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incarnateirony · 4 years

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Hey dude! Do you have any recommendations for LGBTQ+ movies in the romance genre that have like a happy ending. I really don't care how old they are. I'm feeling the Gay™ hence I need the Gay™. You feel me?

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII NONNIE

First sorry for taking so long, not only did I have to timeline this :) but :) my computer :) froze :) after writing like :) 2 pages :) and I had to do it again :)

So anyway let it be said, the LGBT dialogue is one of osmosis and shared growth and awareness. Some of these films will be very poorly dated, but as you (thankfully) mentioned that them being old wasn’t a *problem*, expect a lot of old stuff. Because one of the most important things to have under your belt when talking about the LGBT media representation battle is the actual journey from A to B – be that incrementalization, subtextual inclusion, text-breeching features, outright evocative and groundbreaking films at the time (which is what MOST of this list will be) and an improvement in our dialogue; let us never forget that while tr*nss*xual is considered a slur and transgender is proper, tr*nss*xual was at one point the politically correct way to speak it – things like that breach in our growing understanding of the spectrum of human sexuality.

I *WILL* disclaimer these aren’t all romance, so if you explicitly want romance, google them and take a look if it sounds to appeal, but I’m taking this as a general cinema history plug considering what a confused mess fandom conversation about LGBT history in film or modern text as applicable, accepted or not.

Wonder Bar (1936) (I wouldn’t really call this queer cinema, but if you have the time to watch it too, I think it was the first explicit mention of homosexual engagement even if it was fleetingly brief. You might even call it Last Call style. A blink and you’ll miss it plug that was still decades ahead of its time)

Sylvia Scarlet (1936) (Again, I wouldn’t call this queer cinema, but a lot of the community takes it as the first potential trans representation on TV due to the lead literally swapping gender presentation, even if the presentation is… not what we would modernly call representation IMO)

Un Chant d'Amour (1950) (Worth it for the sheer fact that it pissed off fundies so bad they took it all the way to the US supreme court to get it declared obscene.)

The Children’s Hour (1961) (also known as the 1961 lesson to “don’t be a gossipy, outting bitch”)

Victim (1961) (The first english film to use the word “homosexual” and to focus explicitly on gay sexuality. People might look on it disdainfully from modern lenses, but it really helped progress british understanding of homosexuality)

Scorpio Rising (1964) (Lmao this one deadass got taken to court when it pissed people off and California had to rule that it didn’t count as obscene bc it had social value, worth it for the history if nothing else)

Theorem (1968) (Because who doesn’t wanna watch a 60s flick about a bisexual angel, modern issues and associations be damned)

The Killing of Sister George (1968) (by the makers of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane)

Midnight Cowboy (1969) (…have I had sassy contagonists in RP make a Dean joke off of this more than once, maybe)

Fellini-Satyricon (1969) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS)

The Boys in the Band (1970) (This… this… this made a lot of fuss. Just remember leather)

Pink Narcissus (1971) (a labor of love shot on someone’s personal camera)

Death in Venice (1971) (This is basically a T&S prequel but whatever, based on a much older book)

Cabaret (1972)

Pink Flamingos (1972) (SHIT’S WILD)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) (The title doesn’t lie, be warned)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) [god I hope you’ve at least seen this]

Fox and His Friends (1975) (some really hard lessons that are still viable today, that just because someone acknowledges your sexuality doesn’t mean they give a shit about you as a person, and that some will even abuse the knowledge for gain)

The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983) (REALLY interesting history look it up, it’s sort of one of those “drawn from own experience” story short sets)

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) (Documentary)

Desert Hearts (1985) (Pretty much the first film to put lesbianism into a good light as a true focus based on a novel from the sixties)

Parting Glances (1986) (the only film its creator got out before his death from the aids epidemic)

Law of Desire (1987) (two men and a trans woman in a love triangle, kinda ahead of its time)

