R35.00 Standard shipping using one of our trusted couriers applies to most areas in South Africa. Some areas may attract a R30.00 surcharge. This will be calculated at checkout if applicable. Check my rate
The seller allows collection for this item. Buyers will receive the collection address and time once the order is ready.
The seller has indicated that they will usually have this item
ready to ship within 2 business days.
Shipping time depends on your delivery address.
The most accurate delivery time will be calculated at checkout,
but in general, the following shipping times apply:
Published by Harper & Row, 1987, softcover, index, 368 pages, condition: very good.
Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.
When Vito Russo published the first edition ofThe Celluloid Closetin 1981, there was little question that it was a groundbreaking book. Today it is still one of the most informative and provocative books written about gay people and popular culture. By examining the images of homosexuality and gender variance in Hollywood films from the 1920s to the present, Russo traced a history not only of how gay men and lesbians had been erased or demonized in movies but in all of American culture as well. Chronicling the depictions of gay people such as the "sissy" roles of Edward Everett Horton and Franklin Pangborn in 1930s comedies or predatory lesbians in 1950s dramas (see Lauren Bacall inYoung Man with a Hornand Barbara Stanwyck inWalk on the Wild Side), Russo details how homophobic stereotypes have both reflected and perpetrated the oppression of gay people. In the revised edition, published a year before his death in 1990, Russo added information on the new wave of independent and gay-produced films--The Times of Harvey Milk,Desert Hearts,Buddies--that emerged during the 1980s.
"Russo's is an impeccably argued tract. I can't imagine a better thought-out analysis of the predicament of gays and lesbians and their presentation in film in the pre- and immediate post-Stonewall era of the cinema. He zeroes in on the wider attitudes of society, nails the nature of the mixed messages in films with overt or coded gay content, even in films that were supposedly relatively enlightened. This book proves a film study can be written with a popular clarity and still adhere to scholarly rigor. Russo finds a happy median between academic comprehensiveness/precision and a popular authorial voice in expressing the concepts and keeping them interesting. In fact, this book is quite fun; it seems like there was no film with even the slightest hint of homosexual suggestiveness --- going all the way back to the very earliest silents -- that Russo did not see or give mention to here. I'm learning a lot and enjoying this. Tons of well-selected stills that illustrate precisely the points that Russo makes."