Saboteur: The Dehumanization Of Homosexuality In Film

Homosexuality on screen has been a taboo subject since the creation of film in the late nineteenth century and has remained that way until the violent protests of the 1970’s sexual revolution. Consequently, the disregardment concerning the portrayal of gay community members could be linked to the overuse and dehumanization of queer stereotypes used as comedic relief throughout film history. The overall delayment in the representation of homosexuals paused the long march for equal rights even outside of the cinematic world. In result of conservative rejection toward such liberal topics, filmmakers had to conceal “queer cinema” as production codes enforced strict laws but as time progressed so did the involvement of the LGBTQ community in the

In Saboteur (1942) “sex perversion” is used to show the barbaric nature of Nazi’s as the solider sexualizes a young boy by saying “he has long hair like a girl”- emasculating the man (Benshoff & Griffin 35). Additionally, in the 1945 film, The House on 92nd Street, the Nazi agent spying for both the American and German side reveals herself as a “butch” woman in male drag (Benshoff & Griffin 35). While the depiction of homosexuals was degrading, actors still chose to pursue the roles in order to gain fame from these infamous characters. The actor Laird Cregar made his fortune by playing “psycho queers” in films during the early twentieth century, such as I Wake up Screaming (1941) and The Lodger (1944), where he plays both a homosexual and a Nazi (Benshoff & Griffin 36). The epitome of “psycho queers” are in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 masterpiece Rope- based on the real life events of the homosexual murderers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. The two gay men are certifiably insane as they passionately discuss the ecstasy of strangling a man with paradoxical sexual undertones of excitement toward each other (00:07:45-00:09:28). Embodying the perfect “dynamics of heterosexuality” due to the production codes, homosexuality

The Boys in the Band (1970) is considered “the movie that changed LGBT history” which focuses on sexual fluidity and normalization of gay men (Cohen). While this movie made queerness visible on the big screen, filmmakers did not necessarily show them positively in the limelight and eventually intertwined the “self-hating” and “miserable” queer character in the film with the famous line “show me a happy homosexual and I will show you a gay corpse” (Cohen). Continually, in the 1970’s the homosexuals were misconstrued as “transgenders.” This poorly helped the advocating for equal rights in the gay liberation movement of the decade. In 1970 the Indie film Trash consisted of a heroin addict and his lover, a transvestite, searching the streets for food and sex. While the representation of the LGBT community was being shown, they were only being portrayed as homeless, drug addicts, and miserable human beings rejected from society (Benshoff & Griffin