Maurice (1987) (This one’s really interesting, cuz it was based on a book made about 15 years before it, but the book itself had been written half a century earlier and wasn’t published until after the guy died, he just thought it’d never get published Cuz Gay, so basically it’s based on a story written in like, the 20s finally getting screen time. It has a bittersweet but positive-leaning-ish ending without disregarding the cost that can come with it and even addresses class issues at the same time 100% DO RECOMMEND)

Tongues Untied (1989) (a documentary to give voices to LGBT black men)

Longtime Companion (1990) (This one’s title alone is history, based on a NYT phrasing for how they talked about people’s partners dying, eg longtime companion, during the AIDS epidemic)

Paris Is Burning (1990) (Drag culture and related sexual and gender identity exploration as it intersected with class issues and other privileges explored in a documentary)

The Crying Game (1992)( I should correct this that I guess it’s more, 1992 considered, “SURPRISE, DIL HAS A DILL!” – I guess I really didn’t do that summary justice by modern language and dialogue as much as how people in the 90s were talking about that and that’s a my bad. LIKE. SEE, EVEN I CAN FUCK UP MY LANGUAGE I’M SORRY CAN I BLAME THE STRAIGHTS T_T) #90skidproblems – I guess I should call it a trans film. And this alone tells me I should go watch it again to recode it in my brain modernly rather than like circa de la 2000 understanding.

The Bird Cage (1996) (So you mix drag culture, otherwise heterosexually connected lovebirds, and then realize the girl comes from an alt-rightish house and the guy comes from a Two Dads Home and does cabaret, how to deal with the issues OF this conflict when it’s between you and your happiness, even if the fight isn’t even your own as much as it is that of the person you love. The answer is PROBABLY NOT to dress in drag and pretend to be straight, but what are you going to do? – while played for laughs we’d consider modernly crude, the fact that they even dared to approach this narrative was pretty loud)

The Celluloid Closet (1996) (Ever heard of the Vito Russo test for LGBT representation? This is based on a book by Vito Russo.)

Happy Together (1997) (Ain’t this shit an ironic name; a mutual narrative, via chinese flick, of hong kong ceding to china and an irrevocably tangled MLM pairing as a giant mirrored metaphor)

Boys Don’t Cry (1999) (one of the most groundbreaking films about trans identity at the time)

Stranger Inside (2001) (As easy as it is to recoil to the idea of “black gays in jail”, the film makers actually went and consulted prisoners and put a great deal of focus into intersectional african american issues that really weren’t around even in straight films at the time)

Transamerica (2005) (While it made a bit of a fuss for not casting an actual trans actor, it was one of the first times a big budget studio really tried to tackle it which really pushed us forward)

Call Me by Your Name (2017) (since I’ve apparently leaned really heavy old cinema throw in a modern one lmaooooo)

Also honorable The Kids Are All Right (2010) mention for the sake of the fucking title alone.

And to any incarnation of “On the Road” by Kerouac, which

Was originally a book

Released a sanitized de-gayed edition because of the times

Later released the full homo manuscript

had a few film adaptations

Was one of Kripke’s founding inspirations for Supernatural once he left behind “Some reporter guy chases stories” and took the formula of Sal and Dean (and tbh later, Carlo) in a beat generation vibe gone modern as we know it today.

Reading both versions of this can actually help some folks currently understand that when you get confused over some shit (WHY IS CARLO SO UPSET? WHY IS HE ACTING LIKE AN UPSET GIRLFRIEND??? WHY IS HE SO JEALOUS AND SAD WHEN DEAN IS AROUND GIRLS???? WE JUST DONT KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWW) it’s because some big money asshat bleached the content, and sometimes, it takes a while for the full script to come out and again, surprise, it’s been GAY, they just didn’t want to OFFEND anybody. *jazz hands*

Now if you wanna go WAY WAY BACK, during 191X years, a bunch of gender role flicks came out like Charley’s Aunt, Mabel’s Blunder and the Florida Enchantment.

