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Straightwashing (also called hetwashing) is portraying LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) or otherwise queer characters in fiction as heterosexual (straight), making LGB people appear heterosexual, or altering information about historical figures to make their representation comply with heteronormativity. [1]
Straightwashing plays out through both historical revisionism and through works of fiction, especially television and cinema, whereby characters who were originally portrayed as homosexual, bisexual, or asexual are misrepresented as heterosexual. [1] [2]
Straightwashing is a relatively contemporary term which has increased in usage and acknowledgement in recent years. [3] Despite an increasing presence of queer characters and storylines in U.S. television, concerns about the straightwashing of queer characters and storylines persist. Common justifications for straightwashing include "producers' concerns about audience reactions and social norms and stereotypes regarding acceptable forms of queerness." [4]
Etymologically, straightwashing is derived from the term 'whitewash', which alludes to "both censorship and the intersectional link with the discrimination faced by people of color." [4]
Straightwashing differs from the use of straight actors to play LGB roles or characters. Anna King of Time Out likens the latter to blackface, the use of dark makeup (often by white actors) worn to mimic the appearance of a black person, often used to mock or ridicule black people. [5] [6]
In the US, from 1930 to 1968, the Motion Picture Production Code caused major studios to eliminate gay characters or references from movies. [7] The 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet shows how some screenwriters and directors tried to use queer coding to subtly introduce gay characters, roles or themes, without it being noticed by censors, such as with Gore Vidal adding in a gay relationship in Ben-Hur . [7]
The Motion Picture Production Code also led to the elimination of depictions of bisexuality in the film version of Truman Capote's novel Breakfast at Tiffany's . In the book, the male "artsy gigolo-writer" had "male and female clients", but in the movie, he is only shown with Holly Golightly. As well, the Code led to the elimination of a gay relationship in the film version of Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . In the play, Brick Pollit is depicted as being the lover of a family patriarch named Skipper. In the 1958 film version, the story arc of the gay relationship is replaced with a story of Skipper's frustration over his faded football career and a heterosexual sexless marriage.
Historical accounts of lesbian suffragettes Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper in some cases straightwash their sexuality, with the historian Gifford Lewis denying they were lesbian or queer in his biographies of them. [8] Some letters by the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in which he expressed his homosexual feelings remained censored and unpublished until 2018. [9] [10]
The New York Times published no more than two front-page articles per year that made any kind of references to gays from the end of World War II through until 1965. [11] This number did not increase much over the following 20 years. It was rare that anything published was positive; most saw gays as security threats in the time of the Cold War. [12] Gross (2001) [13] pointed out gays' invisibility in this time period along with their concerns being publicly excluded. [11]
In 1981, the AIDS crisis also received little media attention, even with the death rate rising rapidly. The New York Times did not mention AIDS until years after the outbreak and finally made the front page in 1983. [14] Edward Alwood (1996), [14] James Kinsella (1989) [15] and Randy Shilts (1987) [16] all commented on The Times' silence in relation to LGBT issues, especially the AIDS crisis. Coverage in the New York Times remained infrequent until the mid 1980s and then increased dramatically. This change in media is seen to be reflective of changes in society. Rock Hudson's death, Ronald Reagan's statements on AIDS in 1987, and President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign proposal and the early 1993 congressional debate over the ban on lesbians and gays in the military all increased Times coverage of lesbian and gay issues. [11]
