Illustrate and Critically Discuss the Notion that Contemporary Cinema Plays a Significant Role in Maintaining Heteronormativity

by Roderick Munday

Introduction
Heterosexuality, which denotes the desire of women for men and vice versa, can be regarded as an institutionalised form of social practice (Richardson: 1996, 2). However, in biological and common-sense understandings of the term (discourses which arguably inform and sustain each other) the concept of heterosexuality is predicated on the biological imperatives of procreation and species survival, therefore when viewed from these perspectives it is seen as the coherent, natural and stable category of desire; which is both universal and monolithic (ibid.).

Michael Warner coined the term heteronormativity to contest heterosexuality's claim to naturalness, as he put it, "the elemental form of human association" (Warner: 1993, xxi). By confounding the terms "heterosexual" with "normative", Warner emphasises that the desire for a person of the opposite sex is neither biologically determined, nor is it intrinsic to the human condition. But rather that it is a social construct which people regard as of natural origin, because since they were born, they have been institutionalised to think that way: for example in the family, through the gendered nature of language itself and in forms of art and entertainment such as the cinema.

Warner's complaint was inspired by his reading of the work of other social theorists, in which he detected a marked refusal to acknowledge any viewpoint other than the heterosexual one. For instance he wondered how Anthony Giddens could write a book with the all-encompassing title, The Constitution of Society and not mention sexuality at all (ibid., ix). But Warner's aim was to go way beyond just asking for the acknowledgement and toleration of lesbian and gay lifestyles. He called for the queering of the planet. Because, he argued, that was the only way a non-oppressive gender system could emerge (ibid., viii).

A distinction needs to be made here between the terms: "queer", "gay" and "lesbian". Whereas gay and lesbian are categories that seek to define people solely by their sexual orientation, queer refuses such blanket categorisations. For queer theorists like Michael Warner, sexuality is too vast a territory to be described in such deceptively simple binary oppositions. Moreover, such categorisations are themselves part and parcel of an historical discourse which has helped to create and naturalise sexual orientation in the first place (Benshoff, 2004, 1). Here queer theory acknowledges its debt to Michel Foucault's studies of power/knowledge. Discourse, in Foucault’s sense of the term, is not something created by individuals, but that which actually constitutes them as subjects in the first place: "it is not that the individual is repressed by the social order, the individual is in fact formed by it" (Foucault: 1991, 217).

From the perspective of theorists like Warner, heternormativity stands for a myth of a stable, universal category of heterosexuality. This is the same myth that Judith Butler seeks to dismantle, when she posits a radical explanation of why queerness is such a threat to heterosexual sensibilities. According to Butler, homosexuality antagonises heterosexuality because it deconstructs it, in other words it exposes the constructed nature of heterosexuality itself (Butler: 1991, 723):

"Heterosexuality as an incessant and panicked imitation of its own naturalised idealisation, [the fact that it] is always in the act of elaborating itself is evidence that it is perpetually at risk," (ibid., 724)

Richard Dyer claims that Cinema has "probably been more significant as a central definer of sexualities than any other institution in the twentieth century" (Dyer: 1993, 28 - 29). In order to discuss the notion that contemporary cinema plays a significant role in maintaining heteronormativity, we need to identify some examples of strategies it uses.

In order to do this, we need to look beyond the contemporary and examine the question historically. This is because one of the universalist claims of heterosexuality is that it does not change over time. Therefore an historical perspective is vital to identify any shifts in the perceived meaning of the term. For example, it has been argued that the very existence of heterosexuals and homosexuals is historically contingent. According to Havelock Ellis, the term homosexuality, was coined by a German doctor in 1869 (Weeks: 1972, 693). Foucault suggested that it was this categorisation of homosexuality that first exposed the hitherto unfettered and unmonitored human sexual desire to scientific scrutiny and classification (Rivkin and Ryan: 1998, 677). After that, it was only a small step, relatively speaking, to instigate a system where people's existences were entirely defined by their sexual preference - the system we have today.

Therefore the first section of my discussion will be an examination of heteronormativity in the cinema from a number of perspectives, using both historical and contemporary examples of films, whichever makes the point more clearly. The second section will be a more detailed examination of a particular film, The Adventures of Pricilla Queen of the Desert (1994), where I can look at some of the heteronormative assumptions that I have uncovered in the first section and apply them to a more contemporary film.

