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The Homosexual Stereotype in Film Outline Thesis: The ster

No social group can afford to ignore the importance of the cinema. Although perhaps eclipsed today by television, it has been for most of the century the preeminent mode of communication, expression and entertainment. It has acted as a repository of images of how people are and how they should be, images that are both produced by and help to produce the general thought and feeling of culture. In addition, it is widely regarded as a particularly rich medium involving so many different elements: spectacle, narrative, performance, photography, music, speech, montage, and movement. Because of this richness, film plays a role in the way society conceives of certain social groups. As an inescapable shaper and reflector of thought and feeling, as a prestigious form of art and entertainment, cinema is guilty of gender stereotyping in the case of homosexuals more so than any other gender group. Homosexuals are constantly attacked by the creators of film and the principle line of attack has been stereotyping.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that stereotypes are not just put out in films, but are widely agreed upon and believed to be right. Particularly damaging is the fact that many gay people believe them, leading on the one hand to the self-oppression so characteristic of gay people's lives, and on the other to behavior in conformity with the stereotypes which of course only serves to confirm their truth (Atwell 4). Equally, there can be no doubt that most stereotypes of gays in films are demeaning and offensive. Just think of the line-up--the butch dyke and the camp queen, the lesbian vampire and the sadistic queer, the predatory schoolmistress and the neurotic faggot, and all the rest. The amount of hatred, fear, ridicule and disgust packed into those images is unmistakable.

But the question of stereotyping cannot be left at that. Thinking about images of homosexuality needs to go beyond simply dismissing stereotypes as wron...

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The Homosexual Stereotype in Film Outline Thesis: The ster. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:28, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702613.html