Dragos Manea distinguishes between changing a queer character in fiction into a straight character, toning down the queer aspects of a character to make the character more acceptable to a heterosexual audience, removing queer referents from marketing posters or DVD covers, and changing the depiction of entire queer cultures or societies into a heterosexual version. [17]
The X-Men character Mystique is depicted as bisexual in the comic books, with her most prominent relationship was with Destiny, a female "fellow member of the Brotherhood of Mutants with whom she raised a child." [18] However, within the X-Men films released by 20th Century Fox between 2000 and 2019, the character of Mystique, played by Rebecca Romijn (2000-2011) and Jennifer Lawrence (2011-2019), did not have any relationship or interest in another female character. [18] [1]
The 2015 film Stonewall was accused of ciswashing—the comparable concept for transgender people—for minimizing the roles of black and trans activists involved in the Stonewall riots. [1]
In Stuart Richard's article "The Imitation Game and the 'straightwashing' of film", about the film The Imitation Game , Richards states that WW II code breaker "Alan Turing's [gay] sexuality is downplayed and used as a plot device", to show him as a "tragic hero and an eccentric, secretive man"; to make the film " 'safe' for a potentially conservative audience", the film only depicts him romantically with Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). [19]
The character John Constantine, played by the actor Matt Ryan, from the NBC television series Constantine has been highly criticized for not displaying the same sexuality that was originally written in the DC comic book series, Constantine: Hellblazer . The TV executives decided that John Constantine's bisexuality was not to be included in the TV show and he was depicted as a straight male. [20] [18] However, when Ryan reprised the role on Legends of Tomorrow , the character was portrayed as bisexual. [21]
The TV series Riverdale from The CW television network has been subject to criticisms about their depiction of one of the main characters Jughead Jones (played by American actor Cole Sprouse) as a straight male character. According to an interview with comicbook.com, Chip Zdarsky, the author of the Jughead comic book, stated that he wrote Jughead as an asexual character. [22] Many people "within the asexual community are upset about the development of the TV series, Riverdale, on the CW". [2]
The NBC TV drama Rise has been criticized for changing the basis of the production, a "real-life gay drama teacher" in a working class town, into a straight man; Out magazine calls it "cultural theft and [gay] erasure" that "should have been the story of a complicated LGBTQ hero". [23]
The Japanese anime and manga series Sailor Moon is well known for several LGBT characters who in the English translated version made by DiC and Cloverway, were altered to minimize their identity, including the gay relationship of Kunzite (named Malachite in the English translation) and Zoisite, the latter of whom was edited to be a woman, as well as the lesbian relationship of Haruka Tenou as Sailor Uranus and Michiru Kaiou as Sailor Neptune. As well, several translations into other languages of the final season, Stars, also changed the Sailor Starlights of Yaten, Seiya, and Taiki, who take on a day role as part of a boy band but who transform into females when they take on their superheroine persona. [24]
The 2004 Japanese anime adaptation of the 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the character of Eugénie Danglars was altered to being the heterosexual love interest of Albert de Morcerf. This is in stark contrast to Eugénie's portrayal in the novel, who has a strong dislike for men, an equally strong desire for independence, and is implied to be a lesbian. [25] [26] Her girlfriend, Louise d'Armilly, was also left out of the adaptation. [27]
Games such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft can be seen as inherently queer, since in the game both gender and sexuality are fluid and customizable. Here, the possibility of playing a non-straight main character is developmental. [28] However, in 2010 Blizzard began to "straighten" many parts of the game by removing the majority of the same-sex material and mechanics.[ clarification needed ] The heteronormativity can be seen as a movement towards homophobia especially seen in two parts of the game which were added in 2010. First, is entitled "Shafted". Evocative of phallic penetration, the task is to "shoot 10 players with the Silver Shafted Arrow", which is a special holiday item that creates a small, cupid-like goblin that flits about the target.
