When is a not queer film queer?

Scene: One sweaty sum­mer in 1950s New Orleans, a tear­ful, brit­tle South­ern Belle faces accu­sa­tions of promis­cu­ity from a suit­or. He’s dis­cov­ered this gen­teel teacher is ​“not clean enough” to take home to Moth­er. See­ing her pos­si­ble meal tick­et dis­in­te­grate, Blanche (played with grotesque del­i­ca­cy by Vivien Leigh), stalks for­ward through the makeshift boudoir that she prefers to cru­el day­light. ​“Yes!” she declares, ​“Aah have had many meet­ings with strangers!”

The film, of course, is A Street­car Named Desire, a movie about straight peo­ple that plays queer. Adapt­ed from Ten­nessee Williams’ stage mas­ter­piece and direct­ed by Elia Kazan, it’s a defin­i­tive not queer, queer film: a gay author’s fever dream of ruf­fled peignoirs and Mar­lon Bran­do in a vest, sexy as a swamp alli­ga­tor. Blanche Dubois is a preda­to­ry cuck­oo in an impov­er­ished, nuclear fam­i­ly home. Her cruis­ing habits and obses­sion with youth and beau­ty ally her to gen­er­a­tions of gay men. True, her hus­band, the one homo­sex­u­al char­ac­ter (pos­si­bly out­ed by Blanche) has already killed him­self, a tragedy that begets her own. But hers is the bat­tle cry of anti-het­ero­nor­ma­tive movie-mak­ing: ​“I don’t want real­ism. I want magic!”

Mag­ic, deceit, desire: Street­car was made under the Hays Code, which banned homo­sex­u­al­i­ty – classed as ​“sex per­ver­sion” – and var­i­ous oth­er so-called unde­sir­able themes from being por­trayed in Hol­ly­wood films from 1934 until 1968. Six­ty-eight script changes were enforced on Williams’ play, and The Catholic League of Decen­cy fur­ther butchered Kazan’s film. Today, we’re sup­pos­ed­ly liv­ing in a time of sex­u­al hon­esty, but when you com­pare Street­car to LGBTQ duds like The Hap­pi­est Sea­son and sac­cha­rine rom-coms like Red, White & Roy­al Blue – films that emu­late main­stream cis-het for­mats – you begin to won­der if, artis­ti­cal­ly, it was worth com­ing out of the closet.

The his­to­ry of queer and not-queer queer films shows the pow­er of the pro­hib­it­ed. Board­ing school snog­ging (Mäd­chen in Uni­form), androg­y­nous bisex­u­al kings (Queen Christi­na), Dad­dy-slave orgies and soapy tit baths (Sign of the Cross) are just some of the 1930s thrills before the Hays crack­down. But once queer­ness was veiled, it became more riv­et­ing. Trans­gres­sion, fan­ta­sy, top­pling of the social order, poi­soned vic­to­ries – all of this adds up to Dra­ma with a cap­i­tal D.

Sup­pressed desire motors Philadel­phia Sto­ry (1940), Now Voy­ager (1942), Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958) – anoth­er Ten­nessee Williams’ melo­dra­ma fea­tur­ing a homo­erot­ic dead man – Break­fast At Tiffany’s (1961), and My Fair Lady (1962). These are sto­ries about pass­ing and pre­tend­ing, many writ­ten or direct­ed by gay men.

George Cukor (Din­ner at Eight, Camille, Adam’s Rib, A Star is Born) presided over many of Hollywood’s finest not-queer queer pro­duc­tions, often with eye-pop­ping design. A gay Jew who styled him­self as a suave bespec­ta­cled Anglophile, the cos­tumes of his films wink at the per­for­mance of gen­der. In The Philadel­phia Sto­ry and My Fair Lady, Cukor turns Audrey Hep­burn and Kather­ine Hep­burn into wreck­ing balls wrapped in organ­za. His pacey tone, grand light­ing and inti­mate fram­ing tilt between rev­o­lu­tion and joie d’esprit. Kather­ine Hepburn’s cos­tumes as Tra­cy Lord – the chaste, judg­men­tal heiress who learns to be more humane – pro­pose a know­ing­ness about the con­struc­tion of the social self, whether as a faux library stu­dent in a nod­ding cap, or a jer­sey-draped, swim­ming pool ​‘god­dess’.

