Independent Cinema and Boys Don't Cry

Using Boys Don’t Cry (1999), directed by Kimberly Peirce, this essay aims to explore the relationship between ‘Independent’ cinema and mainstream Hollywood cinema. Independent cinema has evolved as an art form and its relationship to Hollywood cinema has also changed throughout its growth. Applying the research and knowledge of various academic sources, this essay will attempt to explore how said relationship has, eventually, become a mostly mutually beneficial one. By analysing Boys Don’t Cry and its textual qualities, the process of its production, its distribution and its funding, the differences between Independent cinema and Hollywood cinema will be highlighted and how the practices employed in the creation of the film were unique to an Independent production, as well as how a Hollywood project would have been treated differently. Due to the genre that Boys Don’t Cry comes under, the connection between the LGBT subset of Independent cinema and the mainstream Hollywood will also be touched upon, as LGBT themed films are more prevalent within Independent productions, due to the reason Independent features came to exist and how they are made. However, a definition of Independent cinema and its relationship concerning Hollywood mainstream cinema in a general sense must first be established.

The rise of Independent films began in the 1990’s, according to Levy (1999). Between then and the present day, the film industry has seen the success of Independent films continue to grow. This is due, in part, to Robert Redford, who in 1981 gathered together ten emerging filmmakers to the first Sundance Institute Film Makers/Directors Lab. This was a workshop during which they worked closely with writers and directors to help develop their ideas, and where they were also given the opportunity to take risks and create the film which told the story they wanted. Redford wanted to create an environment which encouraged new voices within the American film industry, and to create an Independent movement from mainstream Hollywood cinema. Sundance at Park City was born out of the Sundance Institute and the US Film Festival, also known as USFF. The USFF provided the traditional film-festival setting, which screened films which were not likely to find further distribution elsewhere. The first official Sundance Film Festival was held in 1991, which kick-started the huge rise in success of Independent films, as this was when Redford officially became part of the organisation in order to provide a venue to showcase the talent that the Sundance Institute had cultivated. Sundance has thus become, as Hall (2006) describes it, as a marketplace of sorts where Independent filmmakers hope to be picked up by studio representatives. This leads into a discussion about the relationship between the two branches of the film industry and how it has proved to be a mutually profitable one.

Although the Independent film movement initially began as an effort to move away from the structure of Hollywood and its limitations, a significant part of it has become connected to the Hollywood Major Studios as well as their practices (King et all. 2006). Independent cinema has found itself, more often than not, working alongside Hollywood, which has created a genre hybrid dubbed ‘Indiewood’, a term first created during the mid-1990’s (King 2009). The creation of ‘Indiewood’ was used to indicate that there were areas where Independent cinema and Hollywood overlapped; however this meant that the lines between Independent and Hollywood became blurred. For some, it meant total independence from Hollywood, from finance to distribution, which is argued by Lewis (2001, p. 67) as he defines Independent cinema as, “...any project not distributed by one of the majors.” However that can be perceived as unrealistic, as trying to operate with total autonomy from Hollywood can be seen as a difficult endeavour, as Hollywood is so integral to the film industry. This means that for many, an ‘Independent’ film is defined through possessing a unique aesthetic (Newman 2013) and through a particular work ethic. However the overlap of Hollywood and Independent is by no means a bad thing, as both Hollywood and Independent cinema both have benefitted from each other. Independent filmmakers who wish to stay away from the studios are afforded that opportunity and can focus solely on their artistic projects, as Hollywood representatives would essentially take care of the business side of things, which will be discussed in more detail within this essay. Hollywood actors looking to expand their portfolio and their range will often look towards Independent projects to achieve this, as Independent films are perceived to have more artistic merit than that of the Hollywood “Blockbuster”, as argued by Santas (2008). Hollywood also has a place to keep tabs on up and coming filmmakers within Independent filmmaking as they perfect their craft, which means that the pool of talent can become wider.

