Opening The Door Of The Celluloid Closet

As a form of art, movie records and describes the social life with a trace of an individual or an age. Homosexuality, as a social phenomenon, has been shown on the movie screens with the changes of times and the development of the society. Being existed from ancient times, homosexuality has always been the object of attack and fustigation in many countries, especially in those whose major religion is Christianity or Islam. That because it has been suppressed by heterosexuality which taking up the preponderant status for its reproduction and holding the majority of the population. It's also not tolerated by the patriarchy for its non-reproduction and even treated as guilty and evil by the western mainstream doxy. As a result, being regarded as deviationism, homosexuality has been ignored and distorted or misrepresented by the mainstream movies during the last one hundred years.However, movies of homosexuality have been increasing to a large scale with the expanding and stronger self-awareness of homosexual firm artists and much attention and understanding to homosexual phenomenon given by heterosexual movie artists. What's more, they have gained more and more attention as a result of the frequent awards on some important movie festivals in the last 20 years. Experts in this field in the west countries or even in Hongkong and Taiwan, have focused a lot on the research of homosexual movies in an academic way, but little has been done in the mainland of China.Because homosexuality phenomenon has been oppugning and challenging the old way of thinking in the patricentric society in which heterosexuality dominatesthe supremacy of speaking, homosexual movies appeal to images and movie screens with the oppugnation and challenge. Being best represented in hundreds of the homosexual movies, the culture of love affairs which exhibited the same with the heterosexual movies, as well as some peculiar cultures unfamiliar to people, are quite worthy of researching and studying. Therefore, by selecting some images of gays and lesbians in the homosexual movies, this essay tries to do some contributions to the research of movies of homosexuality.This essay consists of five parts:Firstly, the development of homosexual movies are explained in detail, and the reason to select the theme and its significance are also demonstrated as well.In Part 1, the concept of 'homosexual movie' involved in this article is clarified and differentiated from the 'cool movie' which is often regarded as the equivalent to homosexual movie.In Part 2, the homosexual images in movies are roughly combed. The homosexual images and movies in history are divided into three phases. The homosexual figures and charactoristics of homesexual movies are concluded for each phase. Homosexual movies are furtherly differentiated.In Part 3, several kinds of important and special cultural phenomena exhibited in homosexual movies are summed up, illustrated and analyzed, such as transvesty and transexualization, as well as the problem of identification, coming out and religionary guilty etc.In Part 4, what caused the audiences' misunderstanding and misread is analyzed. It also mentioned the significance of homosexual movies, the challenge to the heterosexual supremacy and the disintegration of the tradition of women' being seen.In Part 5, it summed up the mutual relationship between homosexual movies and homosexual culture, and with the significance of the existence of homosexual movies as a conclusion.