Both the item and quest flirt with the titillation and anxiety over penetrative sex, specifically anal or male-on-male sex.[ citation needed ] The second is entitled "Flirting with Disaster", and requires the player to "get completely smashed, put on your best perfume, throw a handful of rose petals on Sraaz [an Alliance NPC] or Jeremiah Payson [a Horde NPC] and then kiss him. You'll regret it in the morning." The humorous intention of "Flirting with Disaster" is for a male avatar to kiss another male.[ dubious – discuss ] When a player character drinks in-game to the point of being "completely smashed", the game clouds the player's screen as if everything becomes drunkenly blurry and unfocused. This confusion begins the joke that they must engage in a kind of "gay chicken" and flirt with a male toon. The "regret" the player character supposedly feels is one of homophobic shame excused by the fiction of drunken experimentation or ignorance. [28]
Zynga's FrontierVille game is "a wild west-themed social game that allows users to tame the wilderness, grow a family, and build a thriving frontier town." [29] Zynga allows players to create virtual families by customizing a spouse in order to raise a virtual family. The game does not set a gender to the player's spouse, opening a place for queer possibility. [28]
The video game Undertale has "been straight-washed by many writers and fans", leading to the "erasure of the queerness found in Undertale and a recasting of the game as one that jibes with the interests of heterosexual male gamers". [30]
Edmond Chang, an assistant professor of women's and gender studies at the University of Oregon, gave a speech at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2016 entitled "Brown Skins, White Avatars: Racebending and Straightwashing in Digital Games". Chang states that video games such as Assassin's Creed and World of Warcraft "manipulate race and sexuality, reinforce stereotypes and sometimes lack diversity". [31]
Heidi McDonald conducted a survey which statistically positioned BioWare as the industry leader of game romances, both gay and straight. BioWare's romance content has been evolving towards more inclusive romances for over 15 years. [32] Females were more supportive of wanting more queer romance content than males; however, more than half of straight males were also supportive of this. [32]
After the mass shooting of gay men at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a gay club, some commentators did not refer to the LGBT victims, with the Republican National Committee denouncing "violence against any group of people simply for their lifestyle or orientation" and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell not mentioning LGBT people in his statement. Activist John Becker stated that media are "straightwashing" the attack by "downplaying or even omitting the fact that the shooting was a crime of hatred against the LGBT community". [33]
During the 2018 Winter Olympics' Opening Ceremony, the television network NBC did not "mention or highlight a single out LGBTQ athlete in its three hours of Opening Ceremony coverage"; the network did not acknowledge the only "publicly out American woman at the Games" or the first four "openly gay [men] at the Olympic Games". [34]
A promotional video campaign created by the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce shows the town's busy nightlife and artists, but the advertisement makes no mention of the town's active LGBT community, in what some LGBT activists call an example of straightwashing. [35]
Lotte Jeffs has criticized the straightwashing of the London's LGBT pride event, stating that rather than focus on recognizing the rights of queer, trans and non-heterosexual people, it has switched to making the LGBT event "palatable for the masses" and for heterosexual people who will attend. [36] She says that while big companies sponsor activities and include rainbow themes in their publicity materials, they hire straight celebrities to endorse products and brands for the event, with few "dar[ing] to use the words "gay", "lesbian", "trans" or "bi" when they show their support for Pride". [36]
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBTQ community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBTQ community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBTQ community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia, it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure. Biphobia may also avert towards other sexualities attracted to multiple genders such as pansexuality or polysexuality, as the idea of being attracted to multiple genders is generally the cause of stigma towards bisexuality.
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships. According to Elizabeth Cramer, it can include the belief that all people are or should be heterosexual and that heterosexual relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) characters have been depicted in video games since the 1980s. Throughout the history of video games, LGBTQ characters have been almost nonexistent for a long time, reflecting the overall heteronormativity of the medium. While there has been a trend towards greater representation of LGBTQ people in video games, they are frequently identified as LGBTQ in secondary material, such as comics, rather than in the games themselves. Often, LGBTQ characters and themes, when they are included, are underrepresented, minimized, or watered down. Queer games and characters have also often found themselves being the subjects of cultural crossfires or moral panics. In 2018, Sam Greer of GamesRadar+ found only 179 games commercially released games with any LGBTQ representation, only 83 of which have queer characters who are playable characters, and only 8 of those games feature a main character who is pre-written as queer as opposed to them being queer as an option.
Gay-for-pay describes male or female actors, pornographic stars, or sex workers who identify as heterosexual but who are paid to act or perform as homosexual professionally. The term has also applied to other professions and even companies trying to appeal to a gay demographic. The stigma of being gay or labeled as such has steadily eroded since the Stonewall riots began the modern American gay rights movement in 1969. Through the 1990s, mainstream movie and television actors have been more willing to portray homosexuality, as the threat of any backlash against their careers has lessened and society's acceptance of gay and lesbian people has increased.
LGBT stereotypes are stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) people based on their sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions. Stereotypical perceptions may be acquired through interactions with parents, teachers, peers and mass media, or, more generally, through a lack of firsthand familiarity, resulting in an increased reliance on generalizations.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
In comics, LGBT themes are a relatively new concept, as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) themes and characters were historically omitted from the content of comic books and their comic strip predecessors due to anti-gay censorship. LGBT existence was included only via innuendo, subtext and inference. However the practice of hiding LGBT characters in the early part of the twentieth century evolved into open inclusion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and comics explored the challenges of coming-out, societal discrimination, and personal and romantic relationships between gay characters.
