Editor’s word: The following comprises references to suicide.
The 1961 film The Children’s Hour, an Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine automobile from director William Wyler, explicitly tackles queerness and societal intolerance of it. In a cheerful twist, the movie truly manages to deal with this materials not simply non-embarrassingly, however even higher than sure fashionable movies making an attempt to make a giant assertion on bigotry in opposition to queer folks.
Cinema’s previous is a sophisticated one by way of queer illustration. The Hays Code, an much more restrictive precursor to the MPAA score system, forbade any specific depiction of same-sex relationships in cinema whereas most mainstream motion pictures solely implicitly referenced this neighborhood by means of mocking stereotypes. However, that doesn’t imply the whole lot pre-2000 was a wasteland for queer illustration in American cinema. Some undercurrents of traditional motion pictures have been reappraised as we speak as having extremely potent resonance with the queer neighborhood whereas many pre-Code period options characteristic specific depictions of queerness, together with Marlene Dietrich smooching a woman in Morocco. Even so, The Children’s Hour manages to navigate these complexities a lot better than you’d suppose.
What Is ‘The Children’s Hour’ About?
In The Children’s Hour, Karen Wright (Hepburn) and Martha Dobie (MacLaine) are longtime greatest buddies who run a boarding faculty for women. The duo loves their job and are actually comfy sufficient on this occupation for Wright to lastly pursue her marriage engagement with Dr. Joseph “Joe” Cardin (James Garner). Everything appears to be going easily, however one in all their college students is Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin), an evil lady who torments her classmates and is mad at Wright and Dobie for at all times calling her out on her habits. As revenge, Mary spreads a deceive her grandmother, Amelia Tilford (Fay Bainter), that Wright and Dobie are in a romantic relationship.
From right here, the duo’s lives deteriorate because the rumors about their sexual orientations unfold like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. Parents withdraw their youngsters from faculty whereas any makes an attempt to pry the reality out of Mary and different youngsters proves futile.
Screenwriter John Michael Hayes, adapting Lillian Hellman‘s e book of the identical title, is a devastatingly darkish work, significantly in depicting how unforgiving then-modern American society is of queer folks. The as soon as bustling boarding faculty is depicted as a haunting ghost city within the second half of The Children’s Hour, its empty halls serving as a reminder of the avalanche of hatred outdoors Wright and Dobie’s door. Though the rumors of the pair being a romantic couple are false, Hayes isn’t depicting the tragedy right here that anybody would mistake them for being homosexual. The tragedy right here is how merciless folks may be. The eventual vacantness of this location renders the implications of prejudice in an evocative bodily type.
‘The Children’s Hour’s Take on Queerness Remains Relevant Today
2022 has been the worst yr for anti-LGBTQIA+ payments in state governments.The Children’s Hour might happen 61 years in the past (and the unique play was written all the way in which again in 1934), however its unflinching depiction of individuals, particularly white members of opulent courses, being stirred up right into a harmful panic on the very existence of queer folks is tragically related to the actual world as we speak. This relevance is accentuated by how youngsters are used as a justification for this bigotry, that folks like Amelia Tilford should shield their children from the “immoral” gays. It’s onerous to not be reminded of the numerous waves of panic since 1961 revolving round homophobes justifying their hatred with “concern” for the youth, together with the latest bruhaha over the prospect of any gays sneaking into kids’s books obtainable at an elementary faculty library.
The Children’s Hour nonetheless being related so many many years later is a tragic reflection of how a lot American society refuses to develop up from its previous. Much like how systemically racist establishments from 100 years in the past nonetheless horrifying affect Americans of colour, deeply entrenched homophobia has by no means gone away in America, it simply takes on new types. The Children’s Hour’s compelling screenplay is a deft reminder of this whereas telling the tales by means of the eyes of two girls who should navigate all this prejudice (slightly than by means of the point-of-view of a homophobe who realizes that the queers are A-OK) solely enhances the emotional depth of this piece. Ditto delicate plot particulars just like the American court docket system refusing to assist Karen and Martha within the hour of want, a reminder that highly effective forces meant to “uphold justice” on this nation are sometimes used to suppress the voices of the marginalized.
The entire film solely will get much more fascinating in its last 10 minutes, when Martha reveals that she truly is a lesbian. In a state of tears to her greatest good friend Karen, Martha discloses an enchanting element that may strike house as deeply related to many viewers: she didn’t even notice this was her orientation till Amelia unfold these rumors round city. The very idea of queerness had been so absent in her on a regular basis life that it was solely underneath these excessive circumstances that she may come to phrases with herself.
For many individuals within the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, together with within the fashionable world, you don’t get to develop up round different vibrant queer folks. You simply get to listen to academics say issues like “I don’t mind gay people…so long as they’re not in my face about it” or homophobic jokes out of your classmates. The concept of queerness being a legitimate id, that’s not one thing that enters your thoughts. It’s a punchline, not an id. The idea of queerness is so usually dismissed or mocked that any occasion of it getting talked about at size, even when it’s simply in a unfavourable and illiberal approach, could be the one time you get to ponder “is this me? Are these experiences relevant to me?” When you’re in a desert, you’ll drink any water that comes your approach. For so many individuals the world over and in America, there aren’t many choices for having an “awakening” about your id. Like Martha in The Children’s Hour, you would possibly solely begin to notice who you’re underneath probably the most nightmarish of circumstances.
‘The Children’s Hour’ Isn’t Perfect, and It Doesn’t Have to Be
There are numerous fascinating methods The Children’s Hour is unexpectedly related and insightful about queer experiences. However, there’s no approach the whole lot in regards to the film can subvert all queer cinema tropes. Most notably, the story ends with Martha committing suicide whereas the heterosexual Karen will get to stroll off alike. It’s an early instance of the “bury your gays” rule that future queer productions would subvert and there’s actually no getting round the truth that it’s a predictable solution to finish Martha’s storyline.
Still, this being 1961, the norms for queer cinema and even simply mainstream motion pictures coping with LGBTQIA+ characters weren’t established but, so The Children’s Hour wasn’t following the endings of lots of of different movement photos. Plus, a minimum of the bleakness surrounding her demise is mirrored within the outcomes for different characters, together with Martha not getting reunited with Dr. Cardin and there being no straightforward path to forgiveness for the now-remorseful Amelia Tilford. These don’t erase the frustration that The Children’s Hour is one other film about homosexual anguish ending in suicide, but it surely’s a minimum of vital to know each the historic and narrative context that this conclusion inhabits.
Before this grim ending, although, The Children’s Hour was a surprisingly forward-thinking film that exhibits empathy for societal outcasts and an insightful eye to the harmful energy of intolerance. As America nonetheless grapples in 2022 with the hysteria surrounding queer folks (which is particularly aimed on the most marginalized pockets of that neighborhood, similar to people of colour), motion pictures like The Children’s Hour tragically present how enduring all that bigotry is whereas providing an inventive means to deal with the brutalities of actuality. It additionally presents a pristine instance of how traditional cinema may supply extra queer-focused and welcoming narratives than you would possibly anticipate.