Changing Perceptions of Homosexuals

[Anonymous No.18360408]

I’m reading pic related, and am thinking about how society’s perception of homosexuality has changed over time and how fiction is one of the only ways we can get an honest impression of how people really felt and reacted to their own social and cultural norms.

In the book, which I won’t spoil, homosexuals are seen as devious and evil men engaging in hedonistic perversions. Their vice is akin to masochism and deserves condemnation from society. It is genuinely dangerous and the people who indulge in it amoral. Where homos are found, murder, rape, pedophilia, and abuse are nearby.

In some older games and movies I like, characters that can be viewed as gay/trans usually play flamboyant and selfish villains (Ursula, Kefka, Buffalo Bill) so this view seems to have continued into the popular consciousness until at least the mid 90s.

But today, homosexuals in literature take a much different position. They are invariably portrayed as victims needing champions for the cause of social justice reform, or innocent normalized lovers who just happen to be gay. I never see homosexual villains and certainly not in the context of that they may damage society in any way.

Oscar Wilde is the only past author I know of who portrays homosexuals positively. They’re not outwardly gay, and they’re not victims, but rather the witty/fashionable/catty stereotype.

Does this shift in the representation of homosexuals better represent the reality of their existence, or is our view today just as much a product of our cultural norms as the 18th century portrayal? Which view is “closer” to the truth? Why were they so concerned with homosexual behavior in the past that it became such a convenient shorthand for showing the villains as irredeemably evil and is there any truth to that in your opinion? The more older books I read and encounter this general consensus the more interested I am in this—you’d rarely find that mentioned in books today, there’s already backlash against Disney villains and I don’t think Silence of the Lambs with its trans serial killer would even be made today.

[Anonymous No.18360554]

>>18360408
Silence of the Lambs is not what I'd call "an old book" though.


>how fiction is one of the only ways we can get an honest impression of how people really felt and reacted to their own social and cultural norms.
Hmm, kinda. You can see it as an historical document, in a sense

>Which view is “closer” to the truth?
Neither

>trans serial killer
Not even trans btw

[Anonymous No.18360691]

This shift in perception follows the psychological community's declassification of homosexuals as mentally insane.

[Anonymous No.18360694]

>>18360408
While far from a dominant view, there were already positive portrayals (or, at very least, non-negative) of homosexuality in the early/mid 20th century literature. This was quite visible in some British intellectual circles. Harsh censorship prevented a bigger exploration of the theme.

The big change, however, began to happen in the late 1960/early 1970s, when books featuring gay protagonists started to sell well enough to appear on the best sellers lists.

[Anonymous No.18360738]

>>18360691
... which is regressive.

[Anonymous No.18361405]

>>18360738
Yeah this is what I’m really interested in. Is the “progressive” portrayal of homosexuals actually regressive? Old society seemed to think it was genuinely dangerous.

To the other posters, I did make allowances that not *all* portrayals of homosexuals was this negative by mentioning Oscar Wilde, and yes there are some examples of benign homos elsewhere. But it seemed such a convenient shorthand that homos=bad that it must have been widely acknowledged in the past. And I don’t mean just bad, I mean genuinely evil.

You can see the echo of what used to be the norm in the current acknowledgment (and backlash) against Disney for “queer coding” so many of their villains.

>>18360694
>harsh censorship
Was it though? It seems not really censored. I come across the implication that a character is gay often enough. They are just usually a bad guy.

[Anonymous No.18361710]

>>18361405
>Was it though?
Yes. Making a campy/flamboyant character is different from making a character which openly engages in homosexual acts.
In Britain, for example, Obscene Publications Act 1857 made the publishing of any material considered "immoral" a criminal offence. This only started to change in the 1960s. Many countries followed a similar pattern.

E. M. Forster's Maurice, a novel with very open homosexual themes, was written in 1913-14 and while lots of people read its manuscript version through the decades, it was only officially published in 1971.

[Anonymous No.18362066]

>>18360408
>In the book, which I won’t spoil, homosexuals are seen as devious and evil men engaging in hedonistic perversions.
I think a lot of these depictions that I'm familiar with also depicted homosexuality as a vice of rich and powerful villains. It was associated with being an effete decadent. I think of the Baron Harkonnen from Dune who is an aristocratic, homosexual pederast who is also power-crazed, Machiavellian, etc.

Of course, Disney villains too:

https://youtu.be/DSfYrPdTKVA

[Anonymous No.18362078]

>>18361405
yes "old society"
not like the greeks were buttfucking each other constantly.
Not even gay but you seem to be guilty of picking data points that support your presupposition rather than looking at all of history.

[Anonymous No.18362084]

>>18360408
>Where homos are found, murder, rape, pedophilia, and abuse are nearby.
So exactly like real life? For all of recorded history this has been the way they were perceived and couldn’t get married until six years ago in the US and currently still can’t in most of the world. Chances are good that societies current view on gays is the wrong one.

[Anonymous No.18362085]

>>18362078
>not like the greeks were buttfucking each other constantly
Come on now

[Anonymous No.18362096]

>>18362078
>not like the greeks were buttfucking each other constantly.
No you’re right, the Greeks having sex with little boys was a positive thing. It was certainly not frowned upon by all of mankind nor was it a cultural idiosyncrasy that aligned perfectly with a decadent society.

[Anonymous No.18362112]

>>18360408
>Does this shift in the representation of homosexuals better represent the reality of their existence, or is our view today just as much a product of our cultural norms as the 18th century portrayal?
I don't like the portrayals where we're like innocent victims or elfin, fairy people without any flaws who are here to "cheer everybody up." I feel like there's a lot of that now. It's like positive propaganda, but I think it mainly turns gay people into pets for straight liberals. You're allowed to be gay, but in this neutered, harmless way that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.