Also where is @thecoffeebrain-blog to yell about the necessity of watching Oz, for the next few hours? But no, seriously, just look into the entire LGBT *HISTORY* of Oz.

Beyond that though I’m gonna stop here cuz hi that’s a lot. I really don’t know how much counts as “happy ending” but if I had to give an LGBT cinema rec list, that’s it as a sum. I don’t really have like, a big portfolio of UWU HAPPY ENDING GAYS because 1. there aren’t a lot of those but 2. to me, it’s not about the ending, it’s about the journey. Be that in flick or through culture and history itself.

If you want more happy ending stuff, you definitely have to look at 2010+, but it’s not like we’re in a rich and fertile landscape yet so honestly just googling that would probably serve you better since I don’t explicitly explore romance genre or happy endings to really have a collection. LGBT life is hard and film often reflects that if we’re making genuine statements about it and really representing it, and we’re just now getting to a point of reliably having the chance at a happy ending. That or maybe someone can add like “Explicit happy endings” lists after this that has more experience in that subgenre.

Also, I can’t emphasize ENOUGH to remember what was progressive then is not what is progressive now, and frankly, what some people think is progressive now they’ll probably look back on what they said and feel really fuckin’ embarrassed. See: “It’s not text because by alt right homophobic dialogue, M/M sex isn’t gay if you do the secret handshake” MGTOW kinda crazy ass dialogue or parallel narratives they inspire that encourage self-closeting and denial based on the pure idea that being gay makes you somehow lesser, so It’s Not That. Like. I am. 99% sure. At least half of the people talking in this fandom. Are going to regret that the internet is forever. And maybe hope hosting servers end in the inevitable nuclear war that will annihilate this planet.

Also, edit: Speaking of mistaken dialogues and words aging poorly, I’d like to apologize from the poor description I rendered “The Crying Game” with, but that really goes to show how deep-seated the issue is we can so casually fuck up identifying a trans narrative as SURPRISE DICK IS GAY when we were all absorbing the content like 20+ years ago and HOW HARD it can be to de-code yourself from that kind of programming because here I am, writing a giant assed rep post and fucking it up because my brain hadn’t soaked that movie since Y2K. Guess what, time for me to go watch the Crying Game again.

#lgbtqia #representation #media #cinema history

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noctomania · 7 years

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Expression (please excuse the novel length)

