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Hollywood Homophobia and Racism

Combating Hollywood Homophobia and Racism

Until the end of the twentieth century, the history of Hollywood cinema had been largely one of invisibility with respect to portrayals of homosexuals and African Americans. When homosexuals or African Americans were portrayed, they were linked to images that reinforced mainstream stereotypes and roles, prejudice, and racism. From outright censorship of homosexual images, like completely changing sexuality or sexual issues to ôheterosexualö ones in a number of films of Tennessee WilliamsÆ plays to the portrayal of African Americans as ômammiesö or ôuncle Toms,ö homosexuals and Blacks have remained largely obscured in the shadows of Hollywood cinema. White, mainstream, primarily male Hollywood maintained unequal power relations so that the final product on screens reinforced their view of the world, society, and of the ôother.ö

FoucaultÆs notion of power as ôa system of domination which controls everything and which leaves no room for freedomö applied to HollywoodÆs power to shape gender, sexuality, relationships and love toward white, mainstream heterosexual norms (Hooks 116). The resulting distortion of gender, identity, and sexuality foisted on minority subcultures (Blacks, homosexuals, etc.) is reinforced through the social institution of the media, specifically the cinema in this case, leading to homophobia, racism, and distorted images in the general public. The impact of such processes have resulted in a generation of queer filmmakers whose works are an attempt to liberate gender, sexuality and identity from the oppressive and limiting gaze of the dominant ôother.ö As Franz Fanon suggests of this look, ôThis ælook,Æ from-so to speak-the place of the Other, fixes us, not only in its violence, hostility and aggression, but in the ambivalence of its desireö (Hooks 116). Looking back or returning the gaze becomes a form of resistance. This analysis will disc...

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Hollywood Homophobia and Racism. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:00, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711625.html