Heterovisability
Heteronormativity suggests a culture blinded by heterosexuality and indeed heterosexuality is everywhere you look in cinematic representation, so much so, that it makes it hard to identify specific instances. If we want compelling evidence we need only examine the posters of three of the most popular films of all time; Titanic (1997), Star Wars (1977) and Gone with the Wind (1939) (fig. 1, 2 & 3), all of which foreground the heterosexual romances of their leading protagonists, even Star Wars, which is puzzling given that the film itself did not feature one.

Homoinvisability
Conversely, if the entire output of the history of cinema were taken as a whole, it could be convincingly argued that homosexuality did not exist. Such a small number of films feature gay characters that they make up a statistically insignificant sample. Even today, the majority of films make no mention of homosexuality, although this is not considered a cause for comment, in fact the opposite is true. Films that do feature homosexual characters become talking points for that very reason. Not that this happens in mainstream cinema at all, so let me fill the void by offering a transgressive example of my own: imagine the public's reaction if the latest James Bond film showed 007 bedding a male companion rather than a female one. The outrageousness of this suggestion, indeed the impossibility of the scenario, I think serves to illustrate Butler's point about the panicked instability of heterosexuality, because it renders alternative sexualities unthinkable outside of the established homo/hetero categories.

Homo(not)sexual
If homosexuality is mentioned in mainstream cinema, it is usually as a term of abuse (faggot, queer, pansy) or it is relegated to the margins of the cinematic discourse. Conversely, the presence of a homosexual protagonist is what defines a picture as a "gay film" and therefore not mainstream. Even these so called "gay films" tend to focus on the "homo" rather than the "sexual". Gay characters signal their orientation by dressing, or behaving in markedly homosexual ways. I will discuss some of these stereotypes later; the point I want to make here is they do not express, nor do they try to elicit from others any kind of sexual desire. For example think of the Kenneth Williams characters in the Carry on Films, or the gay protagonists in La cage au folles (1978), or in its Hollywood remake, The Birdcage (1996), or the gay cameos in Four Wedding and a Funeral (1994), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), or My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) the list goes on and on. Perhaps the best exempla of this tendency is C3P0 in Star Wars — a fussy, sniping queen that harks back to the sissy stereotype popular in the 1930s (Russo; 1987, 36). That is, as far away from a sexual-erotic connotation of homosexuality as it is possible to get.

Gay stereotypes: "inbetweenism"
C3P0 is obviously not a real man and 'inbetweenism’, is probably the most familiar and widespread gay stereotype (Dyer: 1993, 37). Tomboys and sissies, dykes and queens map onto the idea that gays and lesbians occupy a space between the masculine and feminine. This reflects essentialist assumptions of the biological origin of gender (ibid.). Stereotypes of all kinds are prevalent in cinema (ibid., 21). They are derived from "types". All cinematic characters are types--the hero, the villain, the sidekick, the love interest--it's just that some types are more developed that others and stereotypes tend to be the least developed of all. Gay stereotypes have advantages: they are economical in the sense that they dispenses with the need to establish a characters sexual orientation through dialogue (ibid., 22). The disadvantage is that they reduce everything about a gay character to his sexuality. However, homosexuals, unlike women, or persons of colour, would be invisible if they and their culture did not provide the signs that make recognition possible (ibid., 24). Films lean heavily on typification to convey an idea of homosexuality, while the broad availability and cultural influence of mainstream films ensure that the gay type is fixed in the minds of a great many viewers gay and straight. (ibid., 30)

Gay Stereotypes: excessively masculine
The notion of stereotypes illustrates how ideas about sexuality can change over time. For example, compare how the lovers embrace in the posters for Gone with the Wind (1939) and Titanic (1997). In the former, the woman swoons in the active embrace of the man, in a way that appears overstated and even camp today: a comical depiction of patriarchy. Similarly the stereotypical depiction of homosexuality has altered, but here the change is more radical. For example, the emergence of the macho stereotype, as exemplified by the pop group Village People: gay men dressed up as icons of American masculinity (figs. 4 & 5). Dyer notes that it is an "excess of masculinity" which marks the macho stereotype as gay (ibid., 38). This illustrates the mercurial (even chimerical) quality of the gay category itself: seeming, effeminate and excessively masculine at the same time. An implication of this confusion is to contend that cultural representations of homosexuality have not been particularly successful at capturing, what may be regarded heteronormatively as, its "essence". In heteronormative logic it could be argued that this is because homosexuality is a construction and therefore possesses no essence as such. However, this logic also implies that the representation of heterosexuality should be fixed and immutable over time, a claim that isn't substantiated, at least by the evidence of changing movie posters.

