GENRE THEMES: Homosexuality Film Examples

HOMOSEXUALITY- Film examples

Homosexuality is a theme often used in period dramas and they indeed share some codes and conventions with modern films.

Examples:

Affinity

-awkward and hesitant intamacy
- exaggerated reactions to touches (protagonists physical interaction)
- high emotions running
- close proxemics (eye contact/ personal space)

Fingersmith

- extreme close ups (especially when intimate- e.g face touching etc)
- eye contact
- minimal to none use of make -up
- delicate touches and embraces towards the protagonists
- use of a montage with clips showing the relationship progression of the protagonists

This simply gives an idea of the sorts of aspects we should be considering including in our film opening.

Post by Tosin

MISE EN SCENE- Costume

COSTUME IDEAS

Our film opening will introduce two gay protagonists who effectively we want to portray in the best possible way that stays in theme with common conventions of a romance film, in terms of costume.
Our research into costume of both straight and lesbian woman stereotypically in romance films shows the following aspects:

- revealing clothes, sometimes sexualised (shows or represents their feminity or vulnerability)
- depending on the character but widely used in bright coloured costumes, majorly white or red (could represent their pure love and affection)
- lesbian woman in films costume can normally go to ways feminine with an edgy twist to complete that tom-boyish look or simply masculine and sometimes unflattering. (Chunky jewelerry, bold hairstyles, etc)

We intend to adapt the more 'feminine with an edgy twist' type representation in terms of costume for our film opening, because we feel it will still portray the theme properly while giving the characters some depth to them, through the connotations of their costume choices.

Examples:

The colour choice, white, of this costume could still reflect feminity but even the fact its a shirt could also highlight that minor element of masculinity. The dark beaded jewellery and dark eye make up adds to the whole edgy look.

Revealing pastel coloured costume again reflects feminity and even their vulnerability but yet openess with each other in every aspect; physically etc.

Similar to the first example, the chunky jewlerry, short plaid skirt all ties into creating the impression this character is bold in her costume choice.

GENRE THEME: HOMOSEXUALITY

GENRE THEME: HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexuality in movies, from our research is generally represented either using negative stereotypes, like creating them to appear 'flamboyant' and 'colourful' or not portaying them at all. In films stereotypes act like codes that give audience a quick common understanding of a person or group of people- usually relating to their class, race/ethnicity, gender, and indeed sexual orientation.
According to 'Media-Awareness.com', 'Hollywood especially has a general culture and history of homophobia and majority of the time, films portrayals of homosexuals reflect this'

Baring in mind we intend our final production to be of 15 rating, to simply aid our group in representing a reasonable depiction of gay couples, we have researched films with similar themes to highlight how the characters interact with each other physically and show their intamacy.

 

Loving Annabelle

-the women are obviosuly attracted to each other but a sense of hesitation, which is common especially to the person who hasn't 'accepted' their sexuality, is evident.
-the physical interaction is delicate and slight touches but still creates an effect and strongly suggests the two women's bond and feelings towards each other.
- all the above is also common conventions in romance films generally.

Extracts like this really help us to understand how we can show our audience our characters relationship, sexuality and the significance of it in the plot, without making it too stereotypical or sanitizing the reality of it too much.

AUDIENCE RESPONSE SURVEY ANALYSIS

AUDIENCE RESPONSE SURVEY ANALYSIS

We consider it important to analyse our target audience's answers to our survey to acknowledge the aspects they are interested in viewing and if its something plausible for us as a group to produce, in terms of location, character style/age/gender, sub-genre, sound etc.

Below are the results:

SURVEY ANALYSIS

Although prior to creating this survey, our group had unanimously decided we would like our sub-genre to be tragedy and its clear our audience chose comedy but we think considering the basis of our plot in homosexuality, an issue we think in this case, shouldn’t neccessarily be satrized or made humourous. And in addition to this, as tragedy came a close second choice, we think our decision to stay with our original sub-genre is justified.

Our target audience chose ‘acoustic’ non-diegtic music for and we think this is perfect and will definitely fit with the over all atmosphere and emotions we will try to create in our film opening.

Any of the above would have been acceptable to add to our plot and this also shows how the theme of homosexuality amongst others are considered to be typically included in rated 15 films.

This is exactly the response we were hoping for as we intend to show our characters personality and emotions through acting/physical interaction rather than dialogue. We think collectively it seems more effective. This also applies to the response on Question 6.

Again, as a group we had already decided to create characters that, portray a female lesbian couple and this seems to be, same as gay couples, something our audience is very responsive to.

Our audience seemed to gravitate towards making the homosexual couple slightly older, but as our target audience is still 15-21, then we still think any of the above age groups would be suitable and still able to be clearly relate and provoke emotions within our target audience.

Although our audience response to this particular question showed the majority wanted the  film location to be a work/school environment, taking into consideration our plot and themes and just how strongly we feel about showing intamacy between characters; we dont think the chosen location would be suitable. Instead we have chosen the close second choice, home/flat.

Any of the above would have been suitable, and most probably we will include all those features mentioned above in order to enusre our film opening maintains common codes and conventions of other romance films.

POSTED BY SHAHNAZ

AUDIENCE RESPONSE SURVEY

AUDIENCE RESPONSE SURVEY

The purpose of our audience response survey was to find out what our target audience (15-21yrs old) would want to see in a romance movie. Although our group has already thought out a structure and plot features of our opening, the audience response would still definitely be beneficial towards the production decisions we will have to make.
Since we indeed chose homosexuality as the basis of our plot; we subjected our questions in the below survey to it. This is to really narrow down exactly how our audience wish to see homosexuality presented.




 1. What type of sub-genre would you like to see in a romance film?

Tragedy Comedy Drama

2. Do you have a prefered sound track type you would like to hear in a romance film?

Repetitive beat/Riff/Chords Pop Orchestra/Classic Acoustic

3. We intend out film opening to be rated 15, what would you like to see in a rated 15 romance movie ?

Drug Use Nudity Profanity(Swearing) Homosexuality Violence

4. In a typical film opening for a romance movie, which you of the following would you prefer?

Less dialogue, more acting More dialogue, less acting

5. Which of the following would you prefer in a movie based on homosexuality ?

Males(Gay Couple) Female (Lesbian couple)

6. How would you prefer to say the main characters/protagonist effectively convey emotion about/towards eachother?

Verbally Physically

7. What age would you prefer the homosexual couple to be?

15-16 16-17 18-19

8. Which of the following ethnicities would you like the characters that are portraying the couple to be?

Caucasian (white) Black (African/Carribean) Asian Indian Other

9. In which of the following locations would you prefer the romance film opening to be in?

Home/Flat Work/School enviroment Homosexual club Gathering

10. Which of these do you think could effectively introduce the couple and the film theme of sexuality?

Voice over A flashback Montage (a series of shots the audience has to piece together) POSTED BY SHAHNAZ