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Filming The Gay Normal: An Exploration Of The Gay Closet And Its Portrayal In Film, Joseph Albert Marquette

Master's Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this thesis is to flesh out an understanding of the lived experience of the homosexual closet and ultimately how it is portrayed in film. It uses film, however, as a snapshot of potential realities that reflect the gay individual in society.

It relies heavily on the social theories and work of Edward T. Hall, Erving Goffman, Albert E. Scheflen, Judith Butler, and Gerschen Kaufman, among others, to build a framework for understanding the closet on both a macro and micro scale. It does not attempt to isolate the homosexual but rather to situate him or her within …