In Roland Emmerich’s hideous new film Stonewall, he provides a wide range of grotesquely-drawn characters, none of whom ever come close to resembling real people. It’s a shame, given the fascinating true story he’s loosely tied his film to. And a depressing nail in the coffin of mainstream gay cinema.

Roland Emmerich: gay rights drama Stonewall needed 'straight-acting' hero Read more

The director, usually associated with blowing up stuff in Independence Day and 2012, has found himself at the centre of an understandable furore after claiming his choice of lead, a tanned twink played by earnest British actor Jeremy Irvine, was to give mainstream audiences a “straight-acting” character to identify with. Emmerich’s comments are problematic for a litany of reasons.

Firstly, the openly gay director’s use of the term “straight-acting” is deeply offensive and unforgivably crass. It’s an adjective that’s loathed by gay men for its implication that a so-called “masculine” set of behaviours is performed purely to emulate heterosexuality. It suggests that any gay man who isn’t conforming to societal expectations is playing a role. As if behind closed doors the facade drops and the feather boa comes out. It’s also unpopular because it implies that exhibiting effeminate behaviour is somehow less desirable and hiding behind a more acceptable, heteronormative mask is something to aim for.

Secondly, it provides a limited and patronising view of a “straight audience”, who would seemingly roll their eyes and feel a sociopathic lack of empathy if a less “straight-acting” lead was assaulted by homophobic police. In the film, the lead Danny is a white, middle-class, handsome Kansas boy who initially rejects the gender fluidity and overtly sexual surroundings of late 60s New York. But by the end of the film, he’s sashaying around and dressing with far more style than ever before.

Emmerich wanted to use Danny as an “easy in” for audiences who would empathise with the character’s initial disgust but eventual association with gay culture. This assumes that heterosexual audiences would need their hands held throughout and also that once any “straight-acting” gay man is truly comfortable with their sexuality, they are finally able to develop the effeminate graces that were once rejected. It’s a reductive and confused notion of sexuality and suggests that Emmerich, and screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz, are shaky on their film’s message.

It’s also no coincidence that Emmerich chose a white lead to represent a movement that has been largely associated with various figures of colour (most notably the African American transgender activist Marsha P Johnson). While white gay characters are given a short shrift on screen, other ethnicities are largely absent. It’s been left to TV to provide us with Michael K Williams in The Wire and Jussie Smollett in Empire for diversity. Hollywood’s concept of male homosexuality is still narrow and focusing on anything but a white cisgender character is apparently too complex for those easily-confused straights.

Freeheld review: an important civil rights story rendered lifeless Read more

Stonewall arrives during a landmark year for gay rights with the US making same-sex marriage legal in all states. It’s also not alone, arriving within weeks of Freeheld, a fact-based drama starring Julianne Moore and Ellen Page as a couple fighting for their rights to receive the same legal treatment as straight people. But like Stonewall, it’s equally tone deaf in its portrayal of gay male characters.

In the film, Steve Carell stars as a “big loud gay Jew” who represents an equality group that assists them in their struggle and he’s already been, fairly, described by The Guardian’s Nigel M Smith as “a garish gay stereotype of comic relief”. The choice to turn him into a 90s sitcom stereotype (sample line: “Oh honey, I’d marry you, but I wouldn’t know what to do with your vagina”), as opposed to Emmerich’s “straight-acting” hero is a revealing indictment of how mainstream films display gay male characters.

The breakout gay films of the past 20 years have typically focused on central characters who have joined Jeremy Irvine’s Stonewall lead as exhibiting qualities that film-makers believe would make them more acceptable to a wide audience. Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game and Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley – all free of any noticeably effeminate qualities.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rupert Everett as the textbook “gay best friend” in My Best Friend’s Wedding. Photograph: Tristar/Everett/Rex Features

But supporting characters have tended to conform to broader stereotypes. The “gay best friend” became a tiresome trend after Rupert Everett’s Aretha Franklin-singing turn in My Best Friend’s Wedding scored him a Golden Globe nomination. Despite spouting crude one-liners, the GBF is typically devoid of any relationship of their own, acting as a one-dimensional cipher and reaffirming the heterosexuality of those around them. But despite the proliferation of this cliched trope, a character who can crudely be defined as “camp” still remains on the outskirts.

Why is Hollywood suffering another gay panic attack? Read more

In Stonewall, the characters that surround the jockish Danny all refer to each other as “girl” and “bitch” and freely engage in cross-dressing. Emmerich also made a rather alarmingly crass comment about what these characters can take from the film’s pretty-boy hero: “They learned something from Danny – that you can make it, that you can study, you can maybe have a more regular life.”

Emmerich’s revolted take on the lives of these supporting characters and his apparent belief that Danny acts as a “straight-acting” saviour (he throws the first brick while shouting “GAY POWER” in one of the film’s more laughable moments) reflects a common distinction between how many mainstream film-makers still view the importance of a perceived masculinity for gay characters. Those who are more noticeably gay are given a shallow “otherness” while the “straight-acting” leads are allowed more depth and a life of their own.

While Emmerich’s comments, and his film, are both misjudged and dismaying, his choice to anchor a film around a character such as Danny is merely reflective of a wider industry trend. The still-existing extremities of on-screen homosexuality refuse to allow for subtleties and therefore fail to adequately reflect the lives of real gay men. It wasn’t Danny who threw the first brick. This riot has been going on for years.