Gay And Lesbian Essay Research Paper Historians free essay sample

Gay And Lesbian Essay, Research Paper Historians have traced homosexual imagination to the really start of American film, with the Thomas Edison movie The Gay Brothers ( 1895 ) , directed by William Dickson, in which two work forces dance together. Female imitators and adult females playing male functions, both fixtures in late-19th-century music hall and theatre, began looking in split- and one-reel movies of the 1900s. Today this work can look more overtly gay or sapphic than it did in its clip, when the impression of homosexual desire was more purely forbidden # 8212 ; despite the frequence of gender camouflages and same-sex bonding in popular amusement. By the teens, nevertheless, American comedies were trusting on the audience s acknowledgment of homosexual types. In Algie The Miner ( 1912 ) , a one-reeler produced by Alice Guy-Blach? , Billy Quirk was a pantywaist who wants to go a cowpuncher. Quirk besides played a dandy in the two-reeler The Barber ( 1918 ) , in which the Chaplin impersonator Billy West styles h is hair with girlish threads. We will write a custom essay sample on Gay And Lesbian Essay Research Paper Historians or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Behind The Screen ( 1916 ) has the existent Chaplin snoging Edna Purviance when she s disguised as a male child ; large bully Eric Campbell descry them and starts laping approximately, mocking what he thinks are two cheery lovers, until Chaplin wallops him. In the five-reel A Florida Enchantment ( 1914 ) , directed by Sidney Drew, Edith Storey eats a charming seed that changes one s gender, and she turns into a pants-wearing woman-chaser in a crafty public presentation of masculine bearing and attitude. Drew, who besides starred, tries a seed himself and is shortly softening about with the hallmark effeminate idiosyncrasies. When he dresses as a adult female, an angry rabble runs him off a wharf and into the ocean # 8212 ; at which clip Storey awakens from her dream. In the 1920s, Stan Laurel showed a preference for effeminate wit in his solo two-reelers. The Soilers ( 1923 ) , his send-up of the rugged actioner The Spoilers, includes a femme homosexual cowpuncher who adores the bu tch work forces around him. Laurel himself was the effeminate making alarm in With Love And Hisses ( 1927 ) , one of his first movies with Oliver Hardy. As a comedy couple, the brace made Liberty ( 1929 ) , directed by Leo McCarey, in which the male childs are at large cons who shed their prison attire but unwittingly slip on each other s pants. The movie s running joke has them seeking to conceal and exchange bloomerss, merely to be invariably caught together with their bloomerss down by aghast passersby. Leo White in Erich von Stroheim s The Devil s Passkey ( 1920 ) and George K. Arthur in Irene ( 1926 ) were emasculate frock interior decorators as amusing alleviation ; more serious imagination came from producer/director Cecil B. De Mille, who spiced up an orgy scene in Manslaughter ( 1922 ) with some sapphic caressing, and Alla Nazimova, who starred in and produced Salome ( 1923 ) , a conventionalized version of the Oscar Wilde drama, reputedly filmed with an all-homosexual cast .The first old ages of sound saw # 8212 ; and heard # 8212 ; the same effeminate characters of the soundless epoch, with dandified chorus male childs and costumiers in the 1929 musicals Why Bring That Up? and The Broadway Melody. The Motion Picture Production Code, adopted by Hollywood in 1930, included homosexualism among its many tabu, but effeminate wit, where the character was more nonsexual than homosexual, persisted with such 1934 musicals as Wonder Bar and Myrt And Marge. Franklin Pangborn had played Viola tricolor hortensiss since the 20s but did his best work in talking pictures such as the 1933 movies Merely Yesterday, International House, and Professional Sweetheart. Edward Everett Horton fluttered through The Front Page ( 1931 ) and The Gay Divorcee ( 1934 ) , and Viola tricolor hortensis wit besides punctuated Our Betters ( 1933, directed by George Cukor ) , Sailor s Luck ( 1933, directed by Raoul Walsh ) , Laurel and Hardy s The Midnight Patrol ( 1933 ) , Mae Wes t s She Done Him Wrong ( 1933 ) , and Chaplin s Modern Times ( 1936 ) . Name Her Savage ( 1932 ) had an uninhibited scene set in a homosexual saloon, Sandra Shaw played a cross-dressing adult female in Blood Money ( 1933 ) , and the gender-swap travesty The Warrior s Husband ( 1933 ) was filled with homosexual and sapphic insinuation. More serious movies besides had homosexual state of affairss. A tuxedoed Marlene Dietrich takes a rose and a buss from a immature lady in Morocco ( 1930 ) , directed by Josef von Sternberg. Greta Garbo dresses as a adult male in Queen Christina ( 1933 ) , directed by Rouben Mamoulian ; Christina kisses Elizabeth Young, and claims she ll decease non an old amah but a unmarried man. Hell s Highway ( 1932 ) alluded to homosexualism in prison, and in De Mille s The Sign Of The Cross ( 1932 ) Charles Laughton played Nero as the effeminate, childish maniac the Emperor truly was. Dracula s Daughter ( 1936 ) brought an titillating border to Gloria Holden s b loodlust for adult females. But when Lillian Hellman s drama The Children s Hour was filmed that twelvemonth by manager William Wyler, its sapphic subject was cut and the movie was re-titled These Three. Besides in 1936, Katharine Hepburn was disguised as a male child for manager George Cukor s Sylvia Scarlett. A box-office floating-point operation, it hurt their callings and inhibited other drag comedies from researching transgender and homoerotic feelings.Cary Grant explodes, I ve merely gone GAY all of a sudden! to explicate the negligee he s have oning in Bringing Up Baby ( 1938 ) , directed by Howard Hawks. Afterward, homosexual mentions become progressively rare. Judith Anderson played a subtly sapphic character as the housekeeper obsessed with her dead kept woman in Rebecca ( 1940 ) , directed by Alfred Hitchcock. More overtly homosexual was the elegant condemnable Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre in John Huston s The Maltese Falcon ( 1941 ) ; Sydney Greenstreet as Casper Gutman and Elisha Cook Jr. as his gunsel