Venice Diary #10 - Saints and martyrs

by Elisa Giudici

It's the last full day of Venice with the awards about to be announced as you're reading this... or maybe they've already been announced depending on when you clicked over. Yesterday, I was chatting with some Italian colleagues. Our country's films in competition ranged from distinctive to very good. We were quite proud... but then two more Italian films arrived and some of us had to rethink our position.

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HBO’s LGBT History: Television Period Dramas

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at the oh-so-boring if earnest doc The Case Against 8. This week we’re taking stock of three of HBO’s period dramas to see how the network has tackled LGBT characters in robes, frocks, and spurs.

When putting on shows (or films) set in the past, you always have to walk a fine line between keeping it “period” — you want to stay authentic — while also making a case for its existence today — you want it to resonate today. Mad Men is to me, the standard in this regard, ably walking that fine line; never shying away from the rampant sexism of the time, for example, but also never arching its eyebrow to audiences and smirking to itself saying “Can you believe this?” This is particularly tricky when it comes to LGBT issues and even more so when the shows are not about issues of sexuality. Do you push contemporary understandings of gays, lesbians and trans people and risk being called out for anachronisms, or do you simply feed into a narrative of heterosexism that states that gay desire was somehow always hidden and tragic and risk instead being called out for regressive ideas?

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