Queer Cinema Part 2

Queer films often have an arthouse stance so it is refreshing to be examining two queer films that are not at all arthouse. Beautiful Thing is a British comedy drama with an almost television aesthetic, it employs realism giving a relatable experience, one where you feel you can really identify with the characters. This notion of identification is perhaps evident to me as I am British and I also lived in a similar estate in London for a couple of years, I recognise this environment and therefore I can identify and relate to the characters. Most of the film is set in and around this London council estate and there are very few exterior long shots. Brokeback Mountain is a very different film in terms of production values, locations, stars and it is a much larger story spanning over 20 years. The cinematography is breathtaking and the natural landscapes of the mountains play a key role in representing the purity of the passion of the men. This landscape contrasts with the domesticity of life with their wives, claustrophobic and constricting interiors. Beautiful Thing relies on an everyday that we can relate to, much more than we can relate to the cowboy world of Brokeback Mountain in the 1960s and yet the issues of hiding homosexuality are prevalent in both the historical story and the modern day story. Beautiful Thing has a positive, upbeat ending whereas Brokeback Mountain is bleak and sorrowful but there are positive undertones. 

Beautiful Thing features an average looking cast in comparison to the handsome leads of Brokeback, which utilises the Hollywood star system casting two handsome, popular young actors, Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. This immediately opens up the film to a mainstream audience. Brokeback Mountain won 3 Academy Awards which can be seen as both a curse and a blessing, in the sense that all the hype and attention has turned it into the ‘gay cowboy’ film but of course this also confirms the film’s mainstream status and ‘acceptance’, surely a good thing for Queer Cinema?

 The family unit is interesting in both films. Beautiful Thing features a single mum, with a complete absence of the father, and the other residents of the housing estate resemble the rest of the family in the lack of any other blood relatives, the neighbours make up the family unit. Brokeback Mountain features several family units, Ennis’ family are killed when he is younger and we do not learn of Jack’s family until towards the end of the film where they speak to Ennis about Jack talking about bringing men to the cabin. Both men create their own families as a response to their inability to be together and perhaps as a reaction to a lack of family on Ennis’ part and a lack of support from Jack’s. With the main characters struggling with their homosexuality in both films there are obvious issues of gender. Sandra, as a single parent in Beautiful Thing, is the breadwinner and is the ‘man’ of the house, she is also the dominant character in her relationship with Tony who is emasculated  particularly in the scene where he is seen by all wearing Sandra’s pale blue feminine dressing gown and therefore feminised. 

There are issues of class in both films, the father of Lureen, Jack’s wife in Brokeback Mountain, is considerably wealthy and looks down on Jack and his working class roots. Whereas in Beautiful Thing the middle class boyfriend of Jamie’s mum, Sandra, is trying to ignore the class differences and be one of the ‘gang’ as everybody on the estate is working class.

Society is the reason for the questioning of identity within both films. In Brokeback Mountain Ennis and Jack have to hide their relationship as at the time homosexuality was illegal in North America and was deemed an atrocity worthy of murder by many. Ennis struggles much more with his feelings for Jack after seeing a violently murdered man, suspected of being gay, when he was a child. The inner conflict the main characters face is a direct result of society deeming homosexuality unacceptable.  Within Beautiful Thing Jamie and Ste hide their feelings for each other from everybody not because it is illegal but because children at school use homosexuality as an incentive and focus for teasing and bullying. Yes children are cruel, but it is only because homosexuality is still viewed as ‘different’ within society that children use it as ammunition, particularly as this film was made in the nineties. When Sandra discovers that Jamie is gay and she has come to terms with the news she jokes that she will never have grandchildren, becoming a mother and a grandmother is a significant rite of passage for women in many societies particularly Western culture. Both Jamie and Ste are adolescents, boys becoming men, struggling to find their identity and who they are just as Ennis and Jack are struggling with their identity, should they keep their relationship and their true identity a secret or fight against society and risk being killed?

Part 3 coming soon