Wilmer were about as uncloseted. Billy Wilder s The Lost Weekend ( 1945 ) included Frank Faylen as Bim, an intimidating homosexual male nurse. In Alfred Hitchcock s Rope ( 1948 ) , John Dall and Farley Granger played slayers based on the 1920s liquidators Leopold and Loeb. Like their real-life theoretical accounts, the characters are lovers, but the movie keeps their homosexualism wholly in the wordless shading of the histrions public presentations. Independent film makers James Watson and Melville Webber used titillating imagination, homosexual and heterosexual, in their experimental movie Lot In Sodom ( 1933 ) . The alleged immoral capable affair of Children Of Loneliness, a 1939 exploitationer, kept the movie unreleased until 1953. Its prophylactic narratives depict a adult female brought back from the threshold of sapphism ( while her inborn seductress gets hit by a truck ) , and a immature adult male who feels more female than mal e and so commits self-destruction. In 1947, the 17-year-old Kenneth Anger shooting Fireworks in his parents place and made one of the polar daring movies. He d neer once more do anything every bit homoerotic as the crewmans of Fireworks, who pose for him and so rupture him apart ( although his Scorpio Rising ( 1963 ) recognizes the homosexual impulses in the biker scene ) . A adolescent Curtis Harrigton worked in a similar vena with his 1946 short Fragment Of Seeking. Willard Maas collaborated on such gay-themed psychodramas as Images In The Snow ( 1948 ) , The Mechanicss Of Love ( 1955 ) , and Narcissus ( 1956 ) . Gregory Markopolous vision of male beauty is already at work in his early movies Du Sang, De La Volupt? Et De La Mort ( 1948 ) , Swain ( 1950 ) , and Flowers Of Asphalt ( 1951 ) .In 1950 Hollywood glanced at sapphism with the womens-prison movie Caged and with Young Man With A Horn, where Lauren Bacall finds her girlfriend more interesting than Kirk Douglas. A subtler h omosexuality characterized Robert Walker s liquidator in Hitchcock s Strangers On A Train ( 1951 ) , or the teenage Plato, played by Sal Mineo, who loves the older male child Jim, played by James Dean, in Rebel Without A Cause ( 1955 ) , directed by Nicholas Ray. Director Vincente Minnelli filmed Robert Anderson s drama Tea And Sympathy ( 1956 ) ; John Kerr was the college pupil everyone thinks is homosexual until an older adult female lets him turn out otherwise. Tennessee Williams drama Suddenly Last Summer was filmed by manager Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1959. Scripted by Williams and Gore Vidal, it delivered a incubus history of a homosexual adult male devoured by the starvation boys he has exploited. The following twelvemonth, an effort by Roman general Laurence Olivier to score his slave Tony Curtis was cut from manager Stanley Kubrick s Spartacus ; the scene was eventually restored for the movie s 1991 re-issue.In 1962, four of import movies featured homosexual content. More th an 25 old ages after These Three, producer/director William Wyler dependably filmed The Children s Hour, with Shirley MacLaine perpetrating self-destruction when she realizes that the sapphic rumours about herself are true. Sidney Lumet directed Arthur Miller s A Position From The Bridge, in which Raf Vallone implicates his ain gender by impeaching another adult male of being homosexual ; finally he excessively kills himself. Advise And Consent, produced and directed by Otto Preminger, has a scene in a cheery saloon ; it besides has a self-destruction, when politician Don Murray is blackmailed for a past homosexual crack. In A Walk On The Wild Side, directed by Edward Dmytryk, Barbara Stanwyck is a brothel dame in love with prostitute Capucine. She survived the movie ( although Capucine got changeable! ) , and cleared a way for sapphic subplots in the mid 60s. Shelley Winters was a dame with a hankering for Lee Grant in The Balcony ( 1963 ) , Joseph Strick s movie of the Jean Genet drama. Jean Seberg s mental patient is openly bisexual in Robert Rossen s Lilith ( 1964 ) . Candice Bergen was the nice college miss who s besides Sapphic in Lumet s The Group ( 1966 ) . Teenage Sue Lyon aroused more than a chaperone s involvement from Grayson Hall in The Night Of The Iguana ( 1964 ) , John Huston s movie of Tennessee Williams drama ; she evoked similar feelings from Margaret Leighton in Seven Women ( 1966 ) , the last movie of manager John Ford.The sapphic and cheery civil-rights motion grew significantly in the 60s, climaxing in the epoch-making rebellion at New York s Stonewall saloon in June of 1969. The decennary s movies reflected these alterations, most notably in two docudramas: Shirley Clarke s Portrait Of Jason ( 1967 ) , an interview with black streetwalker Jason Holliday, and Frank Simon s The Queen ( 1968 ) , about a transvestic beauty competition in New York. Drag wit began utilizing homosexual and transgendered characters in the comedies The She Ma n ( 1967 ) , The Producers ( 1968 ) , Candy ( 1968 ) , and The Gay Deceivers ( 1969 ) . Most dramas conflated cheery work forces with criminalism: Gunn ( 1967 ) , The Boston Strangler ( 1968 ) , The Detective ( 1968 ) , P.J. ( 1968 ) , Riot ( 1969 ) . John Huston s Reflections In A Golden Eye ( 1967 ) , adapted by Chapman Mortimer and Gladys Hill from Carson McCullers novel, starred Marlon Brando as an Army officer facing his pent-up homosexualism. More conventional was The Sergeant ( 1968 ) , in which Rod Steiger kills himself after coercing a buss on a soldier. Estelle Parsons admits her feelings for Joanne Woodward with an unprompted buss in Rachel, Rachel ( 1968 ) , directed by Paul Newman. Lovers Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis kiss even more readily in The Fox ( 1968 ) , from D.H. Lawrence s novel, but the Reaper is still inevitable for at least one of them, after they get intruded upon by heterosexual spokesman Keir Dullea. The most expressed play of the epoch came from produc er/director Robert Aldrich, accommodating Frank Marcus drama The Killing Of Sister George ( 1968 ) . Beryl Reid is the uncloseted soap-opera actress who loses her occupation and her lover Susannah York to web shark Coral Browne. Aldrich even shared some of their familiarities with the audience, but the movie was rated X