GLAAD describes The Skeleton Twins as a highlight for LGBT film representation in 2015

GLAAD has released its latest Studio Responsibility Index, which looks at the representation for LGBT people in the movies brought out by the main film distributors and their speciality divisions in the previous calendar year. There’s little doubt that the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is getting increasingly frustrated that this third Index has shown virtually no progress, while the comparative one for LGBT people on TV is starting to demonstrate major strides.

The organisation found that of the 126 releases from major studios in 2015, only 22 of them (17.5%) included characters identified as LGBT – and perhaps most shockingly only one of those included a trans character, and that was to be the butt of a joke in Hot Pursuit. This marks no change from the 17.5% of films in 2014 with LGBT characters. More than three quarters of inclusive films (77%) featured gay male characters, less than a quarter (23%) included lesbian characters, and less than a tenth (9%) included bisexual characters.

“Hollywood’s films lag far behind any other form of media when it comes to portrayals of LGBT characters,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President & CEO. “Too often, the few LGBT characters that make it to the big screen are the target of a punchline or token characters. The film industry must embrace new and inclusive stories if it wants to remain competitive and relevant.”

GLAAD also found that racial diversity among LGBT characters in film dropped drastically year over year. In 2015, 25.5% of LGBT characters were people of color, compared to 32.1% in 2014. Of the LGBT characters counted in 2015, 34 (72.3%) were White, 5 were Latino/a (10.6%), 4 were Black/African American (8.5%), and 3 (6.4%) were Asian/Pacific Islander.

No studios received a rating of ‘Good’ for their 2015 releases. 20^th Century Fox, Lionsgate Entertainment, Sony Columbia Pictures, and Universal Pictures all received ratings of ‘Adequate’, while Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Brothers all received a ‘Failing’ grade for their portrayals of LGBT people. It is perhaps most surprising that Disney failed, as its TV division has done fairly well with LGBT representation and the organisation is generally seen to be pretty gay-friendly. However, not a single one of its 2015 movies included an identifiably LGBT character (barring a brief Lady Gaga cameo in Muppets Most Wanted).

Virtually the only progress the report includes is that significantly fewer derogatory slurs were used in film comedies this year, but even so the LGBT-themed humour they included still generally ran from the pointless to the offensive. They also noted a particular theme of jokes about male friends/colleagues being mistaken for gay couples, which is in essence a riff on gay panic humour, as it relies on characters not wanting to be seen as LGBT.

GLAAD also applied its more rigorous Vito Russo test to the 22 movies that did include LGBT people, which looks not just at whether a film contains a character who is identifiably LGBT, but also whether the character is defined by more than just sexual orientation, and if the character has a significant role in the film’s plot. By that measure, only eight movies passed, a significant decrease on last year.

It’s also noticeable looking through the list of movies that included LGBT depictions, that films designed for large, mainstream, mass entertainment releases generally included no or only fleeting LGBT representation, while films with more important gay, lesbian or transgender characters were generally likely to be less populist titles (or at the very least not given as wide releases). The likelihood is that nervous studio executives worry that including LGBT characters in their bigger movies is a risk at the worldwide box office (not just in more homophobic cultures, but also whether it will result in less gay-friendly westerners staying home). However, no progress is going to be made until the studios are less afraid to challenge this.

GLAAD also had some particular observations and recommendations:

• The majority of LGBT characters in mainstream films remain minor – both in substance and screen time. Of the 22 LGBT-inclusive films, almost three quarters (73%) of them include less than ten minutes of screen time for LGBT characters. Not only must there be a larger number of LGBT roles, but they must be roles built with substance and purpose.
• LGBT portrayals on film are overwhelming White (72.3%) and male (77%). Films must do better to include LGBT characters in roles directly tied to the plot which reflect the wide diversity of our community.
• Transgender representation is shockingly low with only one character in the mainstream releases of 2015 – whose brief appearance served as a punchline to laugh at when her identity is revealed. Filmmakers should examine what message they are really sending when they rely on thoughtless humor to exploit an already marginalized community.
• 2015 saw a notable resurgence of outright offensive depictions of LGBT people, relying on gay panic and defamatory stereotypes for cheap laughs. Humor can be a powerful tool for holding a mirror up to society and challenging the norm, but when crafted without thought, it has the opposite effect and bolsters ignorance and prejudice.

It all shows that despite the major strides being taken for LGBT rights, visibility and equality being taken in the last few years, Hollywood is lagging far behind, and is still more likely to use representation for a cheap joke or to merely hint someone is gay than to genuinely depict queer people in their films.

You can read the full GLAAD 2015 Studio Responsibility Index here.

When we reviewed the documentary The Case Against 8 – about the fight to overturn the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California – we said it played out like a movie. Now it’s getting closer to becoming one, as THR reports that Diary of a Teenage Girl helmer, Marielle Heller, is set to direct a film version of the Sundance prize-winning doc.

Ben Cotner & Ryan White’s 2014 documentary delved deep into the court cases that sought to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage after the ballot measure Proposition 8 was enacted – where voters quashed a law allowing gay people to marry and attempted to enshrine in the State’s constitution that opposite sex marriage was the only possibility. This left hundreds of couple in limbo, who had married when it was legal and suddenly didn’t know whether they were still legally spouses or not. Unsurprisingly this led to court cases, which sought to find Prop 8 unconstitutional.

It should make a great movie, with such unlikely elements as the right wing Republican lawyer who successfully led the court cases that made George W. Bush President, signing up to fight to allow same sex couples to marry. There were also Perry Mason moments when witnesses seemed to change their mind about gay marriage on the stand, and even a full-on movie ending full of twists and last minute hiccups, before a big, emotional finale.

Chernin Entertainment is producing the movie, although there’s no news on when we might see it. The Case Against 8 film is one of several gay-rights focussed projects doing the rounds at the moment, including Dustin Lance Black and Gus Van Sant ambitious mini-series When We Rise, and Fox 2000’s slowly gestating movie about Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the case that led to the US Supreme Court allowing same sex marriage in all 50 states.

Nowadays there certainly aren’t a lack of gay-themed films being made (even though many aren’t seen as widely as they deserve), with plenty of movies and short films, as well as LGBT film festivals and niche distributors supporting them. However, it’s not always been that way, as in the past it was incredibly difficult to tell gay-themed stories, unless you did it heavily in code.

However, there are a handful of LGBT movies from before Stonewall, many of which are vital cultural treasures, giving us an incredibly rare insight into the life of gay people, artists and thought at a time when it was incredibly difficult to tell such tales, both from a commercial and legal standpoints. It’s great then that the New York’s Film Society is planning a season of pre-Stonewall LGBT films, that will screen from April 22nd through May 1st.

Queer Cinema Before Stonewall includes cult classics such as Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour, Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks and Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, which together make up the opening night screening. Other films to feature include Joseph Mawra’s Chained Girls, Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses, Andy Warhol’s My Hustler, Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda?, Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George, and Hitchcock’s Rope.

It’s a fascinating mix of films by gay artists that range from the coy to the sexually provocative, as well as the different ways straight filmmakers treated LGBT themes at a time when people thought about sexuality in a very different way to today – it ranges from the coded gay killers of Rope, to society as a prison for gay people in Un Chant d’Amour. If you’re in New York, there are an awful lot of worthwhile films to check out. You can find out more info at the Lincoln Center website.

Take a look below for the season’s trailer. [Read more…]