Lights, Camera, Discrimination: The Price of Authenticity in Hollywood
There’s a double standard with leading men and their sexual orientations, that isn’t the same for leading women
June is the month of San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival.
Frameline Film Festival is the longest running LGBTQ+ film festival in the nation, and I’ve been enjoying it for around the past ten years or so.
Gay animals, lesbians on the Greek island of Lesvos, and a futuristic post patriarchal, post intergenerational trauma society on the moon are among the movie topics this year — and I can’t wait.
One thing that’s been on my mind in context with the film festival is the continued caution exhibited by gay actors looking for mainstream roles.
Notably, no openly gay male actor has ever won an Oscar for acting.
There’s a double standard when it comes to leading men and their sexual orientation that just isn’t quite the same for leading women, who may even gain allure with straight male viewers if they’re bisexual (though this doesn’t diminish the real risk of backlash from conservative audiences).
Why is this? How many actors remain closeted now because of this?