for its capable affair. So excessively was Midnight Cowboy ( 1969 ) , directed by John Schlesinger: The really thought of a movie about a gigolo in New York was plenty to curtail it to grownups. But the movie was a box-office hit, doing stars of Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, and it was finally re-issued uncut with an R-rating. In the early 1960s homosexual subjects were celebrated in landmark daring movies. Jack Smith s hallucinating authoritative Fire Animals ( 1963 ) met with legion legal fusss because of its nakedness and transvestitism. Markopolous made several movies with powerful homoerotic imagination, most notably Twice A Man ( 1963 ) and The Illiac Passion ( 1967 ) . Andy Warhol s Blow Job ( 1964 ) was a 35-minute close-up of a immature adult male s face as he receives unwritten sex. Warhol directed characteristics covering with the gay-sex-for-hire scene # 8212 ; My Hustler ( 1965 ) , I A Man ( 1967 ) , Bike Boy ( 1967 ) # 8212 ; but kept progressively to bring forthing and allow Paul Morrissey direct, write, and cast the movies. They made a m emorable series with former pro Joe Dallesandro, starting in 1968 with Flesh and Lonesome Cowboys. Warhol also appreciated transvestism, and Mario Montez was the leading lady in films with writer Ronald Tavel, such as Screen Test (1965). Morrissey had a similar eye and discovered Holly Woodlawn for Trash (1970) with Dallesandro; he also co-starred her with Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling in Women In Revolt (1972). At this time John Waters was making obscene black comedies which extolled crime and exalted his 300-lb. male heroine, Divine: Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), and Female Trouble (1974); his later, Divine-less Desperate Living (1977), a lesbian fairy tale, was one of the wildest of all his films. Other notable gay- and lesbian-themed underground films of the 70s include the drag troupe the Cockettes in Tricias Wedding (1971); Jim Bidgoods sensual fantasy Pink Narcissus (1971); the films of Jan Oxenberg, such as A Comedy In Six Unnatural Acts (1975); and the films of the late Curt McDowell, including Thundercrack! (1975) and Loads (1980). Director William Friedkin filmed Mart Crowleys play The Boys In The Band (1970), in which a group of unhappy but witty gay men lacerate each other and themselves. Mervyn Nelsons Some Of My Best Friends Are†¦ (1971) echoed that sad young men approach with its habitu?s of a gay bar. Michael York was a busy bisexual in both the black comedy Something For Everyone (1970), directed by Harold Prince, and the musical Cabaret (1972), directed by Bob Fosse. Homosexuality was used to typify sleaziness and evil, from the animated features of Ralph Bakshi (Heavy Traffic, 1973; Coonskin, 1975) and blaxploitation films (Cleopatra Jones, 1973; Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold, 1975), to espionage dramas (The Kremlin Letter, 1970; The Tamarind Seed, 1974; The Eiger Sanction, 1975), cop actioners (The Laughing Policeman, 1973; Magnum Force, 1973; Freebie And The Bean, 1974; Busting, 1974; The Choirboys, 1977 ), and prison films (Fortune And Mens Eyes, 1971; Caged Heat, 1972; Scarecrow, 1973). Homosexual rape mars the backwoods trip of Deliverance (1972), and promiscuous hetero Diane Keaton gets murdered by a gay man in Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977). The revelation of homosexuality was still causing suicides in Ode To Billie Joe (1976) and The Betsy (1978), and lesbians and gay men were still providing cheap laughs in There Was A Crooked Man (1970), M*A*S*H (1970), Little Big Man (1970), For Petes Sake (1974), Sheila Levine Is Dead And Living In New York City (1975), and The Goodbye Girl (1977). Less impressive were condescending comedies that focused on homosexuality: Norman, Is That You? (1976), The Ritz (1976), and A Different Story (1978). But there were also gay supporting characters who were actually funny, such as Antonio Fargas in Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and Car Wash (1976), or Michael Caine in California Suite (1978). In A Perfect Couple (1979), Robert Altman treate d his gay and lesbian characters with respect, and gay dramas were offered by the independent films Saturday Night At The Baths (1973) and A Very Natural Thing (1973). Director Sidney Lumet and writer Frank Pierson delivered a box-office hit with Dog Day Afternoon (1975), a smart, fact-based comedy/drama starring Al Pacino as a bank robber whos trying to finance his male lovers sex-change operation. Among television films, That Certain Summer (1972) featured Hal Holbrook as a gay father coming out to his son; A Question Of Love (1978) starred Gena Rowlands as a lesbian mother fighting for custody of her child; Sergeant Matlovich Vs. The U.S. Air Force (1978) with Brad Dourif dramatized a real-life challenge to the militarys ban on homosexuality. The collaborative Mariposa Film Group made the landmark documentary Word Is Out in 1977, interviewing 26 lesbians and gay men of various ethnicities, ages, and life experiences. Since then, several other important documentaries have been fil med. Robert Epstein and the late Richard Schmiechen made The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984), an account of the openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor who was assassinated in 1976; Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman made Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt (1989), about a few of the lives memorialized in the AIDS Quilt, and The Celluloid Closet (1996), a history of Hollywoods treatment of homosexuality. Greta Schillers Before Stonewall (1984) offers a valuable history of gay and lesbian life. Jennie Livingstons Paris Is Burning (1990) is a unique look at the drag balls of gay blacks and Latins. Schmiechens Changing Our Minds: The Story Of Dr. Evelyn Hooker (1992) examines the psychologist whose work persuaded the American Psychiatric Association to no longer classify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Arthur Dongs Coming Out Under Fire (1994) documents gay and lesbian life in the armed forces during World War II. Adi Sidemans Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys (1994) looks at the North Ame rican Man/Boy