Hollywood Cinema: What to do with LGBT content?

It’s 2015, a year where gay marriage is legal in 36 states, many where its legal for same sex partners to adopt and where the Olympic Committee, just yesterday, finally added sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policies.

So why then in the beginning of this seemingly progressive and modern year is the film industry noticeably behind the times?

It was shockingly revealed last week Pride, a film based on the true story of Lesbian and Gay activists supporting a group of striking miners in 1984 Britain, had been purposely altered to downplay LGBT themes in it US marketing.

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Pride which was recently nominated for a golden globe for Best Comedy was released in the U.S. on DVD in December, however as Pink News first noticed, the synopsis on the back of the DVD has been altered from the one on the movie’s official press release changing the original synopsis reading “London-based group of gay and lesbian activists” to simply “London-based activists.” Additionally a banner in the original artwork that read “Lesbians & gays support the miners” has been removed from the image on the U.S. DVD box entirely.

The original artwork for Pride

The back of the U.S. DVD box for Pride

It seems CBS who acquired the U.S distribution rights in July couldn’t seem to figure out how to sell it. They released the movie in limited release in September but try as they might couldn't get audiences to show up. However, you might think after critical success and high praise winning multiple awards at the British Independent Film Awards and recent nominations at the BAFTAs, CBS might have given the film another shot on home video, but it seems they've botched that too.

However, a source from CBS has told the press this was not an intentional move. The DVD distribution were outsourced to Sony Home Entertainment which, it has been claimed, means CBS had no control over or knowledge of the alterations to the DVD boxes, and those at the studio are unclear as to who made the changes. 

But here's the thing: unless it was unlikely design communication error, it seems to have been a purpose decision to remove LGBT references.

Ben Robert, director of the BFI Film Fund, noted on the matter "I'm not surprised that the US distributors have taken a decision to sell more copies by watering down the gay content. It's an unfortunate commercial reality both here and in the US that distributors have to deal with and consider in getting films onto the shop shelf. LGBT material is largely marginalised outside of rare hits.”

Matthew Warchus, the director of Pride, also commented on the scandal stating “Marketing Pride has proved an interesting challenge from day one, and there are many people in the mainstream who have yet to see the film. My guess is some of those people are imagining that the film is maybe ‘too political’ for them, and some others are imagining it could possibly be ‘too gay’.”

So if we are living in an era of film globalization, where to maximize profit films are being made with international audiences in mind, how can marketers sell LGBT films to the dominant Hollywood market?

Well it seems the most successful and straight forward way, is to simply not to sell them as LGBT films in the first place…

One of the most talked about films of last year was the critically acclaimed Imitation Game, the film focuses on mathematician Alan Turing, during World War II, trying to crack the enigma code to help end the war. However, so far what is quite rarely spoken about in the reviews and articles of the film, is the fact that Alan Turing was gay and put on trial for it, which was in fact a central plot line towards the end of the film. 

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Here and in many other cases the LGBT themes are dimmed to gain a wider audiences and to fit into ‘mainstream Hollywood cinema’. Sadly it seems to call a film a LGBT film or openly acknowledged LGBT themes will ostracize the film and marginalise it in a separate genre, resulting in it simply not fitting into the bigger global audiences.

But it is clear removing LGBT themes purposely to fit into global mainstream cinema is untoward.  Avoiding mentioning gay characters to try and get a bigger audience is to say that mainstream Hollywood audiences do not want to see LGBT characters in films. Which is simply not true.

Looking at the box office list of films, that primarily deal with homosexual themes or where the main characters are gay, the top twenty have all made over 25 million worldwide with the top ten having a combination of 29 oscar nominations and 7 wins. Clearly Hollywood audiences will watch LGBT content.

Highest Grossing Gay/Lesbian Movies at the Box Office

However, it can be positive not explicitly addressing these films as 'gay films'. Here LGBT characters can be portrayed as interesting developed characters without the sole focus being on their sexuality. Matthew Warchus went further in his statement about the controversy over Pride to say "I don’t consider Pride a ‘Gay Film’ or a ‘Straight Film’. I’m not interested in those labels. It is an honest film about compassion, tolerance, and courage."Its clear therefore that by losing these labels, LGBT characters and themes can be allowed to be involved in mainstream Hollywood cinema without it being an issue of solely identifying them and the film through sexuality. 

In the end I believe having LGBT characters and content should not be what defines a film. However, LGBT characters and content should be embraced and celebrated in a variety of mainstream Hollywood films without marketers feeling that by doing this they will segregate their films from big Hollywood audiences.

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