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The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies QUOTES

The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies QUOTES

1 " Any story dealing, however seriously, with homosexual love is taken to be a story about homosexuality while stories dealing with heterosexual love are seen as stories about the individual people they portray. This is as much a problem today for American filmmakers who cannot conceive of the presence of gay characters in a film unless the specific subject of the film is homosexuality. Lesbians and gay men are thereby classified as purely sexual creatures, people defined solely by their sexual urges. "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

2 " The root of heterosexual fear of male homosexuality is in the fact that anyone might be gay. Straight men aren't threatened by a flamboyant faggot because they know they aren't like that; they're threatened by a guy who's just like they are who turns out to be queer. "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

3 " You can’t plead tolerance for gays by saying that they’re just like everyone else. Tolerance is something we should extend to people who are not like everyone else. "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

4 " It is an old stereotype, that homosexuality has to do only with sex while heterosexuality is multifaceted and embraces love and romance. "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

5 " No one ever asks what causes heterosexuality because no one is interested in stopping it "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

6 " America's obsession with defining homosexuality by its third syllable contrasts sharply with more human exercises from Europe. "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

7 " American society has willfully deleted the fact of homosexual behavior from its mind, laundering things as they come along, in order to maintain a more comfortable illusion. The censors removed it; the critics said, "Well, look! It isn't there"; and anyone who still saw it was labeled a pervert "

― Vito Russo , The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies