1. the act of representing, or the state of being represented.
2. the expression or designation of a person or group by some term, character, symbol, or the like.
Not that long ago, during the worst days of the Covid pandemic, I read somewhere about the 2018 film, “Love, Simon'', which I then found out was available on Netflix. Oh, well, something to do on a Lockdown afternoon.
I found the film a bit saccharin, lukewarm, but I drew a large amount of satisfaction on seeing a romantic, coming out film within a school setting, which had anoverwhelmingly accepting outcome.
When I was going through the early stages of my coming out (yes, coming out is more of a process, it is not a single event), a movie with a homoerotic theme came out (pun intended). “Another Country”, which I just realised had Colin Firth and Rupert Everett as its protagonists) had a huge impact on my young, 15 years old self.
If I’m honest, I don’t remember its story at all, but that doesn’t really matter. It wasn’t its narrative that caused such an impact. It was REPRESENTATION. Those boys on the silver screen were closer to me than anything I had ever seen.
The other, overwhelming memory I have of that day, is the sickening worry of being spotted going into the cinema, an excitement tainted by the guilt and shame imposed on me for as long as I could remember.
Their romance conducted in secrecy. Their lives conducted in secrecy. All hush-hush and watching our backs. Fear. Anxiety with a sense of shame that has been drilled into our soul by everyone, and everything throughout our childhood and further on.
Why on earth should going into the cinema make you feel filthy, disgusting or like a disappointment?
"You are shameful", they kept telling you. That’s abuse. It creates obstacles to the development of children that, even though some of us manage to overcome, it never goes fully away.
That’s why we have to stand up and be visible. That’s why we have to look at history again and remove all the secrecy surrounding this aspect of the personality of some remarkable characters.
Pride Month and Pride Marches, traditionally held in June, commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a watershed moment in LGBTQ history. But the struggle for acceptance and equality is much older than that.
LGBTQ History Month is a time to celebrate not just Stonewall and the progress we have achieved since, but also to remember the people and movements that happened before that. They paved the way by simply existing.
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