Whilst up and coming filmmakers use their time in Independent filmmaking to hone their skills, Independent films have become associated with a certain style and set of practices, compared to the Hollywood Mainstream, which will now be discussed in reference to Boys Don't Cry, which was released within the same era that Independent cinema was rapidly gaining popularity. Independent cinema has always striven to push the boundaries that Hollywood has set itself, be that in style or structure, but most specifically in its content. Queer cinema is a genre that has found a home for itself within the Independent filmmaking industry; in the mainstream, the topic has rarely been represented, or done so in a negative way (King, 2005). New queer cinema was finally able to push the boundaries of narrative content by telling the stories mainstream Hollywood would not show, and in doing so provided a voice for a cultural minority group (Tzioumakis 2006). Newman (2013) points out that films representing minority groups, like queer cinema, are often found to express a criticism of heterosexuality as the norm in mainstream cinema. Boys Don’t Cry is an excellent example of this, as the film not only depicts the story of a transgender character, which would have been unheard of in Hollywood at the time, but this character is shown as someone who remains desirable and attractive and exhibits other positive traits (Halberstam, 2005). It is also the story of how fragile the masculine ego is; the manhood of John Lotter and Tom Nissen is threatened to the point of them committing murder when they discover that Brandon is not only better at being a man than they are, but was born biologically female.

Telling these types of stories, however, is not easily achieved. Boys Don’t Cry took five years to make; three of those years were spent, in part, trying to find the perfect person to portray Brandon Teena, the central character of the film. Director Kimberly Peirce mentions in an interview that at the time gay culture was very repressed. Trying to find an actress in a time where big movie stars did not do small films, on top of the inherent negativity surrounding the topic of choice, was not an easy task. She also mentions what the impact of television celebrity Ellen DeGeneres coming out as a lesbian; a greater number of people were open to auditioning for the film, but these numbers were not significant. However it was only when she found the audition tape of a then unknown Hilary Swank, who approached the character with charm and likeability, that the right person had been found. The fact that everyone beforehand portrayed their version of Brandon as very serious and not particularly likeable gives an interesting insight into the general consensus of how a transgender character should be depicted, and how portrayals, even amongst auditionees from the queer community were implicitly negative. Huegel (2011) explains that these feelings would have been derived from the homophobic stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood at the time.

In order for these types of stories to reach a wider audience, Independent filmmakers need to consider how they will achieve greater distribution. Sundance has the power to give an Independent film the distribution it needs via a large Hollywood studio. Boys Don’t Cry premiered in Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival and was also given a special screening at Sundance where the worldwide rights to Boys Don’t Cry was purchased by Fox Searchlight, a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox which specialised in Independent films, for $5 million. The film grossed $11.5 million domestically (Box Office Mojo, 1999), proving to be a major success as it earned back three times what it cost to make (Neimi, 2006), which was $2.5 million and despite the fact it only received a limited release. Due to the fact Boys Don’t Cry is an Independent film, it was given a limited release in the United States, which is usually a tactic used to build anticipation for the film through word of mouth and is normally only applied to Independent films, documentaries or art films. However in contrast, most Hollywood films spend a lot of time and money on the advertisement of a film in order to secure a profitable opening weekend.

It is important to note that the distribution provided by a major studio is generally the only help that an Independent film will receive from these companies, and this is after the film itself has already been made. In terms of funding, an Independent filmmaker has to source the money themselves, which explains why the budgets for Independent films are usually so low, compared to the features of its Hollywood counterpart. During 1992, the first attempt at Boys Don’t Cry was a short film project called Take It Like A Man. “‘I had saved up twelve thousand dollars - that was everything I had in the world,’ Peirce remembers.” (Martin, 2009, p. 24). Peirce explains that she was working two jobs whilst in grad school at Columbia and had managed to save up the money in an attempt to self fund the film. In 1995, when Take It Like A Man was made, the Columbia faculty nominated it for the Princess Grace Award and Peirce also received an Astrea Production Grant (arts.columbia, 2013), which helped her to fund the cost of developing the short film into the feature film that was Boys Don’t Cry.

