Liberal Hollywood has long positioned itself as a friend of the gay community. Everyone from Seth MacFarlane to Tilda Swinton is a fervent campaigner for gay rights, yet it has done nothing to represent gay lives on screen in a realistic and accurate manner. The most famous gay movie released by mainstream Hollywood was of course Brokeback Mountain, which starred the very beautiful and very straight pairing of Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger (despite the fact the book on which the film is based specifically downplays the handsomeness of the two men). And that is essentially the problem with the movie – it was embraced and became a hit because it starred two of the biggest sex symbols in America, not two gay men.
It will come as no surprise that a survey conducted by GLAAD found that of the 102 movies released by studios in 2013 that only 17 of them featured characters who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The only place where you will find gay films is an independent theatre or as it’s 2014, on Netflix or another video-on-demand service. That’s the sad reality. Hollywood does not care about gay people. So what if Sean Penn got an Oscar for playing Harvey Milk or that Dallas Buyers Club (the straightest gay movie ever made) was a big winner at this year’s Academy Awards? These are the exceptions to the rule.
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