There have been a great many voices raised about the current trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody, which is in reality a biopic of Freddie Mercury. Without him there would be no band called Queen. Here is the official description from 20th Century Fox:
“‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury. Freddie defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet . The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound. They reach unparalleled success, but in an unexpected turn Freddie, surrounded by darker influences, shuns Queen in pursuit of his solo career. Having suffered greatly without the collaboration of Queen, Freddie manages to reunite with his bandmates just in time for Live Aid.”
Already we see some misinformation concerning his solo career. Freddie’s album Barcelona recorded with Montserrat Cabellé was used as the theme song for the Summer Olympics in 1992 and did very well commercially. He didn’t ‘suffer greatly’ without his band he was exploring other musical forms. This whole take on his departure sounds like a PR stunt to keep the current iteration of Queen relevant.
What do they mean by “darker influences”? Do they mean AIDS? Well, the press relentlessly hounded him when he was clearly ill. I would consider that “dark forces”, and he certainly didn’t get AIDS from Mary Austin his life long best mate. He did however get it from his sexual partners who were predominately male. Any biographic portrayal of Freddie Mercury that doesn’t address his sexuality is a fraud and an erasure of queerness to placate a heterosexual audience. Not to mention his death from AIDS shook the music industry and the popular culture of the time. His passing is considered a landmark in the history of the epidemic.
Queer erasure unfortunately has been the standard operating procedure for the American film industry for a very, very, long time. Lets look at a brief list.
Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy was not only alarmingly off with story line and plot involving some of the major Greek characters from the cannon of Greek theatre, but Patroclus wasn’t Achilles’ bestie, cousin, or comrade, he was his lover.
Shakespeare’s sexuality has always been a sticking point for many historians. The first half of the cannon of Sonnets are to a boy or youth and the first Juliet was in fact a boy. A fact Stoppard who penned Shakespeare in Love knows full well.
Richard the Lion Heart slept with both men and women and his marriage was childless. Never do we see this reflected in any film iteration of him, although we do see it in the play Lion in Winter.
The famous film Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O’Toole has him raped but doesn’t deal with his own sexuality. David Gerrold’s rendition of himself as a queer man adopting a kid in The Martian Child was transformed into a straight widower to appease the Mormon financier backing the film. The character Don Bernam in Lost Weekend is drinking because he is queer, in the movie it’s writers block.
Corporal Fife -Thin Red Line Jones the author of the work wrote that Fife has a sexual relationship with another soldier and the film took it out much to the protest of Jones and his family.
In Henry Fitzroy’s Blood Ties fiction-to-screen conversion we loose his bisexuality.
John Constantine the depiction of the character in Comic Book form is Bi and in the TV series straight.
This is just a sampling of past and present straight washing of queer, bi, and fluid people both of fiction and history in film. Representation matters both in fiction and in fact. Historical accuracy actually does matter because unfortunately people see it on the screen and believe that’s how it must have been.
This also occurs when representing trans, especially trans women, from Jarred Leto in the Dallas Buyers Club to Walter Goggins in Son’s of Anarchy Hollywood continually casts men to play what is essentially a woman’s role. Films want you to believe the authenticity of the characters. This has nothing to do with attraction or desire this has to do with the innermost concept of what you identify as. In the end it comes down to a major miss step by the casting agents, directors, and producers when they view Trans women, they see them as men.
This just doesn’t happen with queer characters and storyline but also with race as we have seen time and time again.
Why does it matter?
First off, as a queer man I am constantly having to read between the lines of anthropologists work who bring their own Christian, binary view that queer is other to their work in turn majorly misrepresenting the cultures they are studying. Important relationships that shift how people think and feel are swept to a byline or not reported at all. This has been used as a tool to say Queerness is an import of the evil west by certain Arab countries denying their own rich history of same sex relations. Chechnya’s round up, torture and disappearing of queer people is still happening with little to no outcry from any major country.
Even on our own soil we are constantly under attack from the right wing religious zealots who think the Handmaid’s Tale is an operating manual. Ignorance and denial, that’s what you support when you support straight whitewashing, when you support racial and sexual stereotypes you make it easier to make us other, and then it becomes easier to remove us.
Stage work and fiction are different from film. Theatre is very rarely about realism, even when it is, there is a separation that is always present. We have cross gender casting, racially blind casting and so on. This doesn’t mean that theatre is getting an A+ in this corner. There are works that simply need to be retired for their outdated two-dimensional portrayal of race and in some cases sexuality.
“Oh stop over reacting” or “You are ruining everything” or “That’s not that important” is what we hear when we bring this up and demand change. Here is where I get to use that word that is flying around a great deal at present, privilege. Dismissal can only come with privilege and status. It doesn’t affect you so why should you care?
Queer folk are not looking for special treatment. We are looking for accurate casting and storylines that reflect the entire story not just the bits that fit the hetero narrative.
So coming back to Freddie Mercury and why his sexuality is important. Thousands of little straight boys thought he was the bomb but they need to remember and acknowledge that one of their icons was bent. Mercury, along with David Bowie, Annie Lenox, and Grace Jones were the vanguard of pushing boundaries and challenging everything. It would do Mercury’s fans well to remember that Freddie was queer and they should perhaps think about that before they put on their Trump hat, use FAG as a slur, or queer bash. When you tell the full story you widen the definition of what we are and are aloud to be.