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Homosexuality in Hitchcock movies
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| During Hitchcock's Hollywood career, the Motion Picture Production Code prohibited depiction or direct reference to homosexuality on screen. Nevertheless, several Hitchcock films exploit popular perceptions of homosexuality in developing characters. Three films in particular--Rebecca (1940), Rope (1948), and Strangers on a Train (1950)--have been discussed in relation to gay depictions and homophobic stereotypes. Homosexuality is presented negatively in these movies, where it is typically associated with misogyny (hatred of women), emotional instability, and violence. Such treatment was a reflection of both popular prejudice and the current stance of psychiatry, which until 1974 classified homosexuality as a "mental disorder." On the other hand, Hitchcock seems to have been free of personal prejudice: he worked with gay and bisexual writers and actors throughout his career. |
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| In Rebecca, the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) expresses strong feelings for the deceased Rebecca DeWinter, fetishizing her nightgown, hairbrush, and pillow, and displays intense jealousy of the second Mrs. DeWinter, whom she tries to provoke to suicide. Mrs. Danvers eventually dies in a fire that she likely set. |  |
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| Strangers on a Train carries over the strong homosexual overtones of its source, by the gay novelist Patricia Highsmith. The villain Bruno is characterized by flashy clothes, effeminate mannerisms, unnatural closeness to his mother, and hatred of his father--reflecting stereotypes of the time as well as the psychanalytical theory of Momism. Bruno's fixation on Guy results in violent abuse against two women, and an attempt to frame Guy that seems motivated in part by sexual jealousy. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"But Guy, I like you."
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| Below: Charles Oakley in Shadow of a Doubt (1942) is in some ways an early version of Bruno. He also wears flashy clothes and is unusually close to his sister (a mother figure). A serial killer of women, his misogyny is expressed both in dialogue and in his rough handling of his namesake niece. |
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| Rope, Hitchcock's most direct treatment of homosexuality, is based on a 1929 play that drew on the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder case of 1924. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, students at the University of Chicago who were lovers, murdered a 14-year-old boy as a thrill and also to demonstrate their belief in their inherent superiority and exemption from moral standards. |
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Leopold & Loeb mugshots
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Above: Rope: the killing (top) and the post-coital imagery of its immediate aftermath. The screenplay for Rope is credited to Arthur Laurents, a gay writer and director who was also the lover of one of the film's male stars. Hitchcock approached Cary Grant and Montgomery Clift for two of the three key roles, but both declined, at least partly out of concern for their images. The roles of the young murderers went to gay actors John Dall and Farley Granger; James Stewart played their mentor (the role Hitchcock wanted for Cary Grant). |
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| main page: Hitchcock& psychoanalysis Momism and the Oedipal complex Mothers in Hitchcock movies |
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