There are few more disturbing examples of movies as mirrors to society than some of the great teen movies of the ’90s. Those who have lived through the decade may recall that as more politicians expressed support for same-sex marriage, “don’t ask, don’t tell” was also in effect. Casual homophobia and heteronormativity were as rampant as ever, including during high-profile times. End school corridors.
Movies like ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’, ‘Cruel Intentions’ and ‘Clueless’ captured that period to a surprising extent. They reinforced what had already been in the cultural zeitgeist, including queer teens’ internalized homophobia.
Looking back at some of their images today, with more than 20 years in retrospect, it brutally reminds us of the roles we all had to play as teenagers in an oppressive homophobic society.
A storyline from “Cruel Intentions” immediately comes to mind. Spiky playboy Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) has just been rejected by his latest female conquest Annette (Reese Witherspoon), and his ego is bruised. So Sebastian turns to his openly gay acquaintance Blaine (Joshua Jackson) to seduce closeted football jock Greg (Eric Mabius), who chatted with Annette about Sebastian’s reputation.
Eric Mabius (left) and Joshua Jackson in a scene from “Cruel Intentions,” released in 1999.
Just as Greg and Blaine are in bed together, Sebastian takes a picture of the couple he uses to manipulate Greg into returning to what he told Annette about him. Or else he will publicly avoid Greg with the photo.
Erika Abad, who will serve as an assistant professor of communications at Nevada State College in the fall, recalls this storyline with painful precision.
“I can describe the scene because it was so traumatic,” she told HuffPost. “It’s probably so traumatic because it was the first time I saw normalized the internalized homophobic shame I experienced as an adolescent.”
She recalled that Greg also pretended to be drunk, saying Blaine made him have sex when Sebastian “caught” them. “So the first powerful scene of that movie is, my gay act is an act of violence,” Abad continued. “And [Sebastian] is like, ‘I don’t care what you do. I just want you to do me a favor.’ It was entrapment.”
And with Greg apparently now groomed, the movie kicks into high gear, leaving him and Blaine in the rearview mirror only to be remembered as the plot devices for the straight white male character.
While the threat of revenge porn wasn’t as pervasive among teens in the ’90s as it is today, storylines like the one in “Cruel Intentions” illuminate the era’s lingering need to weaponize queerness or instill enough fear in queer people. So they are completely silenced.
The film reinforced the reality that there was no safe space to be queer. Many queer teens like Emily Gallagher and Austin Elston, filmmakers and co-founders of Fishtown Films, didn’t even know many openly queer teens in high school.
“I think that also speaks specifically to the culture,” Elston said. “You didn’t feel comfortable in the ’90s, or at least in my school, to say, ‘Hey, I’m queer. I am gone. This is who I am.'”
Selma Blair (left) and Sarah Michelle Gellar in a scene from ‘Cruel Intentions’.
“Cruel Intentions” was also released just a year after 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was killed in a hate crime. Anxiety among young queer people was already part of their daily lives. “We’re from the Reagan era, Bush’s,” Elston recalled. “Even to a certain extent, Clinton. We presented the AIDS epidemic as a gay disease and all these [things] to let us know there is a problem. If you’re like that, you’re going to die.”
It meant there were times when queer teens felt they had to conform to heteronormativity to fit in. That was true of Elston, who played sports at school and said he probably even laughed at his teammates’ homophobic jokes, as did Abad, who attended Catholic school as a teenager.
“Even though I was in doubt” [my identity], I would still say homophobic things because homophobic things were a way of showing that you subscribe to the social script,” Abad said. “I didn’t beat anyone up. It was just accidental homophobia.”
That casual homophobia was often echoed on screen in movies such as “House Party,” including Kid’s (Christopher Reid) nearly two-minute song full of homophobic messages that he raps to distract his cellmates from trying to rape him when he ends up. In jail.
“It’s amplified in the movies,” Elston said. “And you think this is really damn problematic. On so many levels.”
There is also not a single black gay in ‘House Party’. “Not at all, because black people aren’t gay,” Abad said sarcastically.
