Barriers to Diversity in Film – A Research Review – Aug 07

(1986) depicted two lesbians as lovers, and although the film was
praised and given awards, Cathy Tyson’s role as a ‘hard’ black woman
‘whose hatred of men manifests itself in lesbianism’ is criticised as
being one-dimensional. The director, Neil Jordan, defended the film as
essentially about George, Bob Hoskins’ character, and not an
exploration of the relationship between Cathy and her lover (Bourne
2001).
Two films in the late 1980s and the early 90s are cited by Bourne as
being important in positive portrayal: The Fruit Machine (1988) written
by Frank Clarke, a Liverpool working-class gay man, and Young Soul
Rebels (1991), the first British film made by an openly-gay black film
director. Isaac Julien argued that the film was made to explore black
masculinity and to look behind the mask at men’s vulnerability, to
depict them “as being characters in their own right rather than
characters that represent different political points of view” (Bourne
2001:163). Since Young Soul Rebels, Bourne argues that black gay and
lesbian characters have all but vanished from mainstream film and
television, apart from an occasional appearance in Ab Fab and East
Enders.
An article on Notes on a Scandal (2006) argues that we are used to
stereotypes of lesbian characters on film, and Judi Dench as a stalking
character in the film is represented as a flawed human being, not
C:\Documents and Settings\mcorless\Desktop\Intranet\Barriers to Diversity in Film_DS_RB 20 Aug
07.doc
120