A Critical Evaluation of Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia

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CS320                                                                         Belinda Clarke

Assignment one                                                                Student no:9505215

A Critical Evaluation of Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia

The mass media (i.e. film, television and newspapers) is for the mainstream, perhaps the most important source of information about homosexuality and AIDS.  Consequently how these subjects are portrayed in the mass media will heavily influence society’s understanding of these issues. Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia (1993), a film produced by TriStar is Hollywood's first attempt to confront AIDS and homosexuality. This film deals with how Andrew Beckett, a gay man copes with AIDS, discrimination and the stigmatisation of homosexuality.

During this essay I will analyse how AIDS and homosexuality are constructed in Philadelphia by using two opposing strands of argument which show the mechanisms through which the film’s narrative both reinforces prevailing mainstream cultural values and how it problematises them. I will address five questions that the film prompts: 1) Are the images of the gay men in this film fair and representative of the gay population? 2) Is the innocent victim/guilty victim paradigm addressed adequately and does the film challenge or reinforce this mainstream ideology? 3) Does the film accurately represent AIDS? 4) How is gay sex addressed, implicitly, explicitly or not at all? 5) How is homophobia dealt with in this film? Finally I will summarise my arguments and in conclusion give my personal opinion of the films capabilities and deficiencies.

In order to make the issues of homosexuality and AIDS in this film accessible to straight people, Andrew Beckett's/ Tom Hanks’ character has been toned down. Andrew Beckett is portrayed as charming, masculine and non- threatening. He is “normal,” white, middle class, a successful lawyer and an all round nice man.  In fact Beckett is so unassuming that it is not until he is rushed to hospital to be treated for AIDS (about 20 minutes into the film) that we know he is gay because we meet his same sex “partner,” Miguel Alvarez/Antonio Banderas.  The problem with Philadelphia’s cleaned up, positive images of gay men is they are not truly representative or an accurate portrayal. Gay men come in all shapes and sizes, colours and creeds and have individual sexual persuasions. As Alan Sinfield said in his book Gay and After: 

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 “The pervasive images of white, upper-middle class, “straight looking” people is at the expense of those more distanced from and threatening to the mainstream, such as the poor, ethnic/racial /sexual minorities, drag queens, and butch lesbians… The deal is acceptance for the straight-acting at the price of dumping embarrassing brothers and sisters.”

Hence this film potentially alienates any gay person that is not white, clean-cut and middle-class and it implies to a largely homophobic audience that anything other than a gay man who is virtually indistinguishable from a straight one is unacceptable.  

However in the films favour ...

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