Fetch Your Copy The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality In The Movies Articulated By Vito Russo Formatted As Audiobook

of the books that really shaped the way I look at life and my favorite art form, the movies, I had to buy it over and over because I would lend it to friends who would baldly state, without any doubt, "You know I'm not giving this back, don't you".
I don't know if I'll ever truly be interested in nonfiction books, but this book was pretty interesting, It felt kind of repetitive and even outdated at certain points, but overall, it's an important and informative book,

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting kind of bored and tired of doing the same mindnumbing shit every day, so I decided to read more.
And like I said before, I've never been particularly interested in nonfiction books, but I decided

to read this nonfiction book because I was genuinely interested in learning about the depictions of gay people in Hollywood films.
And after reading this book, I feel like I learned a lot about that, particularly how shitty it has been and how shitty it still is.


So, I feel like I learned a lot, but I do have some problems with this book, I thought some parts were repetitive because the author would give an example of a horrible depiction and then another example and then another one, I know that the author was trying to prove a point with many examples, but reading a ton of film titles and character names all at once can be overwhelming.
And I thought some parts were outdated because the author sometimes treated homophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry as if they were mutually exclusive, as if there aren't people who simultaneously deal with homophobia and racism.
I don't completely fault the author for that because his focus was on Hollywood films and Hollywood films rarely depict gay people of color, But it would've been nice if this author had a more intersectional view about the depictions of gay people,

But overall, this book is really important, I think anyone who has an interest in film should read this book,

I'm writing this review right after finishing the book so I might change my rating later

Rating:/Uneven, The first section is great the early years of American cinema and the representation of homosexuality, Russo is informed and congenial, Later, he appears to know less about his subject oddly enough, The same films are discussed at length and some strange omissions/slights occur, Once we hit thes, the slights and omissions become glaring, Still, an important work and one I'm glad to have read, People's roles within a society are defined by those in power, For centuries homosexuality was defined by those in power as alternatively pathologiccal a mental disorder or morally deviant and evil, Vito Russo shows how in the medium of film, from silents through the's, the portrayal of gays and lesbians on film was defined by the powers that be as villainous, tainted, manipulative schemers hiding in shadows or flamboyantly hipswaying down the street, limp wrists akimbo, and alternately murderous or suicidal.


Some of the examples Russo provides are hilarious in their extremity some heartbreakingly sad, If you remove the issue of homosexuality from the equation, the definition of letting others decide the image with which society labels us can apply to any minority group.
The issue is universal. This book is an excellent example of that point, Rating:of five

A groundbreaking revelation when it came out almostyears ago, this book, as revised by its author in, is very dated and it's never been my idea of a prose paradigm.


I admit I was going down the primrose path of nostalgia when I decided to read this revised edition, I'd read the first edition as an eager young slutabouttown, yearning to impress the Older Men!! Oh, those old roués! I was seducing in job lots with my encyclopedic knowledge of their oldfashioned world.


snort

But I did learn a lot, and it's always useful to do so, I wasn't aware that queer subtexts in Hollywood movies were the prime motivating factor for the introduction of the Production Code, I wasn't aware that the hoi polloi didn't know some of its major heartthrobs only throbbed for their own kind Rock, of course, but Farley Granger, Randolph Scott, Burt Lancaster, ye gods what fun it would have been to be there then!!.
. . but I've known all that for a long time now, and I found it dreary to go back and read the uninspired prose of the late Mr.
Russo without the sense of discovery and amazement I brought to it the first time,

You can't go home again, I suppose one shouldn't want to, either, but the urge hits once in a way, less and less often as the years pile up, I expect I'll stub my toe on this rock again, I'd say, if you're an average straight person, this book could be informative and possibly even interesting if you like the movies a lot, But it sure won't be entertaining, a really interesting pre aids crisis look on queer cinema, i loved seeing the implications for the future of the genre Read this for an essay, and I enjoyed it, having seen the docu a few times.
The book has more space for a deeper look at some of the examples that flies back on film, One of my favourite random facts in the book: Greta Garbo once "expressed, . . her desire to play in a film version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray with herself in the title role and Marilyn Monroe as a young girl ruined by Dorian".
Imagine how AWESOME that could've been And with this, my final book of this year's reading challenge comes to a close,