I remember back in elementary school when my school district voted on whether to turn my school to uniform policy. It was a public school and i had never felt so attacked before then or felt such a strong opinion about something personally. Mind you, i was maybe...10-12 yrs old (if that). This was a time when my self expression was about to take off and bloom. Suddenly though it was halted by uniform policy. I had heard both sides of it and valid points existed on both sides but i still feel it was wrong to enact because i am an advocate for open self expression (i mean without encroaching on other's rights so like my self expression couldn't be to sit on stranger's laps without invitation for example), mostly because that is how i connect best with people. I can't easily just strike up convo with strangers (trust me i have tried). Back then, it was usually a snarky message on my shirt that would draw people in to talk ("good morning is an oxymoron" or any emily strange stuff for example) I've always relished in (and grateful for) having autonomy over my appearance, it's one of the most rewarding things to be able to almost turn yourself inside out and tell the world "see? Do you see me now?" Whereas uniforms...they felt like a prison, like the erasure of my individuality. It also made everyone else seem so 2-D. Schools sometimes had trouble with students showing up in tshirts advertising alcohol or with inappropriate language on them, which is where I think the uniform idea came through most strongly. The economic hardship was left to the families though. Luckily i was allowed to wear pants and not forced into a skirt. I highly doubt guys would have been allowed to wear skirts though, but i never experienced any situations of that at my particular school. I wasn't social enough though to be sure it never happened. Something similar did occur in my high school years later though but instead of a skirt it was my friend and he would wear makeup but was repeatedly sent to detention for it because it was "distracting" I remember also in high school when i was going to be getting my senior picture which I didn't want in the first place. The senior photos were binary traditional and you had to wear this funny neck garment according to your, or what they assumed to be your, gender. This was all before i knew trans and i just knew i preferred the tux one to the one that looked like a dress. The photographer refused unless i got permission from the journalism teacher and I think the only reason she allowed me was because i was a "good quiet" student. But she was sure to let me know she felt it was highly inappropriate. I remember when i got a free leatherman jacket from being in my high school book club (i am The Coolest™) and we got to choose what name we wanted embroidered on the back. I'm proud to say i have my current name, andy, on it because even though the book club leader/librarian did try to push back on my request and tried to sway me into putting my birth name on it, i was insistent. I still have it and still wear it and otherwise i may not have even taken it. (It was free so turning it down wouldn't have been a big deal to me though I woulda been bummed to not get one even though they kinda forced me to take one anyway? It's complicated and thats all besides the point) See I'm someone who craves expression. I bottle up enough shit. Some things i wanna wear on my sleeves. Or my face. Or my hair. My gender expression has been pretty strong since day one. Not to say I wouldn't or have never gone more feminine in my appearance, it's just to say that i have not been the type to adopt an appearance based on what someone else says i am or should be. I don't feel the need to be absolutely masculine 100% i dont fear that which is feminine or androgynous. And i still remain critical of the unnecessary binary that is forced in societies. The products "for men💪/for women🌼" the bullshit of women just cannot be as strong as men the bullshit that women are inherently emotional moreso then men the absurd concept that to be a woman means to have a pussy and tits and to be a man you needa have a package (because clearly you just lose your identity when you get breast or ovarian or testicular cancer). "SO DUH ABOLISH GENDER SO MEN AND WOMEN CAN BE TREATED THE SAME" To turn a blind eye to the differences and intricacies along the gender SPECTRUM (or any innate identity spectrum) is to pretend we don't all have our own distinctive experiences and issues and is in fact a rejection of them. My gender is expressed how i see fit. Perhaps it is quite masculine and yes i did in fact get some surgery but no surgery is going to turn me cis, no hormones will remove all the experience i had as a AFAB for 20yrs no surgery is going to change my interests. I didn't seek hrt or surgery because of anyone else or to spite anyone or to attack anything, i did it to achieve a sense of Self I had never experienced before due to the limitations of my physical expression. I did it because i know how my mind perceives my body and it's never fit right until now. Like ive been a mismatched set of Tupperware that's finally been organized properly. My lid fits, i am a complete set on my own now, as opposed to trying to fit the mold of other's lids. I didn't change to be someone else, i changed my appearance to match who I Am. FORCED gender roles/expression is detrimental, not because of the gender, but because it's forced; because it's someone exerting (or trying to) inappropriate control where they have no right. Are cisfem who choose to take on the ultimate 50s nuclear family housewife life/look any less valid than a cisfem who refuses to fit any gendered life/looks? Or should both be seen as equal and valid in their accession of and right to their autonomy to identify themselves and express themselves how they see fit without any external criticism/dictation as to what is "right" or "appropriate" based on antiquated and/or irrational factors/ideologies? The point of identity is nobody can tell you what/who you are. Perhaps they could guess, but that doesn't mean they are right or that they have authority over your identities. it's not a problem that