Sony Pictures Pleads for No More Gay Stereo-Types
Big movie makers are more known for doing the popular thing than for doing the right thing, but one mogul recently asked her fellow movers and shakers to shake off the film industry’s stereotypical portrayal of LGBT people.
Sony Pictures co-chairperson Amy Pascal gave an impassioned speech at a fundraiser Thursday and urged Hollywood executives to ‘simply cross it out’ when a script on their desks contain a slur, reports Deadline.
While admitting the industry’s past ignorance, she emphasized the impact media has on the way people learn to perceive the world and how movies have the power to mold these perceptions from youth.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘I’m talking about kids who are gay and I’m talking about kids who aren’t gay. One group needs affirmation and the other group needs education. And, if I’m being honest, neither of those issues are high on any movie studio or TV network’s agenda.’
Pascal was being honored at an LA Gay & Lesbian Center fundraiser for homeless gay and lesbian youth.
The event, held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, raised $1 million.
Herself married to a man and mother of one, Pascal thanked producers like ‘Max Mutchnick and David Kohan and Ryan Murphy for really changing things’ while also criticizing films that have largely been embraced as pioneering for the community.
While applauding them as movies she would be proud to have made, Pascal warned that these films often still contained largely negative portrayals.
‘Brokeback Mountain, Milk, Boys Don’t Cry, Philadelphia, The Hours, Gods and Monsters, The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Single Man...in all these movies, the main character is murdered or martyred or commits suicide or just dies unhappily,’ Pascal said.
There is always, she said, ‘the lesbian murderer, the psychotic transvestite, the queen who is humiliated and sometimes tossed off a ship or a ledge.’
‘It’s a big joke,’ she continued. ‘It still happens.’
Pascal also gave a nod to films she believes are helping change perceptions of LGBT people.
‘There are great images, too,’ she said, ‘like the family in The Kids Are All Right. The way the boy inPerks of Being a Wallflower and the middle-aged man in Hotel Marigold and the 75-year-old man inBeginners come out to a better, richer, more fulfilled life.’
She also credited the makers of ParaNorman for their animated portrayal of a gay football player whose sexuality is ‘totally incidental to the plot’ and asked ‘can’t we depict men and women who just so happen to be gay – perhaps a lawyer or soldier or business executive or scientist or engineer?’
She closed her heartfelt appeal by asking her colleagues to take it upon themselves to change their industry.
‘How about next time, when any of us are reading a script and it says words like fag, or faggot – homo – dyke – take a pencil and just cross it out. Just don’t do it.’
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