Of course, that's not how real people actually are. No one is perfect or flawless.

I think it's the antithesis to the old-style depictions where gay people have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and are strictly villains.

I'm not sure about written fiction, but in terms of movies, I liked "I Love You Phillip Morris" with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, who play a gay couple. The characters are ridiculous, they're even not necessarily good people (Carrey plays a convicted fraudster and McGregor is kind of a fool), but I also found the story to be genuinely touching and they actually felt like realistic, real people.

I remember a scene from The Expanse that I liked too, where one of the characters (who is pretty masculine) who is implied to be bisexual or queer is approached by a male hustler in a bar, and he turns him down, but then warns him about another man in the bar who is checking them out that he's carrying a knife. I like homosexuality being depicted as just part of the background, and that it's not perfect, we don't all get along with each other, other gay men can be dangerous, it's just part of the story.

I don't want to think about it that much. I think the people who respond to the portrayal of gay people as elfin fairies here to "save" them or society, or menacing villains who are here to destroy society think about homosexuality more than actual gay people, or impart more meaning (for whatever reason) to it than this we do actually deserves.

[Anonymous No.18362145]

>homosexuals are seen as devious and evil men engaging in hedonistic perversions. Their vice is akin to masochism and deserves condemnation from society. It is genuinely dangerous and the people who indulge in it amoral. Where homos are found, murder, rape, pedophilia, and abuse are nearby.
Sounds pretty accurate from my experiences of homosexuals in the UK.

[Anonymous No.18362147]

>>18362084
In my experience, perceptions by "society" (which is really heterosexual society) is incorrect or simplistic or based on generalizations, whether positive or negative.

I think there are some fun stories like Charles Beaumont's "The Crooked Man" (published in Playboy in 1955) which flipped the 1950s around, essentially depicting the same kind of society but where 95% of the population is gay, everyone is assumed to be gay, and the government is oppressing the 5% of people who are straight (and straight people are also called "queers") and they can't be out of the closet or children will throw rocks at them and they'll get fired from their jobs.

Beaumont also wrote Twilight Zone episodes. It's a conservative's nightmare, but I think the idea was to be provocative and to put the shoe on the other foot.

[Anonymous No.18362150]

>>18362096
It wasn't really an idiosyncrasy. And heterosexual and homosexual relationships around that time were both age structured. It was normal for 30 year old Greek males to get married to 14 year old Greek females. That was the norm.

[Anonymous No.18362152]

>>18360408
have you not read more genuine old fiction about homos?
books like Maurice. they don't talk openly about opression, not blaming the society at least, just personally suffering because they know they won't be accepted.

[Anonymous No.18362157]

[Anonymous No.18362161]

[Anonymous No.18362162]

[Anonymous No.18362167]

>>18362161

[Anonymous No.18362169]

>>18362162
there's a book this movie was based on btw

[Anonymous No.18362173]

[Anonymous No.18362176]

[Anonymous No.18362178]

>>18362173
Special Friendships. the pederastic canon. the books was more fleshed out btw.

[Anonymous No.18362181]

>>18362178
It's interesting that the book was published in Vichy France and received positively.

[Anonymous No.18362199]

>>18362181
the book condemns gay sex and the suggested-pedo priest. tender borderline romantic friendship of young boys and guys is praised for its genuinity and purity.
countless authors have also praised it (Mann, Hesse, etc) just in a more discreet form

[Anonymous No.18362201]

>>18360408
Pauline Kael was complaining about the shift from "based catty homo" to "social victim homo" in 1961:
>I'm beginning to long for one of those old-fashioned movie stereotypes—the vicious, bitchy old queen who said mean, funny things. We may never again have those Franklin Pangborn roles, now that homosexuals are going to be treated seriously, with sympathy and respect, like Jews and Negroes. It's difficult to judge how far sensitivities will go: Remembrance of Things Past may soon be frowned upon like Huckleberry Finn and The Merchant of Venice. Social progress makes strange bedfellows.

[Anonymous No.18362254]

>>18362152
There's a fair share of criticism towards the English society in Maurice. It's also present in The Charioteer by Mary Renault (first published in 1953).

[Anonymous No.18362269]

>>18362254
>fair share of criticism towards the English society in Maurice
the dialogue where his therapist (the doc Maurice tried to attend to get rid of his homosexuality) said he's a lost cause and probably better off moving to another country where it's not outlawed, the lines preceding your screencap, really stood out to me. it's a worthy book and the afterword by the author alone makes it worth reading

[Anonymous No.18362280]

>>18362269
The film is also a nice adaptation. One of the best homokinos.

[Anonymous No.18362897]

>>18362066
>he doesn't even look at the girls of the court
this went above my head as a youngling.

[Anonymous No.18362916]

>>18362145
>murder, rape, pedophilia, and abuse
that's just standard briton education

[Anonymous No.18363021]

>>18362066
Don't forget Scar

[Anonymous No.18363042]

>>18363021
what's gay about scar? he's a crossbreed from Hamlet's Uncle (motherfucker) and Scarface 1931 (sister lover).

[Anonymous No.18363060]

>>18363042
Look at this flaming homo:
https://youtu.be/XkU23m6yX04?t=59

[Anonymous No.18363091]

>>18363060
huh. I always thought of him as a plain old fascist.

[Anonymous No.18363121]

>>18363091
fascists were and are still intensely homoerotic

[Anonymous No.18363142]

>>18363091

[Anonymous No.18363574]

>>18360408
i hate gay people

[Anonymous No.18363611]

>>18362112
Faggot

[Anonymous No.18364151]

>>18360408
>Oscar Wilde is the only past author I know of who portrays homosexuals positively. They’re not outwardly gay, and they’re not victims, but rather the witty/fashionable/catty stereotype.
There's a reason for that...