The Celluloid Closet functions as a multipurpose wonder: first, as a survey of Hollywood films from the thirties to the eighties and the cultural context within which those movies functioned when signaling toward, or denigrating, homosexual life second, the primer of movies come with a helping of very fair criticism to the point where it becomes a way to amass a list of good gay/lesbian film recommendations I hesitate to say 'queer' because Russo is only really dealing with homosexuality here, hence the subtitle and third, it manages to be a microcosm of a larger struggle that Lillian Faderman's The Gay Revolution points to: the illusory liberalism of institutions that are bizarrely considered liberal in this case, Hollywood and the extent to which the queer community would want, to quote James Baldwin, "integrate into a burning house.
" Russo celebrates the victories of independent cinema and slams the gutless, overly cautious, conservative, and pretty shitty institution that is Hollywood film, but for good reasons that are still valid today.
For Faderman, the push/pull between creating a radical, independent infrastructure for gay and lesbian voices to flourish versus trying to court a larger acceptance with a tired, formulaic mainstream.


Some people find Russo's snark and/or fury offputting, but this is just a reflection of our generation having historical amnesia and/or its flagrant ingratitude towards those who fought and perished before us in the name of civil rights.
The inability of folks who read this admittedly older text and understand the outrage are simply not in touch with the justifications of that outrage, which to me shows a willing blindness towards the origins of our current political situation, which in turn begets a dangerous and foolish ignorance that stratifies queer politics as tepid and backwards.
It's a weird extension of AIDS erasure to disallow Russo his fury as his friends and lovers died around him,

This was an entertaining, informative, adorably snarky, and very important text to reevaluate why people are so upset at folks who condemn Hollywood writ large, who value independently created product over industry product, the condescension towards those who strive for something with authenticity and verisimilitude, and how much people seem all too willing to "sell out," buy the assimilationist KoolAid, and then wonder why the best Hollywood has to offer is the comfortable, upperclass sterility of Love, Simon.
It turns out perhaps that people with more "hipster" or "snobby" preferences might just feel injured by how the mainstream has betrayed reflecting accurately the lives and struggles of real people.
But there's no room for that in a great cultural moment that is terrified of critiquing anything in the era of Peak TV, that lets Disney beat stories to death and yet we willfully ingest their umpteenth iterations.
The Celluloid Closet is an invitation for popcultureobsessed queers to reequate themselves with their queer roots and core film sensibilities, Excellent. The oldest trick in the book, to disenfranchise people, is to make them believe they have no past, It's a trick often pulled by 'conservatives', Pretend that there were no homosexuals before the sixties, Meanwhile, Western Civilization is the product of gay, and a few bisexual, men, The patriarchy pretty much ruled the roost when it came to the early days, unlike now and brand new day notwithstanding,

But 'The Gay' has been there all along, From,old cave paintings, to the Silver Screen, More everywhere than they'd have you believe,

I think part of the postcoming out process for every LGBTkid is an education in the history of their own group, Your church and your home town might have made you feel like you were the first and only homo in history, . . but the indisputable, documented truth is that you come from a long line of us,

And this book will let you see how showbiz, too, is part of your domain,

A good read if you want to build some cultural solidity around yourself after a childhood spent in the barren flats of outcastland,

May also be of interest to true film buffs, straight and LGBT, who want to know more about the real history of movies, as opposed to the sanitized and fascist stuff they tell you at dinner tables in the South.


Watch and learn, young ones, The future is yours. In summer of, HBO ran a documentary about Vito Russo, and I loved it and decided to read this, his life's work,

This is a very readable and eyeopening, exhaustive overview of the way gay characters have been portrayed in movies, from the beginning of cinema until the mideighties, when this was written and revised.
It covers a LOT of ground, and only occasionally dips into what I found to be overreacting, But I don't want to focus on that, as I agreed withof what Russo says here, It really changed the way I looked at some of the stereotypical "sissy" roles of thes ands, the way gay men morphed into onscreen villains in thes ands, and the rise of independent film in thes.
Russo died of AIDS inI wish he could have stayed around, not for the least reason that I would love to know what he thought of the progress and lack thereof that has been made in this post"Will and Grace," Bravo TV era.
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