Times Article: "How Gay Life in America Has Changed Over 50 Years" & CBS's "The Homosexuals"

 

When reflecting upon the intense emotion and retaliation of the queer population during the Stonewall riots, it is instances such as the LIFE Magazine article, Homosexuality in America, (that the TIMES article discusses) that remind us of the misconceptions about queer folks that straight people held at the time. The LIFE magazine article reinforced stereotypes of gay people and demeaned their natural existence claiming it to be a “choice”. However, in a way, it is articles like these that introduce queer existence to unknowing straight people. Is belittling a group of people an adequate manner of introducing them to a large and unknowing portion of the general population? I do not think so. What pits the LIFE magazine article against CBS’s The Homosexuals? I believe that even though CBS’s documentary at times was clouded by the cis and straight status quo, it did a better job in painting an unbiased picture of queer American existence than the LIFE article did. Along with this, it exposed to viewers what the value system of Americans at this time truly was. There was a strong belief that queer folks jeopardized the traditional American family value system or was a bad influence on the American youth.

I think what is interesting to me about the CBS documentary, is that they included queer voices. The LIFE article claimed that queer life was “sad and sordid”, while the CBS special covered multiple different aspects of queer existence and American attitudes towards it. Almost all social and political views of the time regarding gay people were addressed and there were opportunities to hear from real queer people themselves. This in comparison to the LIFE article is a better way of informing straight cis people of queer culture and existence. What is new and unknown can be scary and threatening. Painting a negative picture of gay people does nothing but perpetuate already existing fear and rage towards queer folk. It also contradicts the reality of being queer. Queer people are not abominations despite being treated like such in certain parts of the world or the country. The erasure of queer experience when discussing queer people’s existence is a disservice to those who are uneducated on the matter.