Cinema’s New Gay Villain

12 11 2012

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James Bond movies have always been charged with sexual innuendo and cast with the occasional homicidal bad guy alerting us to his homosexuality. But in “Skyfall,” the latest installment of the James Bond franchise, there is no winking, no subtext whatsoever. The gay villain — Javier Bardem’s platinum-blond-tressed, plastic-surgically tweaked Raoul Silva — is out of the closet.

And with this introduction, Silva enters the pantheon of cinematic LGBT evildoers. These are villains who are victims of society, their crimes born out of depraved sexuality, unrequited love, self-hatred, gender dysphoria or a desperate need to feel normal. Until the mid- to late ’90s, most of the LGBT portrayals on the big and small screens were of killers or sad sacks — or sad-sack killers. So, is it progress that Raoul Silva is aboveboard about his sexuality? Or have we regressed to the same-old offensive depictions.

Source: http://www.salon.com/2012/11/12/cinemas_11_most_memorable_lgbt_villains/