"Straight-Washing": Marketing LGBT+ Films to a Heteronormative Audience
It may seem as though Hollywood is coming to terms with the fact that stories don't just have to revolve around straight white men to sell tickets, but when looking into how certain films are marketed, it's clear to see this is still the audience that's being targeted, even with films surrounding LGBT+ issues.
Luca Guadagnino's 2017 film, Call Me By Your Name, was lauded for its positive portrayal of a same-sex relationship between two men, as well as the onscreen visibility of bisexuality. However, during the twitter marketing campaign for the film - which won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards and BAFTAs - the @SonyPicturesUK account chose to focus on one of the protagonist's relationships with one of the female characters, alluding to the idea that the film may have centred around a straight romance.
The use of the caption only adds to this notion, conveying a misleading idea to the audience. It's important to note that Elio (played by Timothée Chalamet) was in a relationship with Marzia (portrayed by Esther Garrel) during the film, but this is far from the "overwhelming" romance that the Empire review speaks of.
An article featured in the Guardian in November 2017 mentions this blunder - and others:
"While the majority of Sony’s campaign, both in the UK and the US, hasn’t been focused on denying the film’s queerness, the tweet served as a reminder of an awkwardness that lingers in mainstream spaces. In trying to position the film as a romance intended for a wide audience, Sony believed that fooling straight viewers was the way to go, implicitly suggesting that a same-sex relationship would be off-putting to most. It’s a damaging implication but not a unique one." (Lee, 2017)
The articles goes on to mention the US DVD cover of Pride (Matthew Warchus, 2014), which removed all mention of any LGBT+ themes, with the blurb on the back cover simply reading "a London-based group of activists" as opposed to "a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists", and the words "lesbian" and "gay" being removed from the banner used in the cover shot.
Luca Guadagnino's 2017 film, Call Me By Your Name, was lauded for its positive portrayal of a same-sex relationship between two men, as well as the onscreen visibility of bisexuality. However, during the twitter marketing campaign for the film - which won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards and BAFTAs - the @SonyPicturesUK account chose to focus on one of the protagonist's relationships with one of the female characters, alluding to the idea that the film may have centred around a straight romance.
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| A @SonyPicturesUK tweet (since deleted) that aims to sell Call Me By Your Name to a straight audience. (source) |
An article featured in the Guardian in November 2017 mentions this blunder - and others:
"While the majority of Sony’s campaign, both in the UK and the US, hasn’t been focused on denying the film’s queerness, the tweet served as a reminder of an awkwardness that lingers in mainstream spaces. In trying to position the film as a romance intended for a wide audience, Sony believed that fooling straight viewers was the way to go, implicitly suggesting that a same-sex relationship would be off-putting to most. It’s a damaging implication but not a unique one." (Lee, 2017)
The articles goes on to mention the US DVD cover of Pride (Matthew Warchus, 2014), which removed all mention of any LGBT+ themes, with the blurb on the back cover simply reading "a London-based group of activists" as opposed to "a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists", and the words "lesbian" and "gay" being removed from the banner used in the cover shot.
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| The US DVD back cover for Pride (top), removing all LGBT+ references, vs the original cover art (bottom). (source). |
While 'straight-washing' perhaps isn't as prevalent an issue as 'white-washing' - whereby white actors portray roles intended for people of colour, either by donning blackface, yellowface, or changing that character's heritage - it still takes away from what is otherwise a progressive piece of film-making that aims to positively represented an underrepresented demographic. This shows that while the stories being told may not strictly be straight ones, the audiences are still thought of as being so.
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