Love Association. Wigstock: The Movie (1994) puts the New York drag fest on the screen. Heather MacDonalds Ballot Measure 9 (1995) covers the defeat of anti-gay legislation in Oregon. In 1980 the filming of William Friedkins Cruising was hounded by protesters who insisted his thriller about a psycho in the gay S scene would heighten social prejudices and encourage bashing. That same year, Gordon Willis directed Windows, in which evil lesbian Elizabeth Ashley stalks good heterosexual Talia Shire. Evil gay men came to foul ends in American Gigolo (1980) and Deathtrap (1982). Other films completely diluted their homosexual themes: The heroines lesbianism in Alice Walkers novel The Color Purple was expunged almost entirely from the 1985 film directed by Steven Spielberg; so was the gay side of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima in Paul Schraders biopic Mishima (1985). But the decade also saw well-meaning dramas that tried to deal respectfully with homosexuality. In Making Love (1982), written by Barry Sandler and directed by Arthur Hiller, a man leaves his wife for another man; in John Sayles Lianna (1983), a woman leaves her husband for another woman. Robert Townes Personal Best (1982) starred Mariel Hemingway as a bisexual athlete. Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1985), from Manuel Puigs novel, had William Hurt as a gay prisoner who becomes the lover of his cellmate, political activist Raul Julia. Last Exit To Brooklyn (1989) adapted Hubert Selby Jr.s novel; Stephen Lang was the striking worker who comes to recognize his own gay urges. Television contributed An Early Frost (1985), with Aidann Quinn as a gay man with AIDS, and Consenting Adult (1985), from the coming-out novel by Laura Z. Hobson. Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981), starred George Hamilton as a sissy swashbuckler, and Partners (1982), had hetero cop Ryan ONeal undercover as a gay man. Other 80s comedies were more gay-positive, notably Blake Edwards transgender farce Victor/Victoria (1982) and Torch So ng Trilogy (1988), written by and starring Harvey Fierstein. Other important films include the Neil Simon comedies Only When I Laugh (1981) and Biloxi Blues (1988), the remake To Be Or Not To Be (1983), and The Hotel New Hampshire (1984). The eras best work, however, came from the independents. Mala Noche (1985), the first feature of writer/director Gus Van Sant, was a classic portrait of unrequited gay love. Paul Morrissey creatively filmed Alan Bownes play about teenage hustlers in Forty Deuce (1982) with Kevin Bacon. Anne Carlisle played both a woman and a gay man in the imaginative Liquid Sky (1982), which she also co-scripted with writer Nina V. Kerova and producer/director Slava Tsukerman. Donna Deitchs Desert Hearts (1985) and Sheila McLaughlins She Must Be Seeing Things (1987) were intelligent romantic dramas about lesbians. The late writer/director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. made dramas about intergenerational gay love in Abuse (1983) and the AIDS crisis in Buddies (1985). The p lague also informed As Is (1986), directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and Parting Glances (1986), directed by the late Bill Sherwood. In the 90s, despite such drag-queen comedies as To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and the mega-hit The Birdcage (1996), an adaptation of the hit French farce La Cage Aux Folles, Hollywood has stuck to the prejudices of earlier years. The smash Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, starred Sharon Stone as a bisexual villain, and its filming aroused protests as vehement as the attacks on Cruising. Equally furious was the response to the hit thriller The Silence Of The Lambs (1990), directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Ted Tally, which equated homosexuality and transgenderism with insanity and murder. David Cronenbergs Naked Lunch (1991), made a dour, homophobic film out of William Burroughs funny, gay-positive novel. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) adapted Fannie Flaggs book but deleted the lesbian relationship between its young women. Both The Prince Of Tides (1991), directed by Barbra Streisand, and Barry Levinsons Sleepers (1996) pressed audience buttons about gay rapists preying on boys.Two recent major releases have treated gay themes seriously. Cronenbergs M. Butterfly (1993), adapted by David Henry Hwang from his fact-based play, starred Jeremy Irons as a French diplomat in China who gives government secrets to his longtime lover, a singer with the Chinese Opera — without ever knowing that shes really a man. Demmes Philadelphia (1994), written by Ron Nyswaner, starred Tom Hanks as a gay man fighting the discrimination he faces as a person with AIDS. Television produced two reality-based dramas: And The Band Played On (1993) adapted the late Randy Shilts book about the Reagan administrations slow response to AIDS; The Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1994) starred Glenn Close as an open lesbian fighting to stay in the military. Again the most notewort hy films have come from independents. Openly-gay writer/directors Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes both released major films in 1991. Van Sants My Own Private Idaho (1991), starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, merged a story of two young hustlers in Oregon with Shakespeares Henry IV for a surreal, funny, and moving tale of love and betrayal. Haynes Poison intercut three stories, including homoerotic sequences from Jean Genets autobiographical novel The Miracle Of The Rose. Christine Vachon, the producer of Poison, brought several other important films to the screen: Swoon (1992), Tom Kalins look at the gay love between the murderers Leopold and Loeb; the lesbian comedy/drama Go Fish (1994), directed and co-scripted by Rose Troche; Postcards From America (1994), Steve McLeans adaptation of writings by the late David Wojnarowicz; I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), about Valerie Solanas attempt on Warhols life; and Stonewall (1996), a British dramatization of the birth of the modern-American g ay-rights movement. Other independent films dealing with homosexuality include Gregg Arakis boy-meets-boy-meets-gun