A
feminist perspective focuses on the hegemony at play and the pre-constructed
roles for men and women in society. (Sellnow, 89). In other words, how anyone
who isn’t a white heterosexual man is at a disadvantage. Obviously the media
has a lot to do with this because they continue to perpetuate the idea that men
and women should act a certain way. Although there is certainly more
representation of people who don’t fit the white-straight-man profile, there is
still the idea that those people are
clearly different and will never be considered “normal”.
I
saw an example of this the other day while I was browsing Netflix. I didn’t
know what I should watch so I clicked on the Browse tab and then appeared a
list of different, what I could assume were, genres.
Now I say that I assume that these are a list of genres
because most of them are. However,
they include Gay & Lesbian as an option, and I don’t see how that could be
a genre. Will the whole show or movie revolve around the fact that the people
in it are gay? Does this mean that there can be no straight characters? Will
the characters only talk about the fact that they are gay? Does this mean that
there will be no dramatic, comedic or suspenseful undertones? I was very
intrigued to learn about this new genre so I clicked on the link and a list of
subgenres appears next to the title Gay & Lesbian.
Apparently the people at Netflix thought it was much more
logical to create a whole other genre dedicated to non-heterosexuals and then
divide it into actual genres instead of just classifying them like they would
classify any other movie where heterosexuality is the norm.
The first movie that caught my eye was La vie d’Adèle (Blue
is the Warmest Color). I saw it earlier this year and I remember thinking that
it was a great love story between two people who both just happened to be
women. At the beginning, they show how the main character struggles with her
sexuality because she is afraid of the way her friends and family will look at her, but more
than half of the movie is about the relationship she has with her girlfriend. So
yes, they do touch on the subject of homosexuality and how it is perceived in society, but that is not what the movie is about. It is a love story. They
show how they love each other (like straight couples do), fight (like straight
couples do) and SPOILER break up (like straight couples do).
This movie could have clearly fit alongside the other movies
in either the Romantic or Dramatic genres. So I checked, and sure enough, it
was under both. Yes. It was under Gay & Lesbian Dramas, a subgenre of
Drama.
Why must it be clarified that the movie does not center on a
straight couple? This type of
thing is what continues to support heteronormativity and it is being done on a
very popular website that can be accessed worldwide. They have the power to
counter masculine hegemonic beliefs and yet they decide to further perpetuate
it.
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