Erasing, or muting, queerness certainly has some nuance when we talk about it within the lens of race and how it’s portrayed — or largely ignored, as Abad suggested — in ’90s movies. And by the way, female queerness aside. Rare exceptions like “But I’m a cheerleader” were hardly considered at the time because they were too often recognized as a function of heterosexual male lust.
Like when Sebastian’s wicked stepsister Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) kisses Cecile (Selma Blair) in “Cruel Intentions.” “When I looked at that kiss, I was like, ‘huh?'” Gallagher said. “What was the reason for this? This is not sexy at all. Like, come on.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt and a boy in a scene from “Can’t Hardly Wait”, released in 1998.
But that’s attributed to the way sexuality, as well as gender, was so performative in the ’90s, to the point where teens looked at gender to fit their individual norms and desires.
For example, the homophobic F-word was often used to denote a type of masculinity that was socially unacceptable.
Conversely, what we see in a movie like “Can’t Hardly Wait” with — you guessed it, another jock — Mike (Peter Facinelli) is an image of masculinity that isn’t just allowable; it’s ambitious.
So when that character tries to get back at ex-girlfriend Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt) by professing his love for her at their class’ graduation party, he faces homophobic embarrassment. That’s also followed by simultaneous laughter from their peers and us teenagers who watched the movie in theaters in 1998.
Justin Walker and Alicia Silverstone in a scene from “Clueless”, released in 1995.
The same thing happens with “Clueless” when Murray (Donald Faison) tells his girlfriend (Stacey Dash) and her boyfriend (Alicia Silverstone) that their new boyfriend (Justin Walker) is gay: “He’s a disco dancer, Oscar Wilde reading, Streisand ticket-retaining friend of Dorothy.” Side laughter.
Admittedly, it’s an iconic line. Something else is true here. “What’s really happening with these homophobic epithets is trying to reinforce gender normativity through humor and play,” Abad said.
It’s what turns Mike’s otherwise heartfelt moment in “Can’t Hardly Wait” into an opportunity for playful homophobia. Because just expressing emotions in the 90s was considered a hallmark of queerness.
“He’s really making himself vulnerable to the whole party,” said Frankie Mastrangelo, a Virginia Commonwealth University media scholar, and sociology professor.
“Then it ends with someone yelling the F-word at him,” she continued. “Any expression of vulnerability, trying to express your emotions, is answered with the F-word. Homophobia and masculinity always do this job of reinforcing each other and working together.”
They also work together to put the person in question. A lovelorn and drunk Mike is later photographed naked as if in a strange embrace – as part of revenge porn gone wrong – with William (Charlie Korsmo), the nerd he used to bully and reconcile with at the party.
Peter Facinelli in a scene from “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
We learn in a list of postscripts that Polaroid is considered “taxing” when it resurfaces in his adult life and he loses his job at the car wash. Even with seconds remaining until the end of “Can’t Hardly Wait,” the film underscores a dim future for queerness, amplifying teens’ worst fears.
It wasn’t until Gallagher recently rewatched the film that these images crystallized in her mind.
“It was said that 20 years from now, this would still be problematic,” Gallagher said. “I didn’t realize how much overt homophobia was everywhere in everything. You go through it like, “Okay, this is just what it is.” You just have to be quiet, and you will eventually find your people.”
Statements like Gallagher’s are why, looking back at these films that defined our formative years, for better or for worse, we beg to reckon with our nostalgia and the unshakable mirror they held up to ourselves and the troubled world around us.
But that’s also why so many of us still love to rewatch these movies. Because, Gallagher believes, they trigger “the vibes, the feel” of our past as much as they challenge us in ways necessary to truly evolve as humans.
“I have a great affinity for films that aren’t perfect because they allow you to think,” Elston said. “Like, okay, this is where we were as a culture. Even if it’s unintentional, this is what it’s about.”
And in the end, it’s about how to absorb this new context today. “It fascinates me in a way that I can really talk to myself about where I am now and what I like,” Elston said.