“The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number the thousands for each red ribbon we wear tonight.”
Arriving at a time when AIDS was killing thousands upon thousands of people in America, it’s no understatement to say Philadelphia carried a heavy weight of importance in early 1990s mainstream cinema. As the first major Hollywood film to tackle the AIDS crisis and its devastating impact on the gay community, the release of Philadelphia in 1993 was a landmark moment.
By the time the film was released in December of 1993, over 230,000 people had died from AIDS in the United States. It was estimated there were approximately 2.5 million AIDS cases globally. With no cure in sight and fear and panic leading to a heightened state of discrimination, it was time for cinema to bring this issue to the masses and challenge the public’s perception of this destructive disease.
And who better to deliver that message than one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Many people sneer when someone suggests it’s “brave” for a straight actor to play a gay character. Nowadays, sure, that cynicism may be correct. But in 1993, it was a huge career risk. A career risk someone as beloved as Tom Hanks did not need to take.
After a decade of smash hit comedies and lovable romance films, Hanks was a bonafide movie star. However, as successful and popular as his earlier films were, Hanks was desperate to be seen as a serious actor. But playing a gay character dying of AIDS was not the usual path a comedic actor would travel to be taken seriously and the role genuinely could have destroyed Hanks’ career.
“Mainstream cinema simply wasn’t presenting the life and times of gay people in a respectful and mannered way.”
At the time, AIDS was still seen by many as the disease of the promiscuous gay community. Some shamefully believed it was the plague gay men brought on themselves with their sinful behaviour. As thousands died in the 1980s, the Reagan administration essentially ignored the disease for most of the decade, despite the fact Reagan’s friend Rock Hudson had died of AIDS in 1985.
Despite the disease deeply affecting the arts community, AIDS was still a decidedly taboo topic in Hollywood in 1993. Outside of the independent cinema world, films based on the LGBT experience were non-existent. For a major studio like TriStar Pictures to produce a piece of gay cinema starring A-list actors like Hanks and Denzel Washington was unheard of. It was the story the LGBT community were crying out to be told, and here it was being presented in a major way.
Casting an “everyman” like Hanks was the film’s true ace to play. The character of Andrew Beckett needed to be empathetic enough for audiences to connect with. The film asks its viewer to see his discrimination for the crime it is. Without a sympathetic connection to the character, that could never occur, particularly with audiences who may have been unlikely to have a personal connection to the gay community or the AIDS crisis.
Beckett challenged the perceptions of the stereotypical gay man so often portrayed in films. He wasn’t the sassy best friend or the bitchy side character. He wasn’t there to provide levity or be the butt of the joke. He wasn’t promiscuous or overtly sexual. Like all gay men, he was just a regular guy wanting to be treated as such. Mainstream cinema simply wasn’t presenting the life and times of gay people in a respectful and mannered way
“Demme felt he needed to make a film like Philadelphia, particularly after a close friend of his wife was diagnosed with AIDS.”
In fact, Philadelphia director Johnathan Demme was himself guilty of portraying a gay character in a negative light. Just two years earlier, he had won an Oscar for his direction of Best Picture winner Silence of the Lambs, which was met with harsh criticism from the gay community over its portrayal of Buffalo Bill, the film’s homicidal transsexual maniac whose lust for murder painted transsexualism in a horrible light.
Acutely aware of the damage he had inadvertently caused the gay community, Demme felt he needed to make a film like Philadelphia, particularly after a close friend of his wife was diagnosed with AIDS. But he knew he had to craft a film that’s powerful message would break through with mainstream audiences, especially by offering a juxtaposed character to Beckett who would potentially represent their inner fears and homophobia.
Washington’s Joe Miller was an example of the typical 1990s mentality of those without a personal connection to the gay community. He was a small-minded bigot who feared the gay male gaze. He uses derogatory language to describe homosexuals. He ridicules them. He threatens violence against a gay man who flirts with him in a drug store. He has an irrational fear over the potential spread of AIDS that came by having Beckett sit in his office. Miller represented the casual homophobia that was so rampant in the early 1990s.
The kicker with Washington’s casting turned the character of Miller into a black man i.e. someone from a community as equally victimised and vilified as the community he himself was victimising and vilifying. If anyone should have understood Beckett’s experience with unfair segregation, it should have been a fellow member of a cultural minority group.
“Many felt Philadelphia focused too much on Miller’s character arc and that he was actually more of the lead in this film than Beckett.”
As the film unfolds, Miller comes to understand how his casual homophobia is just as damaging as those who are more blatant with their discriminatory treatment of gay people and AIDS victims. It’s clear Demme was hoping audiences would follow Miller’s transformation of consciousness and perhaps adapt it to their own lives. It’s an admirable message but its delivery was and continues to be met with some criticism from the gay community.
Many felt Philadelphia focused too much on Miller’s character arc and that he was actually more of the lead in this film than Beckett as a technique of making this film more palatable to straight audiences. The film considerably downplays Beckett’s relationship with his partner, played by Antonio Banderas. There’s occasional affection, notably in the famous scene where the two dance together, but their relationship is barely explored and is more of a superfluous plot point than anything else.
Outside of his fatal affliction with AIDS and the unfair dismissal case he’s fighting, Beckett’s life was also criticised for being a little too perfect and cheery, which didn’t represent the struggles most gay men suffer through. His family are gushingly supportive. He resides in a cushy apartment. He lives too charmed a life before AIDS begins to destroy his body. As gay playwright and activist Larry Kramer so famously put it, “Philadelphia doesn’t have anything to do with the gay world I know.”
For those who have lived a difficult experience with being gay, Philadelphia does not stand as a representation of what they have endured, so this kind of criticism is entirely valid. Love, Simon suffered similar criticism last year by portraying a coming out experience that was ultimately a little too sweet and positive. But one film cannot possibly ever stand to serve the experiences of thousands and thousands of people.
“Philadelphia was attempting to start a movement of mainstream gay cinema to highlight the rampant homophobia present in America.”
Yes, there’s a little too much privilege going on in Beckett’s life. And, sure, it would have been great to see the film delve into this private life a little deeper. But Philadelphia was attempting to start a movement of mainstream gay cinema to highlight the rampant homophobia present in America and the shameful way AIDS victims were being treated. The film needed to tread a little lightly to deliver its powerful message of tolerance and acceptance and shine a light on the fact AIDS was threatening to eliminate an entire generation of gay men.
Philadelphia wasn’t exactly successful in its mission to spark a wave of mainstream Hollywood films centred on the lives and experience of the LGBT community. Brokeback Mountain didn’t arrive until 12 years later. Moonlight didn’t win Best Picture for another 23 years. As always, change took time.
But that cannot take anything away from the significance of Philadelphia in 1993. It may not have started a cinematic movement, but it sure as hell started a conversation America was refusing to have.