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
Lesbian portrayal in media is generally in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage and parenting. Some writers have stated that lesbians have often been depicted as exploitative and unjustified plot devices. Common representations of lesbians in the media include butch or femme lesbians and lesbian parents. "Butch" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as masculine by dressing masculine, behaving masculinely, or liking things that are deemed masculine, while "femme" lesbian comes from the idea of a lesbian expressing themselves as feminine by dressing feminine, behaving femininely, or liking things that are deemed feminine.
In American mainstream comics, LGBT themes and characters were historically omitted intentionally from the content of comic books, due to either formal censorship or the perception that comics were for children and thus LGBT themes were somehow inappropriate. With any mention of homosexuality in mainstream United States comics forbidden by the Comics Code Authority (CCA) until 1989, earlier attempts at exploring these issues in the US took the form of subtle hints or subtext regarding a character's sexual orientation. LGBT themes were tackled earlier in underground comix from the early 1970s onward. Independently published one-off comic books and series, often produced by gay creators and featuring autobiographical storylines, tackled political issues of interest to LGBT readers.
Historically, the portrayal of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in media has been largely negative if not altogether absent, reflecting a general cultural intolerance of LGBTQ individuals; however, from the 1990s to present day, there has been an increase in the positive depictions of LGBTQ people, issues, and concerns within mainstream media in North America. The LGBTQ communities have taken an increasingly proactive stand in defining their own culture, with a primary goal of achieving an affirmative visibility in mainstream media. The positive portrayal or increased presence of the LGBTQ communities in media has served to increase acceptance and support for LGBT communities, establish LGBTQ communities as a norm, and provide information on the topic.
LGBTQ+ media or gay media refers to media whose primary target audience are members of the LGBTQ community. Secondary targets are LGBTQ+ allies, and in some instances those who oppose gay rights may be targeted as a form of activism. Gay or queer media can also be defined as web sites, films, magazines and other cultural products that were created by queer individuals, or groups that are typically out, meaning that they are public or open about their identity. LGBTQ creators do not always include LGBTQ themes or issues in the media that they produce, but there are often at least subtle references to queerness in these media.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Historically speaking, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people have not been given equal treatment and rights by both governmental actions and society's general opinion. Much of the intolerance for LGBTQ individuals come from lack of education around the LGBTQ community, and contributes to the stigma that results in same-sex marriage being legal in few countries (31) and persistence of discrimination, such as in the workplace.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
Queer erasure refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBT groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.
Homonormativity is the adoption of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality should be replicated and performed among homosexual people. Those who assert this theory claim homonormativity selectively privileges cisgender homosexuality as worthy of social acceptance.
This is an index list of various lists of LGBT films split by decade, storyline and those made-for-television. Films directed by women, animated films as well as an alphabetical list of such movies are also included.
Brno—in which a straight Sacha Baron Cohen plays a flamingly gay Austrian fashion reporter—is the latest film to be accused of making fun of the queer community, drawing the accusation of being pinkface. The epithet is a recent addition to the cinematic lexicon: simply put, it's a riff on the term blackface. It carries the same pejorative connotations but applies to straight actors taking on gay roles. Blackface has long gone the way of anti-miscegenation laws, yet Prop 8 is still with us. Is being gay the new black?
These changes, albeit a marketing, not a film-making decision, nevertheless stand in a time-honoured industry tradition of downplaying homosexuality. For years, film-makers in America were trapped by the motion picture production code, which banned "any inference of sex perversion".
So as delightful as it is that more people are learning about Alan Turing, when Oscar bait films consistently feature this soft "tolerance" for minorities, it all gets a bit exhausting.
It's sincere and measured. Characters deepen as the season progresses and I'm here for that evolution. At the same time, though, I will never be able to let go of Katim's [sic] original sin: coopting the story of a gay man and rewriting it in his own heterosexual image.