tale, The Living End (1992); The Hours And Times (1991), Christopher M?nchs speculation on John Lennons relationship with Beatles manager Brian Epstein; Longtime Companion (1990), a touching drama of loves lost to AIDS, directed by Norman Ren? and written by Craig Lucas; and the bisexual farce The Wedding Banquet (1993), directed and co-scripted by Ang Lee. Among the noteworthy films in 1995 were Maria Maggentis lesbian romance The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love; the gay romantic comedy Jeffrey, from the play by Paul Rudnick; and Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, a filming of the late Ron Vawters stage triumph in which he played the closeted and homophobic arch-conservative Roy Cohn, and the totally uncensored, visionary artist Jack Smith — both of whom died of AIDS in the 1980s. More recent independent releases include Larry and Andy Wachowskis Bound (1996), a lesbian version of film noir with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon; Johns (1996), Scott Silvers drama of hustling teenage boys; and in 1997 Joe Mantellos heartfelt, funny and very-human comedy Love! Valor! Compassion! adapted from Terrence McNallys multi-award winning 1995 play. Despite the pressures of homophobia, American films have made classic accounts of lesbian and gay life in the hundred years since The Gay Brothers. This body of work augurs well for the next hundred years of movies.

Dichotomies in Toni Morrisons Recitatif

Dichotomies in Toni Morrisons Recitatif The short story, Recitatif, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison appeared in 1983 in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women. It is Morrisons only published short story, though excerpts of her novels have sometimes been published as stand-alone pieces in magazines. For instance, Sweetness, was excerpted from her 2015 novel God Help the Child. The two main characters of the story, Twyla, and Roberta, come from different races. One is black, the other white. Morrison allows us to see the intermittent conflicts between them, from the time theyre children to the time theyre adults. Some of those conflicts seem to be influenced by their racial differences, but interestingly, Morrison never identifies which girl is black and which is white. It can be tempting, at first, to read this story as a sort of brain teaser challenging us to determine the secret of each girls race. But to do so is to miss the point and to reduce a complex and powerful story into nothing more than a gimmick. Because if we dont know each characters race, were forced to consider other sources of the conflict between the characters, including, for example, socioeconomic differences and each girls lack of familial support. And to the extent that the conflicts do seem to involve race, they raise questions about how people perceive differences rather than suggesting anything intrinsic about one race or another. A Whole Other Race When she first arrives at the shelter, Twyla is disturbed by being moving to a strange place, but she is more disturbed by being placed with a girl from a whole other race. Her mother has taught her racist ideas, and those ideas seem to loom larger for her than the more serious aspects of her abandonment. But she and Roberta, it turns out, has a lot in common. Neither does well in school. They respect each others privacy and dont pry. Unlike the other state kids in the shelter, they dont have beautiful dead parents in the sky. Instead, theyve been dumped Twyla because her mother dances all night and Roberta because her mother is sick. Because of this, they are ostracized by all the other children, regardless of race. Other Sources of Conflict When Twyla sees that her roommate is from a whole other race, she says, My mother wouldnt like you putting me in here. So when Robertas mother refuses to meet Twylas mother, its easy to imagine her reaction as a comment on race as well. But Robertas mother is wearing a cross and carrying a Bible. Twylas mother, in contrast, is wearing tight slacks and an old fur jacket. Robertas mother might very well recognize her as a woman who dances all night. Roberta hates the shelter food, and when we see the generous lunch her mother packs, we can imagine that shes accustomed to better food at home. Twyla, on the other hand, loves the shelter food because her mothers idea of supper was popcorn and a can of Yoo-Hoo. Her mother packs no lunch at all, so they eat jellybeans from Twylas basket. So, while the two mothers may differ in their racial background, we can also conclude that they differ in their religious values, their morals, and their philosophy on parenting. Struggling with an illness, Robertas mother may be particularly appalled that Twylas healthy mother would squander a chance to take care of her daughter. All of these differences are perhaps more salient because Morrison refuses to give the reader any certainty regarding race. As young adults, when Robert and Twyla encounter each other at the Howard Johnsons, Roberta is glamorous in her skimpy make-up, big earrings, and heavy make-up that makes the big girls look like nuns. Twyla, on the other hand, is the opposite in her opaque stockings and shapeless hairnet. Years later, Roberta tries to excuse her behavior by blaming it on race. Oh, Twyla, she says, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was. But Twyla remembers blacks and whites mixing freely at the Howard Johnsons during that time period. The real conflict with Roberta seems to come from the contrast between a small-town country waitress and a free spirit on her way to see Hendrix and determined to appear sophisticated. Finally, the gentrification of Newburgh highlights the characters class conflict. Their meeting comes in a new grocery store designed to capitalize on the recent influx of wealthy residents. Twyla is shopping there just to see, but Roberta is clearly part of the stores intended demographic. No Clear Black and White When racial strife comes to Newburgh over proposed bussing, it drives the biggest wedge yet between Twyla and Roberta. Roberta watches, immovable, as the protestors rock Twylas car. Gone are the old days, when Roberta and Twyla would reach for each other, pull each other up, and defend