gender exists. It's a problem that is has been monopolized and mutated and mythologized by people (yes of all varieties bc ideologies know no bounds) trying to dictate other's lives. It's a problem that it has been used as a tool to oppress rather than express. I've met just as many misogynistic women as i have men or even trans and non-binary folk. Everyone has the ability to be oppressive of someone else. When you have been oppressed, or fear being oppressed, you might take on an oppressive role yourself as a form of offense before you ever have to face bein on the defense, if you aren't critical of or moderate yourself. Though the effort may come from a place of self-preservation, it can still cause unnecessary harm and even be counterproductive, if not hypocritical. If we approach the problem for what it is (insertion of opinion where it is unwarranted and unnecessary) instead of attacking it's symptoms (gender expression), we will get to the real resolution with less inner-community squabbling. Don't pretend like you can tell someone who they are. You can argue your point without doing this. Don't pretend you are the ultimate source of knowledge for what you are fighting for. If it were all up to you there wouldn't be a movement, just you. Terfs and radfems may believe i should not have transitioned. Perhaps they feel I could have easily just continued to be a "tomboy", as i was frequently referred to as, and just bind my chest for the rest of my life and never feel a real connection with my Self. I would have remained in a state of self loathing and not only forever feeling less than i was meant to be (not because of my female form but because I wasn't able to be my Self) but forever having to face people identifying me incorrectly and always feeling that disconnect in communication when someone rejects or denies your identity. While being trans does still make me (only slightly due to passing standards and me being white) a target for hate crimes, before resolving my identity i was more likely to take my own life on top of still being a target for harassment due to being untraditional in my expression. Me being me, I've never had an issue with bein an untraditional person (very little about me is traditional), but when you have an inner war going on and you know you can do something good about it, I would never sway someone away from resolving that. Honestly i felt more a distance from feminism before transitioning because i never felt right if i tried to "proudly proclaim" bein a woman/womyn. i felt like a fraud which ultimately made me question if i was a feminist at all. Like I didn't not like women, and i was/am a proud feminist, i just didn't feel as if i was a woman and felt more like i was lying when the words came out which did to an extent feel like a form of betrayal to women and it wasn't til much later i understood it wasn't. I tried various forms of gender expression as a female but even in the best case scenarios it didn't sit right. Not knowing who you are foundationally makes it hard to know how you feel about others or how to accept others. Empathy and compassion require a certain level of knowing yourself so you can identify with another on our human level. If you're at fault with yourself it can be hard enough to love yourself much less anyone else. I feel trans-exclusionary feminists are stuck in that same stage i was stuck in when i was resolving my gender identity. But removing the issue from the context of gender kind of helps. Its not the identity itself that i hate, it's being forced into an identity i am not, never have been, and never will be. Imagine being forced to be a different person. How people identify you is all wrong and any time you try to assert your identity it is rejected. It's not an identity you can change (like a religion or a political leaning that may or may not change), but it's something not readily apparent, or is obstructed by the predisposition people may have about you based on what they see you as. You can call a bear a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat but that's not going to change the fact that the bear is a bear, not going to change the bear's needs or instincts (reference from The Bear That Wasn't) I guess my point overall is: distinctive identity titles are born out of necessity, because thise identities exist. Identities also present the opportunity for us to recognize one another's differences and to learn how we connect and where we lack understanding of one another. Identities allow us short hand how to express ourselves verbally, yanno when interpretive dance is out of the question or inapplicable. Expression of identity is integral to feeling a sense of Self, to be able to trust yourself, and to be able to trust others. Identity should never be erased whether it be gender, sexual orientation, race, ability etc. Before I understood my gender identity i was compensating my lack of masculine appearance with overly-masculine attitude instead, which inevitably lent itself to toxic masculinity. I would catch myself acting that way sometimes and earnestly didn't know what was wrong with me. Now i know i was insecure. Now, I'm much more neutral and comfortable in my attitude since I'm not feeling the need to compensate for my appearance with my attitude. My transition was good for me and those around me. It allowed me to be a little less concerned with my issues and more concerned with the issues of a wider community. So I know this is long and I'm sorry. I don't expect anyone to have read this and i doubt that anyone who disagrees with me read it thoroughly (3 times top to bottom) as they should (to avoid making themselves look impulsive and irrational or cherry picking) before asserting their opinion, but here it is now and it's not goin anywhere. Thank god it's my weekend coming up... (Please if you respond do so respectfully. If you only wish to spit at me, do so in a direct message and leave the notes on this open for respectful conversation/debate, thank you kindly!)

#terf #feminism #gender #transgender #ideologies #identity #autonomy #self #perspective #community #radfems

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