Enforcing Heterosexuality: Adapting Lillian Hellman's 'The Children's Hour' for the screen

• Authors: Will Glass

Title variants

PL

Narzucanie heteroseksualności: Adaptacja filmowa powieści Lillian Helman "The Children's Hour"

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 banned homosexuality from the screen. This paper uses two films as a case study of the Code's impact on Hollywood's depiction of homosexuality. Both These Three (1936) and The Children's Hour (1961) were adaptations of Lillian Hellman's play in which two single female teachers have their lives ruined by a lie that the women were lesbians. With the first the Code's impact was pervasive. The PCA dictated that the accusations of lesbianism be omitted. By the 1960s, the PCA was relaxing its ban so a film could be made that retained the play's lesbian content. This paper argues that the Production Code was Hollywood's means of enforcing heterosexuality and that, even in the era when the Code's influence was waning, the necessity of maintaining heterosexuality as society's norm still governed how movies (mis)represented the lives of queer people.

PL

Zgodnie z Kodeksem Haysa z 1930 roku zakazane zostało ukazywanie wątków homoseksualnych na ekranach kin. Niniejszy artykuł prezentuje dwa filmy jako studium wpływu Kodeksu na przedstawianie homoseksualności w Hollywood. Zarówno These Three (1936), jak i The Children's Hour (1961) to adaptacje sztuki Lillian Hellman, opowiadającej o złamanym życiu dwóch nauczycielek pomówionych o lesbianizm. W przypadku pierwszego filmu, wpływ Kodeksu był absolutny. PCA nakazało przemilczeć watki lesbijskie. W latach 60tych natomiast PCA złagodziło zakaz, film mógł zatem zachować lesbijski charakter sztuki. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu dowieść, że Kodeks Haysa był hollywoodzkim narzędziem wymuszania heteronormatywności oraz że konieczność utrzymania heteroseksualności jako społecznej normy nieustannie determinowała (fałszywe) przedstawienia życia osób homoseksualnych, nawet podczas malejącego znaczenia Kodeksu.

• Publisher: InterAlia
• Journal: InterAlia: Pismo poświęcone studiom queer
• Year: 2010
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 6

Dates

published

2010

Contributors

author

Will Glass

• University of Warsaw

References

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