Homosexuality In Parker Tyler's Screening The Sexes
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In Parker Tyler’s Screening the Sexes, he was able to write a book on how Hollywood portrayed homosexuality in movies. He particularly focuses on Mae West, a famous actress and playwright in her time, and how she was a marker in films for all ages when it came to homosexuality. West fit the bill of a traditional Hollywood starlet. She was beautiful, a sex symbol and had wicked talent, yet she challenged conventional movie viewers with her outlook on freedom of sex and going against the double standards when it came to it. Her being assertive with her sexuality played a very prominent role in the beginning of the androgynous era. She didn’t want to be conscripted into any one group of people, rather she would rather gender-bend her sexuality. She didn’t fear the camera's disapproval or society’s, and she became a popular icon with the gays as well as Tyler. West has a distinct way of blending vulgar comedy and sex. She was larger than life, shape, scope, and perhaps like the homosexuals, the subject of wonder given their almost abnormal actions not yet justified in the world around them. In 1970, West made the film Myra Breckinridge. At this point she was looking really old and her gay following was obtrusive, but despite this fact Tyler still expressed his likeness for her, so much so that he states that she’s the “Mother Superior” of the homo society.…show more content… Tyler discusses how movies have explored sexual freedom such as Boys in the band in which homosexuality is hardly disguised. Though not always the case with Tyler, he further goes on to imply that a movies contents, quality, and attitudes are gestures towards how society views homosexuality. This has Tyler passing some odd judgment on what he thinks about these movies. He shows coolness towards the movie Psycho and approbation towards the movie The