Despite tight budgets, Independent cinema has always held a different set of values from those of the mainstream Hollywood. Location, for example, has always held a certain importance within Independent cinema. For Boys Don’t Cry Peirce had wanted to film in Nebraska where the incidents in the film took place - Peirce even attended the real life murder trials of John Lotter and Tom Nissen, who feature heavily in the film - but due to the budget, Texas became the primary filming location because it was cheaper. A sense of authenticity is constantly sought after in Independent films and a gritty type of realism became common for Independent projects (Hannon 2010), as it rebels against the mainstream Hollywood route of glitz and glamour (Dillion 2010), which used to provide the pathway to the escapism that the general public were looking for when they watched a film. Achieving this sense of realism was especially important for Peirce in the process of creating Boys Don’t Cry, as Brandon Teena was a real person, not just a character. For four weeks prior to filming, Peirce had Hilary Swank live as a boy, keeping a journal throughout the experience (The Advocate 1999). Before Swank was even cast, Peirce travelled to Falls City in Nebraska, which is where all the events of the rape and murder of Brandon Teena took place, where she herself decided to try and pass as a man in order to attain a deeper understanding of Brandon and how he might have felt; fear at the prospect of being found out, but the thrill of passing in public as who he truly was. Boys Don’t Cry won over twenty awards in both the film festival and industry awards setting, which goes to prove that this dedication for showing real people on screen truly paid off (Neimi 2006).

To summarise, the relationship between Independent cinema and mainstream Hollywood cinema is that although Independent cinema was born out of a need to distance itself from the mainstream, a beneficial working relationship has been established between the two sectors of the film industry. With Boys Don’t Cry as the case study, queer cinema has also been dissected to find that it holds highly positive connections to Independent cinema and negative associations with Hollywood. However it was the exploration of specifically Boys Don’t Cry’s production, funding, distribution and overall textual qualities which highlighted the differences that Independent cinema and Hollywood cinema maintain, but also where the two begin to overlap, resulting in an ever-changing relationship.

References

BOX OFFICE MOJO, 2014., Boys Don’t Cry [online]. [Viewed 21st October]. Available from: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=boysdontcry.htm

CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL., 2013. Kimberly Peirce: From “Boys Don’t Cry” to “Carrie” [online video]. [Viewed 21st October 2014]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q95Ubkj7qyk

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY., 2014. Kimberly Peirce [online]. [Viewed 21st October 2014]. Available from: http://arts.columbia.edu/film/kimberly-peirce

DILLON, S., 2010. The Solaris Effect: Art and Artifice in Contemporary American Film. Texas: University of Texas Press

EMANUEL, L., 2001. Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of Independent Film. New York: NYU Press.

HALBERSTAM, J., 2005. In a Queer Time: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: NYU Press.

HALL, P., 2006. Independent Film Distribution. California: Michael Wiese Productions.

HANNON, S., 2010. Punks: A Guide to an American Subculture. California: ABC-CLIO

HUEGEL, K., 2011. GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Teens. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing

KING, G., 2009. Indiewood USA: Where Hollywood meets Independent Cinema [online]. London: I.B Tauris & Co. [Viewed 21st October 2014]. Available from: http://www.gkindiefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Indiewood-extract.pdf

KING, G., 2005. American Independent Cinema. London: I.B Tauris & Co.

KING, G., MOLLOY, C., TZIOUMAKIS, Y., 2013. American Independent Cinema: Indie, Indiewood and Beyond. England: Routledge.

MARTIN, R., 2009. The Reel Truth: Everything You Didn’t Need To Know About Making An Independent Film. New York: Macmillian.

NEWMAN, M., 2013. Indie: An American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

NIEMI, R., 2006. History in the Media: Film and Television. California: ABC-CLIO

PEIRCE, K., 1999. My Search for Brandon. The Advocate [online]. pp 47 - 55. [Viewed 21st October 2014]. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VWUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA47&dq=kimberly+peirce&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0SVJVMqrFqvA7Aaw5IDQCQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

SANTAS, C., 2008. The Epic in Film: From Myth to Blockbuster. USA: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

SUNDANCE., 2014. History [online]. [Viewed 21st October 2014]. Available from: http://www.sundance.org/about/history/

TZIOUMAKIS, Y., 2006. American Independent Cinema: An Introduction [online]. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Viewed: 21st October 2014]. Available from:  http://biblioteka.teatr-obraz.ru/files/file/English_cinema/American_Independent_Cinema.pdf

The Less Traditional Rom-Com: Imagine Me and You, and But I'm a Cheerleader.