But seriously, I feel threatened
As the films mentioned so far might suggest, the gay stereotype features more often in comic rather than serious roles. One of the reasons for this of course was mentioning homosexuality in the movies was forbidden. The relaxing of the censor's prohibitions against sexual perversion in both the US and UK, instigated a whole micro-genre of films which featured gay villains threatening heterosexual protagonists. In Diamonds are Forever (1971), Vanishing Point (1971), and Freebie and the Bean (1974), this can be read symptomatically (and suggestively) as ripples of unease troubling the heteronormative fortress of calm. Additionally, that bastion of homophobic thinking, the contagion metaphor, which categorises homosexuality as an illness, formed the basis for the narratives of both The Detective (1968) and Cruising (1980). Homosexuality as an illness is stigmatising, but does imply--somewhat transgressively for those who believed in a stable and immutable heterosexuality--that everybody was at risk from infection.

Heteronormative meta-narratives
Storytelling conventions are built on myths or meta-narratives that embed heteronormative concepts into the very fabric of a story's structure. Motifs of "homecoming", "rebirth" and the "crowning and marrying of the hero" mark the end of all fairy tale journeys, according to Vladimir Propp (Propp: 1998, 31) and Joseph Campbell’s similarly concludes his hero's journey in a "mystical marriage" (Campbell: 1993,109).

Case Study: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
I want to examine The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert from the perspectives of two very different feminist theories, as exemplifying certain aspects of heternormativity.

Compulsory Heterosexuality
Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay 'Compulsory Heterosexuality' explored similar ideas to Michael Warner. However, Rich's approach was not informed by queer theory, but by a more traditional feminist discourse, one that hypothesised that women were suppressed by a patriarchal society that sanctioned rape and violence against them (Rich: 1987, 23). 'Compulsory Heterosexuality' can be identified, firstly by the active and rigorous enforcement of heterosexuality and secondly by its attempt to completely erase the possibility of a lesbian existence (ibid., 50). Rich contended that lesbianism was a more natural state for female sexuality (ibid., 54) and found the unquestioning assumption of heterosexuality among feminists remarkable: she wondered how the means of impregnation and erotic attachment became so intertwined, and why such violent structures were necessary to enforce women’s erotic loyalty and subservience to men (ibid., 34 -35).

Criticisms of Rich
Rich’s essay has been criticised because of its essentialist assumptions about femininity, in which all the problems hindering explanations of gender defined by "inherent sexual natures" are emphasised (Weeks: 1991, 82). Theresa de Lauretis, goes so far as to suggest that, by the late 1908s, the notion of gender as sexual difference, so polemically defended by Rich, had started to become a limitation for feminism. The conceptual framework of a universal sexual opposition did not provide an escape from patriarchal thinking and therefore could not contain the contingencies or differences that made up the collective femininist experience (De Lauretis; 1987, 713).

Judith Butler sought to further deconstruct the sexual dichotomies so prevalent in heternormative thinking. In order to gain purchase on the notion that all genders were constructions, she focussed on cultural phenomenon that seemed to be universally regarded as such, namely female impersonation, or drag. Butler argued that drag was not merely an imitation of femininity, but rather drag 'performed' femininity and evoked the notion of an original as kind of effect created in the act of imitation (Butler: 1991, 722).

Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Butler's thesis can be illustrated by examining The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, as the three main protagonists are drag queens. If we pursued a line of heteronormative logic in analysing this film, we would naturally assume that drag queens are merely imitating women in their performance. This is because we would posit apriori that boys are intrinsically different from girls and therefore neither could capture the essence of the other's sex, except in the form of a crude parody (fig 6). This assertion is actually hard to contest in Priscilla, because of the camp excesses of its representation. But if we focus on the character of Bernadette, the transsexual (fig. 7), we can start to make sense of what Butler is saying. She argues that in the logic of an ‘original’ versus an ‘imitation’ dichotomy, the concept of origin simply does not make sense without the notion of a copy. In other words, there is no way to tell if something is original, unless you have a copy to compare it with. But Butler pursues this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. She argues that, if this is the case, then the imitation can been said to actually precede the original in our understanding: at least in the sense of our apprehending something as being original, only when we see an imitation of it. This sounds like sophistry at first, but I think Butler is suggesting a different conception of "original" and "imitation" from one that is normally applied to, say, works of art, where the original and the copy are compared to each other as empirical objects. The object that I think Butler has in mind is not a "real" object in the sense of being a phenomenon, but exists as a transcendental concept, that becomes objectified in the particular instances of its application. If we bare this in mind we see that Butler's thesis of femininity is in fact a Foucauldian one: the woman does not create the notion of femininity, she is created by it and therefore drag queens can be created by it also.

This conception of femininity as 'discourse' is one I can use to defamiliarise some of the pervasive assumptions of heteronormativity. To paraphrase De Lauretis' maxim: the representation of heteronormativity is its construction (De Lauretis; 1987, 715). So, armed with the conceptual tools, I can now examine an ostensibly non-heternormative text like The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and see if any of those assumptions are embedded in it.

If Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert is a 'gay friendly' film, it is because of the way its three central protagonists ostensibly confront the challenges of a hostile environment without compromising or closeting themselves. However, despite an excess of homosexual signifiers: much mincing about, bitchy comments and eye rolling, the three protagonists, two gay and one transsexual, are depicted as essentially sexless. Much is made of the ironic contrast between the "natural world" of the Outback and the strange invaders from Sydney. The film actively reinforces these essentialisms for its comic effects (figs. 8 & 9). However the covert homophobia that arguably informs our ideas of "naturalness" and "unnaturalness" in the first place, is further erased from the narrative because the films sympathies are clearly with the outsiders rather than the locals: as evidence by a marked use of "hickster" stereotypes in every scene depicting the clash of cultures (fig. 10). However the act of ridiculing heteronormative notions of "naturalness" versus "otherness", has the effect of reinforcing those very notions. In not seeking to question the existence of these categories, the film has failed to move beyond them. Politically this is a very disempowering strategy, as it suggests that individuals are powerless to change the way things are. The ending of the film can be seen as reinforcing these negative assumptions for two reasons. Not only does Tic’s journey achieve narrative closure when he faces the challenge of becoming a father to his son (figs. 11 & 12). But also his and Felicia’s triumphant homecoming concert in Sydney, can be read as confirming the heteronormative assumption that the 'artificial' environment of the city is really the only place that homosexuals can exist and thrive in (figs. 13 & 14). Only the transsexual Bernadette has the courage to contest the naturalist assumptions of wilderness living, by choosing to stay in Alice Springs and make a new life for herself with her partner Bob. But in doing this, she is severely hampered by the heterosexual policing of the film, which has given her precious little opportunity to display affection with her lover, beyond exchanging flowers and meaningful looks.

Conclusion
Of course this reading of the film is in a sense disingenuous to its preferred reading of a positive and "feel-good," representation of gay existence. However what distinguishes a negative heteronormative reading from a positive "homosexual" one, can also be regarded as a disingenuous and nasty truth: one that is hidden in the crevices of traditional heteronormalised discourses. This truth can be stated as a formula: the extent to which every queer representation will fail, is the extent to which it is always already contradicted, by having to adapt itself to a hostile hetero-normal environment.

What I mean by a hetero-normal environment is an adaptation to both movie and economic conventions. In movie terms this means fitting into the established and heteronormative template which actually constitutes movie discourse. This template is characterised by things I have already discussed in this essay like narrative closure and typification. The economic adaptation is the need to respect a conservatism which counsels that it is better not to offend the sensibilities of potential audiences, than be truthful to your subject. In many ways, therefore, in the hostile heterosexual world of movie-making, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert is confronting, and failing to overcome, the very conflicts that it is trying to dramatise.

fig. 1

fig. 2

De Lauretis, Therese (1987) ‘The Technology of Gender’, Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Eds) London, Blackwell Publishing, 1998, 713 - 721