Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Fall 12-3-2025

Faculty Advisor(s)

Ian Barnard

Abstract

While watching the documentary, The Celluloid Closet, I was instantly intrigued by how queer people and cinema mixed. Going as far back to the black and white, silent films era, queer people have been used as comedic relief, but not in an appealing way. Constantly being the butt of the joke, disregard for queer people became so normalized that certain tropes started popping up in cinema. One trope that we can still see be used frequently in today’s films is the “bury your gays” trope (also known as the “dead lesbians syndrome”) where queer characters in cinema are not allowed a happy ending and are typically killed off in an extremely gruesome manner, usually after finally accepting an intimate part of themselves. Some examples in cinema are The 100 (2014), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and The Children’s Hour (1961). These harmful tropes tend to send the message that queer people are not valuable or important enough to be living a happy and free life only because of their sexual orientation. Sure, the representation of queer characters in cinema is there, but what good is it when they’re killed off in the end? Another interesting fact I saw being mentioned in the documentary was the usage of the slur “faggot”. Antonio Fargas, one of the interviewees, brought up the point that in cinema, the n slur is used to either portray an ignorant and racist cop, or as a form of friendliness and bond between two Black people. He points out that this is different from how cinema uses the word “faggot”, where characters in film use it as a casual yet offensive manner. This trains the audience to put an insulting context to the word, where being called a “faggot” or “fag” is meant to be as a form of attacking. Recently, cinema has been doing better at representing queer people, however, there is still a lot of changes to be made. No more queer murderers or killers, no more killing off queer characters, no more offensive queer jabs. If we want queer people and cinema to mix, we have to do it right, and good, correct representation is the way make that happen.

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Presented at the Fall 2025 Student Scholar Symposium at Chapman University.

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