Resumen de Cine negro desviado
Representation of homosexuality was consistently silenced during the Hollywood Golden Age. This doesn’t mean necessarily that it could not play a role in classical film narratives.
Given its emphasis on narrative and moral ambiguity and its dwelling on the more sordid realities of urban life, film noir proved to be a fertile ground full of potential for characters who might be homosexual. Drawing from films as diverse as Double Indemnity, The Kiss of Death, Gilda, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Combo, The Dark Corner or The Big Sleep, Richard Dyer traces a number of characters that participate of elements that, during the 1940s and the early 1950s were attributed to homosexuals. The author focuses on the homosexual character first and then in plot incidentals to make such potential explicit. Of course nothing can prove homosexuality is really there, but in some cases it seems clearly suggested. In most cases, suggested homosexuality is used to point out perversion or utter wickedness, as in the character played by Richard Widmark in The Kiss of Death. But homosexuality can also be read into male friendships in Gilda or Double Indemnity. Finally, the prissy aesthete impersonated by Clifton Webb in Laura and The Dark Corner could easily be read by audiences in the period as re-enacting homosexuality.