This essay will conduct a genre analysis of the popular film genre romantic comedies (or rom-com for short), specifically looking at the way this genre has chosen to approach the representation of homosexual relationships. This kind of increasing on-screen representation has been widely culturally significant, especially due to the fact that rom-coms are a highly popular genre, appealing to a wide variety of audiences - something that this essay will go into more detail on. The films But I’m a Cheerleader, released in 1999 and Imagine Me and You, released in 2005, will be used as examples of ‘woman meets women’ instead of the traditional ‘boy meets girl’, and as comparisons of how the two time periods approached the idea of presenting an on-screen, explicit homosexual relationship, rather than a subtly implied affair. Other films will also be touched upon briefly throughout this essay.

Romantic comedy films have a long history in which they have evolved and generated several sub-genres within itself.They have been referred to as the cornerstone of Hollywood entertainment (Grindon, 2011). The genre comes with a lot of rite of passage tropes that need to feature within the film, otherwise its status as a romantic comedy is debatable. These tropes include cliches such as the rules of romance, a meet cute/or initial dislike for each other, a misunderstanding, characters with the wrong partners, a make-over or disguise etc. The history of romantic comedies have produced a traceable timeline of romantic comedy cycles, which follows as such - in the 1930’s and the 40’s the “Screwball” romantic comedy; the 50’s had “Sex Comedies”; the 70’s introduced the “Radical Rom-Com”; 80’s and 90’s offered what is called the “Ephronesque turn” into the mainstream consciousness. What Ephronesque refers to is a writer and director of the 80’s and 90’s, Nora Ephron - she reverted women back to characters that had to be pursued and ultimately charmed by the male figures in the film. These films also tended to either bypass sex or at least tried to soften the subject. In the present day, the Ephronesque style rom-com is in competition with rom-coms that try and appeal to the male and teenage target audiences with whom downplaying sex would not succeed. Although the romantic comedy traditionally aligns itself with the female audience members (McDonald, 2013), there has been an increase of male oriented romantic comedies, often referred to as “Homme-Coms”, which replace the female central lead with a male perspective. This has lead to the increase of “gross out” comedies from the late 70’s onwards. These films also produced their own tropes that got recycled within this sub-genre such as gross bodily events like urination, excrement, vomit and ejaculation. Abbott and Jermyn (2011, p. 150) argue that “sex is currently frequently portrayed in rom-coms as an immature pasttime, a phase one goes through which explains its greater prevalence in comedies aimed at teenage markets.” This backs up the idea that sex is more visible in teen targeted rom-coms as the gross out humour is usually derived from sex in some form - whether it is during intercourse or just before the characters engage in sexual activities. It also explains why characters in adult based romantic comedies are rarely seen having sex, as it is holds adolescent connotations - although this stigma is slowly being overcome in the more modern romantic comedies being released e.g Friends With Benefits (2011), Crazy Stupid Love (2011), Love & Other Drugs (2010). Although the sexual acts shown in these films are seen as possibly light hearted and still somewhat childish perception of sex, they are still romantic comedies portraying its characters having sex, despite the fact that they aren’t specifically aimed at teenagers.

Whilst this timeline of heterosexual romantic comedy sub-genres was growing and evolving, another strand of rom-com was emerging parallel to the previously discussed cycles. Although homosexuality has featured in cinema since films were born, it was almost never explicit. Given the time these films were being produced, homosexuality was one of three things - something for audiences to poke fun at, for audiences have feelings of benevolence of, or something for audiences to be scared of. Gay male characters have appeared in films in the 30’s and 40’s as the feminine sidekicks to the leading character but this quickly evolved into portraying these types of characters as unstable, emotional wrecks and were often suicidal from the 50’s through to the 70’s (Davies 2010). Culturally, this kind of representation of homosexuality left a lasting impression on the public - it showed heterosexual, and homosexual people, how to feel about homosexuality as it portrayed these incredibly tortured characters struggling to accept themselves.This kind of negative perception of homosexuality within the film industry has meant that attempts to put these kind of relationships on screen have produced varying outcomes. Films have tried to place these relationships within the romantic comedy genre, but given the negative associations that LGBT themes have carried in films, it has meant that the outcomes have often been detrimental to the Gay Rights Movement. For example, in Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) and The Kids Are All Right (2010), both films are are shown to have lesbian leading characters. In Kissing Jessica Stein, the main character is exploring her sexuality with another woman while in The Kids Are All Right, the two women are married and have a family together. So whilst one film depicts a woman taking control of her sexual agency and the other a committed lesbian relationship, at the end of both films the female protagonist ends up with a man. This ending, although disappointing in Kissing Jessica Stein, is somewhat damaging in The Kids Are All Right, as it suggests that a man was able to turn a woman back to heterosexuality through sexual satisfaction. Although not within the rom-com bracket, the bleak ending of Ang Lee’s 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, with the death of one of the main characters (implied to have been beaten to death due to his sexuality), certainly struck a chord in the queer community, as it seems like these films are suggesting that homosexual relationships are destined to fail (McDonald, 2013) or to end in tragedy. This kind of treatment of characters within the LGBT community has also been demonstrated within television series as well, with many lesbian characters ending up with a male character, dying, or becoming pregnant. This has been slowly rectified in recent years though, with a record high of 4.4% (GLAAD 2013) of series regular characters on television being within the LGBT community.

