LGBT Movies

In my previous post I mentioned how I had only experienced Rent for the first time at the end of last year, and mentioned the backlash I would get from some within the LGBT community for saying so.  This is something I find fascinating about the LGBT community, that, beyond the fact that it is bound by sexuality there is an entire culture attached to it, which there is an expectation to explore.  This is something which I feel is encouraged quite assertively by the community to the point where those who are new to it often end up with a reading list or a watch list with books, movies, and TV shows they're expected to go and consume.

In the UK the first few examples of this that I came across were centred around LGBT themed movies.  I don't mean Hollywood productions like Brokeback Mountain - a movie which for the record I hated because it was promoted heavily as an LGBT movie yet I felt it wasn't aimed at LGBT people at all - that was a movie for straight people really.  No I mean Indie movies from decades passed and more recently from studios like TLA Releasing who focus on LGBT themed productions. 

Some of these movies are good, some are okay, and some are really crap.  Regardless they are part of a culture that you're expected to explore and form opinions of as an LGBT person and hold as points of reference.  To an extent the same applies to music produced by any artist regarded as a Gay Icon, and in recent years it has also extended to productions made by LGBT-centric networks.  The latter gives rise to shows like RuPaul's Drag Race which if you're an LGBT person who has never seen it will typically elicit a jaw drop from most people part of "the scene" with some expression of bewilderment and possible expletives.

Whilst having a culture centred around a community is not a bad thing, there has to be a question of whether someone actually wants to be part of that culture just because they are "eligible" to be a member of that community.  By that I mean there has to be a certain level of awareness that LGBT people are not all the same.  You will find LGBT people who love a particular singer who has never been considered a gay icon, and who might not like the singers that are.  For a culture that once used the word Queer in reclamation to express pride in diversity and difference, it does at times seem overly enthusiastic with the concept of conformity.  "I have to wear black to be non-conformist, all non-conformists wear black"

I ran a blog at one point, now deleted, which had a series of reviews of LGBT themed movies.  Those reviews were written when I was younger and I was journeying through this world that was new to me.  The reason I stopped writing reviews for it was because at a certain point it really did feel like "if you've seen one you've seen them all" - LGBT themed movies seemed to rehash the same story over and over with different characters, different settings, but same story.  Either perpetually feeling lonely then finding the one, or a coming out story, or not feeling part of the ether, disillusioned with life.  These movies often lacked the diversity that they were supposed to show because mainstream media would not.

Ironically as mainstream media started to embrace LGBT characters and start showing them in a wider range of settings and environments, some within the LGBT community protested this as assimilation.  That LGBT culture was being destroyed by attempts to remove focus from the fact someone is LGBT and place them in a role where that aspect of their life would feature to a minor extent but beyond that the character was "normal" - I hate that word but it's the only word I can think of to describe this mentality.

The middle-ground I would like to see here is for both to grow in tandem but it seems as one grows the other shrinks.  What once inspired me, watching LGBT themed movies depicting LGBT characters' lives now bores me as it becomes generic.  Some of the LGBT movies which were the most outstanding for me ended up being serialised, for some, sequels were written, some became trilogies.  One in particular annoyed me, called Bear City, which depicted an LGBT love story that centred around the Bear community and the idea that you don't have to be a twink to find love if you are gay - this promoted a very positive message but not content with letting the work stand on its own, it was made into a trilogy and to be quite blunt the second and third instalment were shit.  Which made me feel like the only reason it was extended into a trilogy was not to spread a message but to cash in on the modest success of the first movie. 

This is the problem I have with the direction LGBT movies are moving - they're not movies made to represent the LGBT community they are movies made for the LGBT community to consume.  It's not about community it's about commerce.  It's not done out of necessity through Indie studios because mainstream media won't produce it, instead it's done to specifically market a production to the LGBT community.  This is essentially equivalent to a small forum online centred around a community moving from a place for people to engage, to being one loaded with advertisements directed at the members interests.  We are no longer a community to this industry we are a commodity.