each other from the gar girls in the orchard. But the personal and the political become hopelessly entwined when Twyla insists on making protest posters that depend entirely on Robertas. AND SO DO CHILDREN, she writes, which makes sense only in light of Robertas sign, MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO! Finally, Twylas protests become painfully cruel and directed solely at Roberta. IS YOUR MOTHER WELL? her sign asks one day. Its a terrible jab at a state kid whose mother never recovered from her illness. Yet its also a reminder of the way Roberta snubbed Twyla at the Howard Johnsons, where Twyla inquired sincerely about Robertas mother, and Roberta cavalierly lied that her mother was fine. Was desegregation about race? Well, obviously. And is this story about race? Id say yes. But with the racial identifiers purposely indeterminate, readers have to reject Robertas oversimplified excuse that thats how everything was and dig a little deeper to the causes of conflict.

Managing a Diverse Workforce in Organizations Essay

Managing a Diverse Workforce in Organizations - Essay Example A diverse workforce also includes people with both physical and mental disabilities, immigrants and people with varying lifestyles. For a diverse workforce to function effectively, the human resource has to understand both the advantages and disadvantages of a diverse workforce. The human resource professional must also be in a position to manage a diverse workforce. In future, diversity will tend to increase with many organizations realizing its benefits. Organizations that enforce immediate action and develop a diverse workforce may experience its benefits. However, there are associated challenges as well. Development and implementation of workplace diversity are important factors that determine organization’s success and competitiveness. There are multiple benefits associated with developing and handling a diverse workforce. A diverse workforce increases the organization’s adaptability to the market. A company handling a diverse workforce has a better chance of solvi ng problems in service and allocation of resources. Employees from diverse backgrounds introduce individual talents and experiences to the organization that ensures increased flexibility in adapting to fluctuations in both the market and customer demands. A diverse workforce increases the level of productivity for the organization (Bedi, Pooman, and Ekanshi, 2014). Development and implementation of workplace diversity are important factors that determine organization’s success and competitiveness.

Computer Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Computer Systems - Essay Example The Midrange virtualization includes Solaris containers and zones and the commodity virtualization consists of VM ware, Oracle VM and Xen. The desktop virtualization is categorized in two PC / MAC and Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The category named as PC / MAC includes virtual box, virtual PC etc. VDI consists of Oracle VDI and desktop virtualization by Citrix. The next category is the storage virtualization, which includes storage area networks and arrays developed by Exadata, Netapps etc. Lastly, there is a category named as network visualization consisting of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN). A single piece of hardware is divided into multiple instance by a technology is known as virtualization. The OS (operating system) along with hardware is similar even before virtualization. The division of hardware makes the resource transmission simple as, an operating system (OS) needs to utilize all resources that are available in a box. A single box with the help of resources c an host several instances or nodes. For example RAM I/O capacity i.e. permanent storage space, central processing unit and bandwidth (network address). Likewise, this procedure facilitates an effective method for resource management of web application. For instance, a web application that is hosted on a relatively small node works on reduced cost of using entire box and still manages to provide resources from one node to another. In order to enhance the efficiency an unused resources in a box are moved. Optimal resource management is achieved by virtual server; we can also say that there is no requirement for deploying a web application and its components for migration of web services to some other hosts that are subjected to re-installation of new operating system. Consequently, virtualization fulfills the last process by utilizing a hypervisor. Likewise, the hypervisor hosts operating system that provides management of assets for many operating systems of visitors as well as nodes . Hence, as soon as a web application is deployed with virtualization technology, we can get a guest operating system powered by hypervisor. This is the major factor that provides scalability and assignment of more resources for the web application by clicking few buttons (Kusnetzky 2011). It is unnecessary to state that virtualization appeared in the year 1960 because a number of hypervisors are present to select from them. For the trendiest virtualization appliances are Xen and Virtual Box (Kusnetzky 2011). They are considered as open-source assignments due to their commercial popularity through corporations such as VMware and Nimbus data systems. However the process of virtualization is actually without responsibility. In fact, some disadvantages are also associated with its implementation. For example, â€Å"a hardware box's configuration is not clear to node users. A hardware box could be near its overall hardware limit, in which case more resources for a node could be limited , even requiring migration to another box†. In addition, it could appear as a weak virtualized resource for instance I/O capacity. In this situation various nodes are present in similar boxes try to interpret form the matching pair of hard drives thus resulting in amplified latency. Moreover, the sidebar contains more

The Vicissitude of Faith in Night by Elie Wiesel Essay Example for Free

