around the main character’s sexuality provides a much more interesting story than a show where the only personality trait of the main character is the fact that they are queer. Both of the aforementioned shows have a proper storyline that does not revolve around the character being gay, and their sexuality is not even a topic that is heavily discussed. Instead, these shows have fully fleshed-out characters with lives and conflicts that are related to the plot of the show.

There are people who would look at the stereotypes we so often see and make the claim that those are examples of “bad” queer representation in cinema, and when it comes to representation in film they would rather have no queer representation than a badly portrayed character. Although portraying queer characters in a stereotypical way is bad and harmful to the community, the alternative of not portraying them at all could prove more harmful and hinder progress that’s been made in bringing queer characters to modern popular entertainment. In a show that has a poorly portrayed queer character, there is room for growth and to flesh out the character to more than just being queer. In a show with no queer representation, it would be more difficult to incorporate a queer character, which leaves less room for growth. This ties back into the point about a stereotypical queer character vs. a fully developed queer character. Using Love, Simon (2018) as an example, the main character Simon is a closeted gay high school student who has fallen for a classmate he met online, but is anonymous. The whole movie follows Simon in his journey to find out who the anonymous classmate is, and his journey in coming out to his family. While the premise of the movie is interesting and the cinematography is well done, Simon himself is not developed past the fact that he is a gay man in the closet. Other than that fact, he is not shown to have any other interests or other personality traits. This in itself does not make a very interesting character and not many gay men or boys would be able to relate to Simon past his queerness. Fleshing out his character to make him more interesting and writing in more personality traits could make Simon’s character more appealing to gay people watching the movie, and is an example of how film media could go from having “bad” queer representation to better queer representation. A show with no queer characters would not be able to easily write in a queer character when there is already a fully fleshed-out cast.

The article published through Texas University also addresses a topic that has been commonly debated in the media, which is the topic of queer characters being portrayed by non-queer actors. In 2015, a film titled The Danish Girl was released, starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. The plot of the movie is about a transgender woman named Lili Elbe, who was one of the first known people to get gender-affirming surgery. There were many people who were ecstatic about this movie, as it is a queer film telling a story about one of the first successful attempts at gender-affirming surgery. However, the film received quite a bit of backlash when it was revealed that Eddie Redmayne, a cisgender man, would be playing Lili Elbe. The film opens with Lili pre-transition, meaning she has not undergone her surgery yet. Around halfway through the film is when Lili gets her surgery, and the directors for the film decided to dress Eddie Redmayne as a woman. While Redmayne plays the role of Lili Elbe very well, many people thought that there should have been a separate actor playing post-transition Elbe, or that the directors should have hired a transgender actor to play the part altogether. It would have been a wise decision for the directors to have instead hired a transgender actor to play the part of Lili, to bring light to more actors that are a part of the queer community (in this instance, transgender is being included under the term “queer”; though the term is more commonly used to refer to sexual identities). Redmayne responded to this backlash when asked about it. He claims “I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake.” (The Guardian 2021)

Queer representation in film is important for queer and non-queer people alike. Film media incorporating queer representation effectively and accurately can add a new depth that the show did not have before. It gives queer people a more relatable watching experience, and provides insight on queer people as people and not just a tool for tokenization, to help those that are not a part of the queer community understand queer people past one popular and harmful stereotype. Including transgender identities as part of the term “queer”, queer representation should include prioritizing transgender actors playing transgender roles. The queer identities being portrayed in characters on the big screen and in TV shows allows films to reach new heights, especially with Everything Everywhere All at Once winning a total of 7 awards at the Oscars this year. This could be the start of popularization of a variety of queer identities in film.

Works Cited

Berlatsky, Noah. “Analysis Shows Just 2% of Recent Films Have Explicit LGBT Representation.” The New York Observer, Sep 08, 2020. ProQuest, https://libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/analysis-shows-just-2-recent-films-have-explicit/docview/2440762068/se-2. Accessed 19 March 2023

“Eddie Redmayne: Playing a Trans Character in the Danish Girl Was ‘a Mistake’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 22 Nov. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/22/eddie-redmayne-playing-a-trans-character-in-the-danish-girl-was-a-mistake#:~:text=The%20Danish%20Girl%20received%20considerable,actor%20in%20the%20leading%20role.

Mullinax, Tracy. “Queer Representation in Movies and TV.” University Wire, Mar 03, 2022. ProQuest, https://libdatabase.newpaltz.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/queer-representation-movies-tv/docview/2635295293/se-2. Accessed 19 March 2023

“Jobu Tupaki – Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)” https://oltnews.com/10-most-dangerous-characters-from-the-a24-movies-screen-rant

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