However, this essay now intends to explore two films released during different time periods which successfully attempted to follow the formula dictated for a romantic comedy with a homosexual romance. But I’m a Cheerleader, directed by Jamie Babbit and released in 1999 is a satirical romantic comedy. It is the lesbian equivalent of a teen rom-com and uses gender signifiers (blue for boys, pink for girls; trousers for boys, dresses for girls; sports for boys, housework for girls etc), that we as an audience have already been taught by society, and uses them in such a hyperbolic way that it becomes humourous. The film demonstrates that standard gender roles are something that people are taught (Motschenbacher 2010) - throughout the film, the audience follows Megan (portrayed by Natasha Lyonne) as she is conditioned to conform to the heteronormative standards of society and to categorise (Driver 2007) her sexuality and identify what caused it, rather than accepting that that was how she was born, as well as following her as she is taught how to fulfil the stereotypical roles of a woman - how to care for children and do housework. The colours in the film are also highly saturated in order to communicate to the audience that this is an exaggerated environment that these events are taking place within.  The film treats homosexuality as a perversion so aggressively that the audience is forced to align themselves with the film's main character, Megan (portrayed by Natasha Lyonne) because, generally, the audience is able to recognise that homosexuality is not the disgusting result of a sexual deviant. The film uses the uses the audience's intelligence as the audience, again generally speaking, knows that homosexuality is not something that can be fixed through therapy (an aim that the film's main antagonist, Mary Brown, is trying to perpetuate) and so is able to allow the audience to find humour in the absurd actions of the characters that create obstacles for Megan to overcome. The obvious fake-ness of the film adds to the ludacris theme of righting homosexuality - even the flowers that Mary Brown is gardening are shown to be fake when she pulls one out the ground. The film follows the previously discussed format of teen rom-com, in the sense that the way sexual activities are treated are quite immature. For example when Graham (the Megans eventual lesbian love interest) is introduced, she explains that no inappropriate behaviour means “no fucking”. It is the first instance of swearing in the film and it is very abrupt - it is also very immature way to describe no sexual intercourse. Masturbation is also frequently brought up in the film when a girl is shown to be pleasuring herself with an electric shocker. Megan then also participates in this practise. But I’m a Cheerleader also uses the frequently seen tropes found in rom-coms; the two love interests initially dislike each other/a misunderstanding/Megan displays an embarrassing public gesture to win over Graham at the end of the film etc. Following romantic comedy norm, the two characters end up together against the odds and have a happy ending.

