For saftey. Homosexuals were discriminated more back then. Gay pride was under ground and listed in as a mental illness in the 80’s. Things are better now. I still get a laugh when I see the first General Zod in a cross dressing movie. I believe is was to Wan Foo.
Oh, what is that old 60’s movie. Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf, maybe? There was a homosexual portrayed in that movie, and it was, of all people, Robert Redford I believe. You had to be paying very close to catch the nuances.
I could be all wrong, about the movie and Robert Redford. But if I’ve given enough of a description maybe someone else can tell me who it was.
There was plenty of gay and lesbian film and art before the ‘90’s, but it was repressed and forced underground. It was artists like Keith Haring and Andy Warhol that made it more mainstream and brought it out of the closet.
People are becoming more accepting of gays today (although it still has a long way to go). They still don’t get nearly as much representation as they should though.
@filmfann – I’m not sure that I would call Cabaret a gay movie. Yes, there were gay characters in it, (not the major thrust of the plot, but not minor either).
It was a WW2-History drama in which gays appeared, but I always thought of Cabaret as a film that described Germany in general.
@osoraro and I went to see Querelle many years ago. We had no clue until we got to the theater – why are there so many pairs of men in this theater? Something to do with being in the gay part of San Diego?
@FutureMemoryWait, wait, wait a sec, bro. Are you actually suggesting there weren’t many (any?) gay people around before the 1990s?
I am sure there were as many gays, or those who were confused as to if they were gay to claim it, but for reasons I can’t speak of here, the powers that be saw no money in it; we can leave it as that, how incomplete as it may be.