Watching the documentary in class gave me a greater insight into how many films have been made over the last century featuring LGBTQ individuals, couples and themes. Prior to watching this documentary, I would have thought and spoken about how Gay characters are rarely portrayed in film and didn't appear until at least the 1980's. I am happy to be cleared of my ignorance.
Even some of the films in that were spoken about in the documentary that I have seen I never caught that they were Gay characters- I'm still pondering if this was an intentional part on the director or if I was too young to understand. However, it retrospect, and after watching this documentary, it is amazing to see how film has evolved to accept a more positive slant towards Gay characters. The article points out "Academic queer film studies now finds itself in the sometimes awkward position of responding both to a need to continue to professionalize its work as well as to wrestle with the changing state of the market, which is now utterly different than it was a decade ago, never mind three decades."This makes me realize how much society has changed even since I was a kid about accepting all sexual orientations- or at least having more compassion and less hatred.
I can recognize how hard it is to make a piece of film or television (like Brokeback Mountain or Will and Grace) with Gay and Lesbian characters that is taken seriously. Now it is more accepted to have these characters on screen but it is still the brunt of many jokes. Will the climate change? I always think of RENT as being a revolutionary film for its time. Granted, it had the play to capture audiences and get them more comfortable prior to the film release. And although it generally appeals to a niche crowd of individuals who like musicals- it really expanded it's audience and many people who would not normally watch musicals or films with LGBTQ characters the topic of AIDS brought curious communities together to watch the movie. It had a positive response and the music got pretty popular outside the film.
I am not confident after reading the article and watching the movie that things will change immensely in the next decade. I think audiences will not accept sex scenes between Gay lovers or movies all about the Gay community. I think for a long time those movies will only appeal to niche audiences and it will be difficult to get them on the big screen.
About Rent, I can't stress enough what it was like seeing it in Oklahoma. I didn't grow up there, and came from a family where the fact that some close family friends were gay was never discussed--because it was utterly not an issue; we didn't talk about other couples being straight, either. But even for me, having been there for a while, and especially for people I knew who had never even left the state/Midwest, and whose families were NOT open and tolerant, seeing this major, mainstream film where gay people were just NORMAL--the bad things that befell them weren't because they were gay--was incredible. And you're right--it did have a lot of a built-in audience (even far from Broadway; it obviously wasn't just Rentheads seeing it), but what was important was the message it sent that audience.
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