San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Recent LGBTQ stories show progress in representation.
Pride Month provides an opportunity to reflect on LGBTQ acceptance over time and the nonlinear path toward authentic representation of queer people onscreen. While there have been many strides toward more livedin depictions, more work must be done in order to beckon more respectful portrayals of the community onscreen.
Here’s a breakdown of recent examples of poor LGBTQ representation in film and TV, while offering counterexamples that pave a more inclusive way forward.
Poor representation: “Bohemian Rhapsody”: A biopic must capture the subject’s essence. When it omits a signature characteristic, the character becomes lopsided and the story crumbles. Case in point: the revisionist depiction of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, a prominent LGBTQ figure, in 2018’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The film largely treats sexuality as a dichotomous afterthought, without leaving any room for sexual fluidity. More care is put into Mercury’s relationship with Mary Austin than his samesex relationships, which are treated as more indecent and salacious, stripped of love. “Bohemian Rhapsody” also modifies important details from Mercury’s life, such as his HIV diagnosis, which is moved two years earlier to manipulate the emotional impact of the band’s Live Aid performance in the film. Somewhere in the midst of rewrites and the transfer of power from director Bryan Singer to Dexter Fletcher, a queer icon’s story was muddled through conventional prudence.
Watch it: Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video and other streaming services.
Good representation: “Rocketman”: Another biopic about an LGBTQ rocker, also helmed by Fletcher, 2019’s “Rocketman” placed a portrayal of a gay man at the forefront of the film’s narrative instead of the back burner. Like Rami Malek on “Bohemian Rhapsody,” straight actor Taron Edgerton was chosen to take on a queer role. But with full support from Elton John himself, Edgerton was able to respectfully inhabit the character while exploring many themes that resonate with members of the LGBTQ community.
With “Rocketman,” viewers receive a more complete portrait that depicts every pillar of the musician’s life, even stigmatized ones such as John’s struggles with addiction, recovery and mental health. Whereas coming out is sometimes either ignored or sugarcoated in a character’s story, “Rocketman” handles John’s journey to sexual confidence with empathy. The film ranges from the pains and triumphs of coming out to the joys of finding one’s community, and how that allows one to become a role model for younger generations — something John sorely lacked as a youth.
Watch it: Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Poor: “Transparent”: “Transparent” was revolutionary for its portrayal of transgender character Maura
Pfefferman ( Jeffrey Tambor) and storytelling focused on trans lives, but choosing a cisgender actor to play Maura diminished the authenticity of the trans experience. A trans actor could have brought more life into the role through performance and personal insight. Tambor’s history of onset abuse further curbs the Amazon Prime Video series’ lasting impact.
Watch it: Available to
stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Good: “Euphoria”: “Euphoria” provides audiences with an unprecedented portrayal of a teenager undergoing gender transition. Hunter Schafer’s performance as Jules Vaughn is astounding in her willingness to be equally vulnerable and indomitable. Attempting to live authentically during the most judgmental stage of youth, when the transgender identity is still stigmatized in society, is an uphill battle. Jules offers viewers a refreshing spin on the angsty teenager trope with her infectious, “f— your intolerance” attitude. Jules, who is attracted to both men and women, isn’t concerned with defining her own sexuality, but it is essential to her identity and to the larger, genderfluid universe of “Euphoria.”
With a trans actress, scenes like taking hormone medication, coming out and navigating sex seem more real than they would with a cisgender actor.
Watch it: Available to stream on HBO Max.
Poor: “Supernatural”: The “Bury Your Gays” trope — which originated as a 19th century literary device in which authors killed off one half of a gay couple, while the other subsequently went back in the closet to avoid persecution — evolved into a presentday film and television tool that largely exploits LGBTQ characters to hit a diversity quota. A recent example of this trope is Castiel (Misha Collins), an angel in the longrunning CW series “Supernatural.” He came out as bisexual in the show’s penultimate episode, shortly before dying. He reveals the truth about his sexuality to Dean ( Jensen Ackles), his love interest of 15 seasons, but their relationship ultimately ends as a tale of unrequited love. The reveal and subsequent death appear to resolve a prophecy from earlier in the series, when Castiel was informed he would die once he found happiness.
Killing Castiel immediately after he came out not only incorporates the “Bury Your Gays” trope, it also assumes that coming out was Castiel’s endgame for happiness. Dean’s nonresponse to Castiel’s heartfelt confession, and the angel’s exclusion from Dean’s personal heaven in the series finale, speaks volumes about how the show chose to provide fan service — a possible relationship between the characters gained such fan support they were known as “Destiel” on social media — without the forethought and followthrough. Furthermore, Castiel’s constant search for human connection is viewed as a personality flaw (characters often write him off as “weird” or a “nuisance” without autonomy) instead of an example of the systemic and societal stigma around LGBTQ people.
Watch it: Available to stream on Netflix.
Good: “Halt and Catch Fire”: Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace in a careerbest performance) is confident in his sexuality from the onset of “Halt and Catch Fire,” initially one of the only honest aspects about the character, along with his desperate search for human connection. However, like the series’ namesake — a computer function that causes all operations to crash in case of emergency and forces the user to start anew — Joe halts his professional and personal relationships before they gain steam, a flawed fightorflight response that sets ablaze any remnants of his past before he reinvents himself from scratch.
Taking place from 1983 to 1993, during the rise of personal computing, the internet, AIDS and a new generation of activism built upon the work of many lost to that epidemic, “Halt and Catch Fire” depicts Joe’s personality flaws as separate from his sexuality. The show allows him to change, growing from a callous, selfish Patrick Batemanesque mannequin into a more threedimensional, caring, introspective figure who’s not only content with his past, but also willing to relay excavated wisdom from it to a new generation of queer people — mentoring his friend Gordon’s lesbian daughter, Haley, and eventually becoming a high school humanities teacher.
Watch it: Available to stream on Netflix.