Where But I’m a Cheerleader catered to a younger generation of teens, Imagine Me and You, written and directed by Ol Parker and released in 2005, follows the pattern of romantic comedies aimed at adults. The sex is treated fairly mildly - the most physically close the characters get is kissing, although there is some crude language surrounding the subject, but it is structured in such a way that it is an adults humour rather than that of a teenager. Imagine Me and You is probably the most readily available mainstream romantic comedy featuring a queer love story as the central focus. Part of this may be due to the films cast - the actors appearing in this film are recognised as more household names, such as Piper Perabo, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode and especially Anthony Stewart Head. These easily distinguishable faces in the film were able to reach a wider audience, such as those outwith the LGBT community and didn’t have quite the same knowledge or investment in queer cinema. The 2005 film also follows a recognisable romantic comedy pattern, such as the main character being with the wrong person. But instead of wrong person, in this situation the main character is with the wrong gender as Rachel (Piper Perabo) discovers when she falls in love with the florist at her wedding, Luce (Lena Headey), which also happens to be the characters’ ‘meet cute’, another requirement for rom-coms. In a Q and A with popular queer website AfterEllen, Parker disclosed that he had originally intended to write a heterosexual love story, but after realising that people found that the way the story developed very predictable and changing it thusly, he discovered he was actually writing a lesbian rom-com (AfterEllen 2005). What Imagine Me and You handles well is the fact that none of the characters are demonised for their actions - Heck (Matthew Goode) is still a sympathetic character without the audience rooting for the straight romance to win out in the end. The audience want things between Rachel and Luce to work out whilst simultaneously wanting Heck to have a happy ending - which he does. All the characters receive a happy ending, as is the staple of rom-coms.

In conclusion, given the treatment that LGBT characters have received within the film industry, attempts to portray these types of relationships on screen has varied. Due to the negative connotations of homosexuality early on in film history, this had bled through into filmmakers endeavours to display these relationships in a light-hearted way, often opting for conservative endings. However there are examples of successful romantic comedies featuring a homosexual relationship, as this essay has discussed. But I’m A Cheerleader and Imagine Me and You are examples of romantic comedies aimed at teenagers and at adult audiences, with the differentiating element that these films happen to focus on a homosexual love story.

References

Abbot, S and Jermyn, D., eds. 2008. Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema. London: I.B Tauris.

Davies, S., 2010. Out at the Movies: A History of Gay Cinema. Harpenden: Kamera Books.

Driver, S., 2007. Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting and Creating Media. New York: Peter Lang.

Dyer, R., 1990. Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film. London: Routledge.  

GLAAD., 2013. Where We Are On T.V. [online]. Page 3., [Viewed 3 April 2014]. Available from: http://www.glaad.org/files/2013WWATV.pdf

Griffiths, R., ed. 2008. Queer Cinema in Europe. UK: Intellect Books.

Grindon, L., 2011. The Hollywood Romantic Comedy: Conventions, History and Controversies. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kitchell, B., 2005. Review of “Imagine Me and You”. [online]. [Viewed 5 April 2014]. Available from: http://www.afterellen.com/review-of-imagine-me-and-you/09/2005/

Maddison, S., 2000. Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters: Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonds in Gay Culture. London: MacMillan Press LTD

McDonald, T. J., 2013. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Columbia University Press.

Motschenbacher, H., 2010. Language, Gender and Sexual Identity: Poststructuralist Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.

Needham, G., 2010. Brokeback Mountain. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd

Stuart, J., 2008. Performing Queer Female Identity on Screen: A Critical Analysis of Five Recent Films. USA: McFarland and Co.

Wallace, L., 2009. Lesbianism, Cinema, Space: The Sexual Life of Apartments. UK: Routledge  

A Close Reading of Cloud Nine

Cloud Nine is a 1979 play by Caryl Churchill which explores the parallel between colonial and sexual oppression. She does this by purposefully taking gender and racial stereotypes and overturning them, using cross-gender and even cross-racial casting (Seal 2012). At the time, two large movements in Britain were gaining momentum; the gay rights movement and the feminist movement, both of which would have impacted Churchill’s writing. Churchill has been praised for Cloud Nine and her ability to capture the attitudes of the time, using these social movements as well as the confusion of a fast changing society (Ashton and Diamond 2009). Through a close reading of most of the characters, this essay aims to show the effects of the various forms of oppression they endure.