The Vicissitude of Faith in Night by Elie Wiesel Essay The Vicissitude of Faith in Night When we’re young and we have a toy or a play thing, we get angry if that thing is taken away from us; we throw a tantrum. This is because the toy retains our focus and interest, and then it’s just ripped away. Elie Wiesel was prematurely ripped from his world of family and faith, forced to the infamous concentration camp of Auschwitz to wither away along with the burned remains of his past and hopes. The drastic change from Wiesel’s rendition of his experiences during the Holocaust, Night, portrays many themes throughout the entirety of its pages, with one of the most prominent themes being Elie’s own faith and its vicissitude over time, of which is seen in the early years of his life where he was devout to his religion, to the train ride and arrival at Auschwitz where he begs God to help, ending in the death of his God as the children are hung, and the total rejection of a God altogether. As a child, before the Holocaust, Wiesel was a fervent and dedicated Jew. Early in the pages of Night, Wiesel recalls a question that his father had asked him. â€Å" ‘Why do you pray? ’ he asked me, after a moment. Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? † (Wiesel 2). Wiesel’s life is centered around his religion; he finds it completely abstruse for his father to question his praying, because praying is what he does. Praying, faith, Judaism; all these things are his toys. Wiesel doesn’t just worship to worship, he worships because that is the thing he gets to play with. Imagine if these toys were taken away from him? These are just any toys, these toys are essential to his sanity and well-being. He compares his faith and prayer to his breathing. Not only does he need them, but losing them would be a debility that Wiesel isn’t sure he can face. Despite the necessity to retain this, they ignore the warnings and threats that the Nazis pose, and he and his family remain almost blissfully ignorant of the fact that there is the threat of their toys being ripped away and everything they know languishing into little more than a memory. This threat is sitting right in their front yard, and they have no idea of the vicissitude that will come and change their lives when the threat walks onto the porch, rolls up its sleeves, and knocks on the door. â€Å"Anguish. German soliders— with their steel helmets, and their emblem, the death’s hand. † (Wiesel 7). Everybody had denied it, but there they were. The Germans had come to Elie’s home of Sighet despite everyone’s belief. The Germans seemed nice at first, but this view would be ephemeral. The Germans first housed themselves inside the homes of the Jews, but this soon cascaded into constantly forcing them to give up their valuables, pushing them away from their homes until one day they were loaded onto the train and all Elie had left were the clothes on his back, his family, and God. The events leading up to his arrival were periods where he begged for God. He begged to God, whom he had dedicated his life, to save him and his family from the abrasive fist of the concentration camp. Once at the reception center, this is where he the game changes. When he watches the people around him pray for their lives, he just wonders â€Å"Why? † Why should he bless His name, when He has gone mute? In just a few short weeks, everything that he ever based his life on he questioned and went against. This changes his view on the world entirely. He now knows that God, the one who has always been beside him, can turn away from the torture of millions of people like it were nothing. He went from wholeheartedly giving his life to God, to eventually abjuring him altogether and getting angry at him. This is totally different for him; he’d never felt any distain for him until then. This shatters him, but at least his God is still there; still existent even though he looks away from the destruction. Unfortunately, this can’t last long. Wiesel had endured a lot during his time in concentration camps. Knowing that his God had turned his back on him was painful; without God the conditions made him extremely vulnerable and blighted. The Germans were persistent in crushing every one of them. They were determined to teach those who stepped out of line a lesson, and give an example of punishments to everyone else. And so, thusly, there were hangings. And, at one of these hangings was a child, who had been accused of something by the Germans and was thusly hanged. You can tell that all of Wiesel’s hope in God is lost when he says, â€Å" ‘Where is He? Here He is— He is hanging here on this gallows†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ † (Wiesel 62). Whilst everyone is looking for God, he already knows where he is. He is dead; he has been hanged just like everyone else. Before, he just rejected his God. God was just a figure who had ignored him in a time of need. But when he witnessed those hangings, he realized that God had not turned his back on him. God had tried to enter and was murdered. The safety of God and the sanctuary that comes with it was dead inside all of them. It was not God who had turned his back; it was the Germans who had forced him away. Wiesel went through many treacherous experiences during his time in concentration camps, but one of the worst was the change in is faith. Judaism used to be his world, he used to dedicate his life to it. It says early on in the book that every day he would study the Talmud in the first half of the day, and then he would go to the synagogue in the other half. One day, this was all ripped away from him. He used to be faithful, but soon afterwards he was left with the dawning realization that the God he was begging for help would no longer listen. He wouldn’t listen because his God couldn’t listen anymore. The Nazis made sure that anything having to do with Judaism was punished and murdered, and that goes for his God too. His toy was faith, the God that lay inside him where he could go for hope. But the Nazis took it away from him. At first, it would seem as if God had betrayed him. This was not the case, God had not betrayed him. The God that he held inside him, the God he loved and lived with and the God who had always been there had been beaten out of him and killed. This toy was a piece of him he can never have back. All because someone came up, took it, and crushed it. The toy became broken, and just like that, so did Wiesel.

