I’m excited to see my feelings, my emotions portrayed in a way I can understand. I’m excited to see myself, my identity, my experience on a big screen. So when I stumble on a film that shows more closely the real-life experience of being gay today, I get excited. Too often they look back at the past, at the struggles and challenges and the advocacy. Gay movies, however, don’t always portray these new identities of being gay today. And with that, we’ve seen a rapid rise in new types of gay culture. Life for LGBT individuals has changed rapidly over the past few years-increased visibility, increased human rights and increased acceptance.
But, in gay films, it’s often difficult to find myself represented-my own reality as a twenty-something gay man. We’re a diverse group, encapsulated under a number of different letters (LGBTQIA…). Sometimes it’s the only way to discover certain elements of gay culture. While some gay movies just seem to perpetuate stereotypes, I still find them interesting.