Clive is the resident patriarch, stating in his opening lines, “I am father to the natives here, and father to my family so dear.” (p. 1) and is the middle man between the parallel of colonial and sexual oppression. He begins at the top of the racial and family hierarchy, but throughout act one, his status begins to diminish. He does not seem to recognise his own hypocrisy; he asks his wife to be faithful to him and yet he himself aggressively makes sexual advances after another woman.  Clive is constantly instructing the other characters throughout act one to either enter or exit, forcing the other characters to be in a continual state of adapting to new circumstances. His unwavering belief in these patriarchal structures means that these beliefs are forced upon the women and children in his home. Churchill includes notes on how to cast specific characters in the copies of Cloud Nine, which reflects heavily on the themes she is trying to portray. The idea of a quest for an identity is brought up when taken into account the gender-bending cross-casting of some of the characters (Stanton and Banham 1996). Betty, Clives wife, is cast as a man, and in her introduction to the audience says, “I am a man’s creation you see, What men want, I want to be.” (p. 1) enforcing the idea that femininity is a male creation. Diamond (2003, p. 87)  argues, “Betty, the male centered, male subservient angel of the house, is literally man made.” Clives daughter, Victoria, isn’t even cast as a person in act one and is instead substituted by a doll, adhering to the classic Victorian patriarchal beliefs of young children, especially girls, to be seen and not heard. This is taken to the absolute extreme by casting her as an inanimate object. Clives son, Edward, is cast as a woman, highlighting Clives futile attempts to impose traditional masculinity upon his son, who is shown to have a penchant for playing with his sisters dolls and his inability to throw straight.   

The sexuality of individuals, like the bisexual Harry Bagley and the lesbian Ellen, are denied and disputed throughout act one. Characters establish themselves in relation to Clive. Harry hides his homosexuality from him out of fear, as does Edward and Betty tries to resist her feelings for Harry out of loyalty. Ellen tries to clearly state her feelings, much to Betty’s obliviousness (p. 27):

Ellen         I don’t hate you Betty, I love you.

Betty        Harry says we shouldn’t go away. But he says he worships me.

Ellen         I worship you Betty.

Betty        Oh Ellen, you are my only friend.

This is one of the only instances in act one where homosexuality is actively seen on stage. The other relationships are obscured by the casting choices: Harry and Edward’s relationship is changed because Edward is played by a woman, so is visually a heterosexual relationship; Harry and Betty’s relationship, despite Betty being played by a man, is typically heteronormative since Betty is meant to be a woman; this use of cross-gender casting thereby embodying homoerotic desires as conventional heterosexual relationships (Harding 1998). The other display of homosexuality is between Harry and Clive, when Harry makes a pass at him having misunderstood the situation. Having been outed, act one ends with two of the more openly homosexual characters being married together, at the hand of Clive, who strives to maintain the crumbling world he wishes to see by oppressing everything that falls outwith the norm. Marriage is usually used within dramatic comedies to mark the restoration of traditional family values (Ashton in Kohlke and Gutleben 2011), something which Clive would have believed in deeply. Churchill uses the notion of cross-dressing to express the idea of disguise within the characters as a way of life (McIntyre and Buchbinder 1987).

Much like the gender and sexual identity being dictated and oppressed, so is the racial identity of the African characters (McCullough 1996). Joshua is a black servant and yet the actor who is cast to play him must be white, according to Churchills specific casting notes for the play. In his introduction, Joshua says, “My skin is black but oh my soul is white. I hate my tribe. My master is my light. I only live for him As you can see, What white men want is what I want to be.” (p. 2), sharing a similarity for Betty being cast as a man, Joshua is cast as a white actor because that is what Clive wants him to be. His need to separate himself is also heavily reinforced in a later exchange between Joshua and Mrs Saunders, following the flogging of people from a nearby tribe (p. 32):

Mrs Saunders     You don’t mind beating your own people?

Joshua                Not my people, madam.

Mrs Saunders     A different tribe?

Joshua                Bad people.

This kind of determined attitude to remain separate from his roots shows how his identity has been shaped by internalising Clives racism and how he has been oppressed (Kritzer 1991); much like Harry and Ellen’s sexualities, who both express a hatred for their desires in act one. However, Joshua’s attitude begins to change after the revelation that his parents have been killed by British soldiers. Joshua attempts to remain distanced from the incident, refusing to take the day off or to even attend his parents funeral, act one ends with him aiming a gun at Clive; an event that Edward does not try and prevent, despite having seen Joshua in plenty of time to warn his father. This act of betrayal highlights the resentment Edward harbours for his father.

