Discrimination is a powerful force acting in our society today. It is defined as making judgments about a person's character based on unrelated factors such as their religion, sexuality, or the colour of their skin. Over recent years discrimination has steadily been becoming more obsolete, but in the 1960s United States, it was a major issue and one that affected many lives. In his film 'A Single Man', director Tom Ford focuses on the prevalent discrimination against homosexuals at the time to present a negative view of a society which so readily accepted and practised discrimination of gay people, largely due to fear of the unknown. Ford sets his piece during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the peak of America's cold war with the Soviet Union and of their society's hatred of communists, to draw parallels between the hatred of communists and homosexuals. Furthermore, Ford uses visual and verbal film techniques to show the effects of discrimination on central character George Falconer, a gay man living in Los Angeles in 1962. Through dialogue with characters he encounters and through clever use of framing camera shots, Ford uses George's isolation from a mainstream society who refuse to accept him for his sexual orientation as another way to cast a negative light on society.
'A Single Man' focuses on George Falconer, a gay man living in Los Angeles in 1962. After losing his lover in a car accident George struggles with his grief, and deciding to take his own life, lives one last day to the fullest. Eventually, through interactions with several minor characters, George realises he has something to live for and decides to keep living, only to die from a heart attack soon afterwards. The setting of the film is important when considering Ford's negative portrayal of the society George lived in. Ford sets the film during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which provides an appropriate backdrop to the film. Communists, labelled as "reds" were made out by the US government to be completely and irreversibly evil, resulting in their hatred by the majority of American Society at the time. Americans did now understand how these people subjected themselves to the rule of communist leaders, who the US government had given a very negative reputation through propaganda. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, fear and hatred of communists was at its absolute peak. This setting allowed Ford to draw parallels to the way a lot of mainstream American society also hated homosexuals. In the same fashion as the government turned Americans against communists, the churches turned Americans against gays. Homosexuality goes against the teachings of the bible, the core text of Christianity, America's most popular religion whose adherents included most of the country at the time. The churches dehumanised gays in the eyes of their followers, claiming their sexuality was, by the bible, unnatural, meaning that homosexuals themselves were unnatural and abnormal. Gays and communists were cast in a similar light due to powerful groups, the government and the church. By drawing this parallel Ford highlights the ignorance and discriminatory nature of American society at the time - that they could blindly hate so many people, purely based on sexuality, as much as they hated the enemy their country was at war with shows their hateful nature and stupidity to be manipulated by groups in a position of power so easily. By using the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop, Ford presents this society in a negative light based on their hateful nature and stupidity by highlighting their prevalent discrimination against homosexuals and comparing it to their hatred of communists.
Another way in which Ford has portrayed this society in a negative light is by showing the effects of its discrimination on George through the use of visual and verbal film techniques. He cleverly uses the framing of camera shots and uses dialogue to show George's interactions with several minor characters to show the isolation resulting from the constant discrimination he faces from society as a gay man. In the shot where George is in his bathroom using the toilet, he is looking out at the Strunk family, his next door neighbours. Filmed from outside, the fence and window frame his face very tightly, boxing him in with the glass between the world outside and his own little cocoon. Looking out at the Strunks, who are a stereotypical American, heterosexual family with a firm foothold in society, George appears to be on the outside looking in, implying that he is removed from society and forced into being part of an underground culture. By showing that the average American in society would discriminate against George, a character we sympathise with, Ford turns us against this society by making us take George's side and feel sorry for him, as he struggles to be accepted by people like the Strunks. Another example of framing to create the same effect is when George visits his safe deposit box in the bank. He is filmed from behind bars, which create a barrier between him and the outside world. Important to note here is that the bars resemble the bars in either a jail cell or a zoo exhibit. Ford implies that the discrimination against homosexuals was so intense that they could even be compared to criminals or zoo animals - Americans may have felt like gays had either committed a crime against society by being gay, or were abnormal and freakish that they could be put on show like zoo animals. These appalling opinions held by members of the society in question serve to increase our negative opinion of them.
Charly, who is herself in love with George, questions him about whether they could ever have had a serious relationship. When George replies saying that he had Jim, she says "No, no, a relationship", showing that George's friends also would not take his sexuality seriously. Finally, George has a dialogue with Jenny Strunk, the daughter of his next door neighbours in the bank. She shows him her pet scorpion inside a jar called 'the Coliseum', named because they feed the animal by putting other animals inside the Coliseum and watching it kill and eat them. She tells George "my dad thinks we should put you in the Coliseum too. He says you're light in your loafers". Despite not knowing George very well, Mr. Strunk goes as far as to suggest (although we can assume not very seriously) that they kill him. These three pieces of dialogue show us the discrimination George has to deal with in his society every day, making us empathise with him. Ford makes us take the side of George through the use of framing shots and dialogue, making society as a whole the source of George's troubles, showing it in a negative light.
Discrimination is still common in modern society, but was even more of a problem in George's 1962 Los Angeles. As a gay man he experienced it in full force at the hands of a society which refused to accept him purely based on his sexuality. Ford shows us this by setting his piece during the Cuban Missile Crisis and drawing parallels between the hatred of communists and gays by the same people in society. He also uses framing and dialogue to show the first hand effect of discrimination on George, the central character of the film. By using these techniques combined with setting, Ford shows us the blind hatred prevalent in many Americans at the time, casting a negative light on society. As a gay man George experiences society's malicious side in the form of discrimination first hand which is shown in this film, which tells us that a society which looked on themselves as righteous and good, in reality had many bad traits, one of which is prevalent discrimination. We can only hope that discrimination in our society continues to become less and less of a problem as the years go on.
