Last week I talked about the movie "barbershop" and it being a comedy and why I thought it was rated comedy and PG-13. This movie when it comes to heteronormativity had a lot of it in there. This movie had a lot of hetero relationships. The most interesting part of the role played for hetero that I felt might have been political belief is that every guy one this movie was in a hetero relationship and even EVE had a boyfriend. I feel like this being a black cast (minus the one white barber who portrayed blackness lol) adding homonormativity wouldn't have gotten it to the theaters and as good as a rating as it did because politics and people are not as excepting of that image as it should be. That movie was about black barbers and how the men act when they are in the shop. They didn't have one gay client come in or have a gay barber. BUT WHY? They could have made a big message with that movie. The reason I say politics are involved is because everything is politics once you break it down. If the movie hadn't made it to the theaters some of the characters wouldn't have been noticed and if the big time characters like ICE Cube and Cedric would have been seen in that type of environment that could have hurt their career. In class we discussed how making a change to something that everyone likes is a big risk and can hurt your career as a artist and i feel like its the same thing for movie stars. Cedric is a comedian and Ice Cube was a rapper they could have lost fans had they been seen in a movie with something that's not "NORMAL". But that's just my opinion.
An article with reviews: http://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2002/barbershop.html
I think you're right about how society is generally not as accepting of "homonormativity." Anytime people want to discuss homosexuality, there's always going to be the person who says "I don't have a problem with gay people, I just don't want it in my face." And it's funny because saying that indicates that they actually DO have a problem with it. Also something that I've noticed with movies is that gay people are usually portrayed SO stereotypically, so even a movie that portrays gay people probably wouldn't even be considered "homonormative" because there's nothing truly "normal" about the way the characters are portrayed.
ReplyDeleteHilarious photo! Its interesting to discuss heteronormativity and how it is such a staple part of our society. With the Supreme Court making gay marriage legal on a national level, I feel like more and more companies are putting out commercials with ALL kinds of people and relationships even more interracial couples (which was made legal almost 50 years ago) are being shown. With Barber Shop coming out more than a decade ago hetero, opposite-sex, non-interracial couples were still the general norm within media. It will be interesting to see how the relationship and family structure within media changes over the next few years.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting. It's like once you see the lack of diversity (of any kind: POC, women, LGBT+) you notice something kind of strange— almost all the characters in movies could be women, or gay, or black, and it wouldn't make the movie radically different. When writers and directors aren't making the characters into caricatures or stereotypes, they're able to let anyone play the role. It's like the controversy surrounding the Spider-Man franchise after Childish Gambino jokingly proposed he play the next Spider-Man. Obviously White America flipped their shit, but it led us all to an interesting, if not obvious question: why does Spider-Man being black make the role so different? The answer if pretty easy. It doesn't.
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote about this!!
I find it really cool that you thought that having a gay barber will be great for the movie cause now I think that would be a great idea! I feel that will also add conflicts and letting us step inside that world about the character being inside a barber full of heterosexual people. Especially because now in this new day in age it would be appropriate to have that talk in a barbershop and in a movie so people could finally open there eyes.
ReplyDeletesoo, I never watched this movie before, but for this to be on barber shop has to mean something because for African American men ,well in my family the barbershop is where the men talk "guy" stough football ect, you rarely see gay men as a barber or an barbershop, I think its great that they have this movie showing that thing are changing and people are starting to adapt to the change. and except instead of reject.
ReplyDeleteIve never seen this movie, with that being said i agree with your statements on society and its view of homosexual couples. Also when you add a homo couple to a movie a lot of the time they become stereotyped if they were to add a gay man to man couple it would end up being the overly generic flamboyant gay, and if they were to add a lesbian couple most likely they would be hyper-sexulized.
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