Act two is set technically hundreds of years later, however the characters themselves have only aged by twenty-five years. By doing this, Churchill introduces the idea that the past and present will always be linked (Jenkyns 2006). In act two, colonisation aspect has moved from the British occupation of Africa to the post-colonial presence in Northern Ireland (Patterson 2007). As it is post-colonial, the characters exist in a post-Clive environment; now free from the patriarchal structures imposed upon them, the genders of the actors cast for the characters change, highlighting this freedom and its effects. Both Edward and Betty are performed by their correct respective genders as they both begin to grow into their real selves and discover their sexualities (Patterson 2003), showing a greater sexual freedom.  The only example of a character being cross-gender cast is a little girl called Cathy, Lin’s daughter, who is played by a man. This is used in response to Edwards upbringing. Instead of having traditional values imposed on her, Lin encourages Cathy to play with guns and other “masculine” toys, and doesn’t try to dress her in “feminine” clothing. However, Cathy rebels against this liberated upbringing, insisting that her mother buy her dresses for school. This clearly depicts the issues that arise when thinking about what can be considered as correct behaviour for a girl - or, as in act one, the correct behaviours for a boy.

As the second act is set within “present day” London in the 1970’s, this coincides with the movement of second wave feminism, as well as the gay rights movement. Churchill writes in an introduction to Cloud Nine that more energy in the act stems from the women and homosexuals. She also mentions that the male characters find it difficult to relinquish control - this is personified by Victoria’s husband, Martin. Martin is painted as someone who wants to catch up with the change that is happening around him and is failing to do so. He is confused as he doesn’t know how to deal with his previous need to dominate, as that is something he cannot do any more as the roles of women were rapidly changing (Jenkyns 2006) and the sexual politics were evolving. This is highlighted when, after participating in an orgy with Victoria, Lin and Edward, Martin says, “I was all for the sixties when liberation just meant fucking.” (p. 75). The play ends with a liberated modern time Betty faces her oppressed Victorian self after being scolded by a disappointed Clive who haunts her, where the two embrace as present day Betty comes to terms with herself (Mihaylova 2008).

Churchill used cross-gender and cross-racial casting to explore the similarities between colonial and sexual oppression. She subverted the stereotypes surrounding women, homosexuality and race, which was viewed as controversial, however, this was common for feminist theatre at the time (Coyle et al. 2002). Churchill expresses the ways in which imposing certain ideals on children can be harmful, shown through Edward and Cathy, and subsequently how the notion of embracing gender and sexuality are crushed by the patriarchy.

References

ASHTON, E., DIAMOND, E., 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill. New York: Cambridge University Press.

COYLE, M., GARSIDE, P., KELSALL, M., PECK, J., 2002. Encyclopaedia of Literature and Criticism. London: Routledge

CHURCHILL, C., 1978. Cloud Nine. London: Pluto Press Ltd. and Joint Stock Theatre Group

DIAMOND, E., 2003. Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge.

HARDING, J., 1998. Cloud Cover: (Re) Dressing Desire and Comfortable Subversions in Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine. PMLA. Vol. 133, no. 2. pp. 15

JENKYNS, M., 2006. The Play’s the Thing: Exploring Text in Drama and Therapy. London: Routledge

KOLKE M., GUTLEBEN, C., 2011. Neo-Victorian Families: Gender, Sexual and Cultural Politics. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

KRITZER, A., 1991. The Plays of Caryl Churchill. London: The MacMillan Press

MACINTYRE, M. and BUCHBINDER, D. 1987. Having It Both Ways: Cross-Dressing in Orton's What the Butler Saw and Churchill's Cloud Nine. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Vol.2 (no.1), pp. 34.

MCCULLOUGH, C., 1996. Theatre and Europe, 1957-95. Exeter: Intellect Books

MIHAYLOVA, S., 2008. From Gestus to the Abject: Feminist Strategies in Contemporary British and American Radical Theatre. Doctor of Philosophy. Northwestern University.

PATTERSON, M., 2003. Strategies of Political Theatre: Post-War British Playwrights. New York: Cambridge University Press

PATTERSON, M., 2007. The Oxford Guide to Plays. New York: Oxford University Press

SEAL, K., 2012. Gender Politics in Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine. [online] India. pp. 203 [viewed 29 November 2014]. Available from: https://www.thecho.in/files/Gender-Politics-In-Caryl-Churchil-s-Cloud-Nine.pdf

STANTON, S., BANHAM, M., 1996. The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre. New York: Cambridge University Press.