The end­ing of The Philadel­phia Sto­ry makes no erot­ic sense unless you have a queer­ish fond­ness for pla­ton­ic and polyamorous love. Sto­ic, sex­less C.K. Dex­ter Haven (Cary Grant) does his bit, lec­tur­ing Tra­cy, but the chem­istry is all between Hep­burn and lofty author-turned-gos­sip colum­nist, Jim­my Stewart’s Mike Con­nor. Their mid­sum­mer night of melt­ing mad­ness, with­out a sin­gle kiss, is a gar­den sequence so steamy it advo­cates for bet­ter romance under cen­sor­ship while sug­gest­ing the deli­cious­ness of sex out­side the home.

Equal­ly, in My Fair Lady, one can’t imag­ine Audrey Hepburn’s plucky cock­ney Eliza Doolit­tle – dressed with dizzy­ing panache by Cecil Beat­on – and tweedy Hen­ry Hig­gins (Rex Har­ri­son) build­ing a love nest, unless that involves a dun­geon with Hig­gins’ life­long part­ner, Colonel Pick­er­ing. Har­ri­son is a grim roman­tic lead, his face like a sun­tanned machete. The con­clu­sion of their pow­er-play is a heart-warm­ing found fam­i­ly sto­ry, but incred­i­ble as a straight romance.

Dirty Danc­ing, direct­ed by gay Emile Bar­dolino, revis­its the teacher-stu­dent ener­gy of Mäd­chen in Uni­form and My Fair Lady. Vir­ginal 17-year-old Baby (Jen­nifer Gay) meets grown-up John­ny (Patrick Swayze), a dance instruc­tor, at an upscale for­est camp, in a Romeo and Juli­et sto­ry of class rev­o­lu­tion. Sex at the resort is a clos­et­ed affair – the staff’s secret ​‘Dirty Danc­ing’ club is a pink and black, bump ​‘n’ grind palace (instant­ly recog­nis­able to patrons of gay clubs) where John­ny and his pla­ton­ic part­ner sim­u­late cun­nilin­gus. The plot is sec­ond-rate, but the sin­cere, beau­ti­ful focus of Bardolino’s cam­era is Swayze, pul­sat­ing at Baby like a male go-go dancer at Stu­dio 54.

Voyeurism con­tributes to the watch­able but banal pop dra­mas of the 1980s. Flash­dance, Foot­loose, Pur­ple Rain and Top Gun are all straight films much improved by their queer vibe. Here, 80s music video mon­tage oper­ates like a cin­e­mat­ic wet dream, with young bod­ies fly­ing through the air. One of cinema’s rare (clothed) depic­tions of clit-stim occurs in Pur­ple Rain, with a rav­ish­ing­ly fem­i­nine Prince embrac­ing the more assured, old­er Apol­lo­nia from behind.

The unre­al­i­ty of such films shares space with the 80s and 90s sci-fi of mor­ph­ing bod­ies and mon­strous matri­archies. Rid­ley Scott’s Alien and the Wachowschi sis­ters’ The Matrix are like Cukor on T. In deep space or eco-dev­as­tat­ed rain, vul­ner­a­ble him­bos (Keanu Reeves) and vir­ile, androg­y­nous women (Sigour­ney Weaver) fight Big Corp. Here, that which is denied, haunts and final­ly destroys the super­fi­cial­ly accept­able. The unseen is final­ly seen, not in sex­u­al terms – for these are straight films – but by expos­ing the lies of patri­ar­chal cap­i­tal­ism. We should nev­er under­es­ti­mate cinema’s visu­al delight in the ​‘reveal’. The lega­cy of these films has recent­ly giv­en us Julia Ducournau’s elec­tri­fy­ing and mov­ing queer hor­ror Titane while a trou­bling sense of dou­ble iden­ti­ties gifts a Hitch­cock­ian ele­gance to Andrew Haigh’s forth­com­ing All Of Us Strangers.

At a time when we’re still fight­ing for more inclu­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion, it may be con­tro­ver­sial to point out the ways in which great art flour­ish­es when it’s dis­al­lowed. But, while we await more accom­plished queer cin­e­ma, it’s inter­est­ing to con­sid­er how the best new work might owe a debt to the gold­en age of cen­sor­ship, and the fun – and pain – of sneak­ing around.