Gay Marriage Should NOT Be Legal :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

  The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. Yet, same-sex marriage continues to be a highly debated issue that leaves our society searching for answers. Traditionally marriage is the union of a man and a woman. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of marriage reads "to join as a husband and wife according to law and custom; to take as husband or wife; to enter into a close union" (452). Dictionaries are not a biased publication and serve as a guide to what words mean. The words "husband" and "wife" show that marriage is a close union between a man and a woman. This idea could be disputed if we only looked at the third part of a definition?"to enter into a close union." But if we only look at the third part, then we change the definition altogether. Obviously we can not look only at a dictionary to gain a deeply rooted belief; so let us continue with the search for a firm foundation. Elections are being affected by the way people stand on this issue. After the 1992 election, President Clinton, who is said by Human Events to be the most "pro-gay President in history," adamantly tried to abolish the ban on gays in the military. This was a victory cry for many homosexual activists. Then in the 1996 election, President Clinton admitted he would not openly oppose the bill in Congress that defines marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife" ("Same-sex Marriage Imperils the Family"). President Clinton, who generally supports gay rights, gives Americans a reason to believe that perhaps gay marriage is one step too far. Even First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed that marriage should be a union of a man and a woman in her statement, "Marriage has got historic, religious, and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been: between a man and a woman" (State of the Union"). In the recent 2000 Election, both George W. Bush and Al Gore agree with the Defense of Marriage act (DOMA), which "implies that allowing homosexuals to marry constituted an 'attack' on the existing institution" ("State of the Union"). It is difficult to find many issues with which these two candidates can agree. So, it seems that since they do agree, we can assume that a gay marriage would in fact intrude upon the values of not only marriage but also we as a people.

Chance & Story Essay

In third grade through sixth, I had a friend named Chance. We were best friends and often spent long days and nights over at each other’s house. Whenever I stayed at Chance’s, the house was filled with noise from the two of us and his six brothers and sisters. Chance’s family was Mormon, a religion that my family knew nothing about except the name. He once explained why his family was so large, but it made little sense to me at that time. During the summer between sixth and seventh grade Chance’s family moved away to Utah. I’ve learned a bit more about Mormons since but this assignment offered me an opportunity to learn more about the religion of my friend and how Mormons feel about how they are perceived in the United States, especially concerning the law and discrimination. Chance’s family was only one of many Mormons in my town and surrounding areas. Patty is a good friend of mine who attends the Mormon church in town since she was a baby, so through her I was able to find three people to interview. Her parents were not available, but she introduced me to a Mormon missionary Brian, a neighbor Barbara, and Chris, her mother’s home- teacher. Brian is twenty years old and is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. He is currently nearing the end of his Mormon mission, which is a semi-required two year work for Mormon young men to an area chosen by the head church in Salt Lake City, Utah. He had just graduated high school when he began the training for the mission. His mission is to go door to door in the neighborhoods to share his beliefs and teach anyone interested about the basics of the church. Barbara is also not originally from this area. She was born and raised in Provo, Utah, which is where the Mormon university Brigham Young is located. She moved here ten years ago when her husband’s job transferred. She is forty-three years old, has five children between six and fifteen, has a college degree from BYU in marketing but doesn’t currently work outside her home, and has been married for twenty-three years. Chris is from this area and has lived here all of his fifty-six years. He is an elder at the church, has four children and sixteen grandchildren so far, works as a machine repairer, and volunteers for the church as a home-teacher in which he regularly visits church members for further teaching about the church. Having such different subjects to interview proved very interesting. Each shared that they have dealt with some sort of discrimination in their lifetimes as Mormons. They all indicated that the problems are rarely very serious and never violent, but are more subtle. Barbara notices the negative attitude towards Mormons most of the three because she lived for so long in Utah, which is heavily populated with Mormons, especially where she lived in Provo. She said that when the family moved, she was surprised to find that there are people who still believe Mormons are the many-wives religion. One woman at her children’s school even asked once if Barbara was one of several wives of her husband. Neither Brian nor Chris said that they have had this problem. Brian said his problem is more centered on his mission work. He has often heard people say ‘there go the two-by-twos. ’ The missionaries work in pairs, so he said the term stuck. For the most part, he says people are friendly towards him and often comment that Mormons are the nicest people they know, but very few choose to actually discuss the church’s teachings. Instead Brian and Chris both said that most people are interested in if Mormons are a cult that traps unsuspecting victims. Barbara also said this is something people have asked in round-about ways such as through her kids. All three said that it is often frustrating the poor view that they feel the majority of Americans have toward the Mormon Church. Barbara and Chris’s children mostly have other Mormon friends, and those that are not Mormon are seldom allowed to attend activities organized for the Mormon youth such as dances, outings, or sport activities if they are to be held at the church. They say that no one has said directly why the kids can’t attend, but all three believe that it is related to the negative view of the church. They all also indicated that any issues that arise are always social in nature, that they have never had a problem with employers or the law regarding discrimination. Interestingly, as I interviewed each person, I found myself also curious about the ‘oddities’ of the Mormon church. When Barbara mentioned the many-wives idea, I wanted to know more about it. So I was doing exactly what the three had said most people do: expressing curiosity about the strangeness instead of the good qualities of the church or its teachings. However, I did learn quite a bit about the basic structure of the church, why it is based in Utah, and how Mormons view the world and the after-life. Since the problems that Mormons experience are almost always social, it is a matter of slowly changing the public’s view of the church. Chris believes that the commercials the church has put on television have gone a long way in changing perceptions about the church. Brian said that attitudes are better in Canada towards the church most likely because it started in the USA, where it experienced a lot of discrimination in its beginnings. So it is a matter of time and continued sharing for the Mormon Church to be recognized as a legitimate religion and not as a cult.