Homosexuality and Billy Elliot Essay

For almost a quarter century Billy Sunday was a household name in the United States. Between 1902 when he first made the pages of the New York Times and 1935 when the paper covered his death and memorial service in detail, people who knew anything about current events had heard of the former major league baseball player who was preaching sin and salvation to large crowds all over America. Not everyone who knew of the famous evangelist liked him. Plenty of outspoken critics spoke of his flashy style and criticized his conservative doctrines. But he had hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of loyal defenders, and they were just as loud in their praise as the critics were in their criticism.

The way people ultimately view homosexuality, whether in religion, politics or modern popular culture, is all determined by traditional or changing points of view. This essay will discuss mainly liberal and conservative Christian interpretations of the Bible, including many verses that may support or condemn homosexuality. It will also discuss the political views and laws against same-sex marriage and the social activism in the homosexual community. This is all about view points and it has many conflicting views and arguments.

Prior to the twenty-first century, homosexuality was viewed as a mental disorder that required treatment. Both counseling and aversion therapy were exercised in attempts to “cure” individuals of their sexuality. The brutal process consisted of shock therapies, lobotomies, castrations, and drugs (Scot, 2013). A device that was commonly used was the Farrall Instrument, which functioned by showing an individual of the same sex and delivering a shock until a button was pressed to deliver another slide. The slides of the opposite sex did not deliver a shock; therefore, an association with those of the same sex would become negative and the patient receiving the treatment would become heterosexual. These practices were enacted until 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder (Scot, 2013). From that point on, homosexuality increasingly grew in acceptance and still continues to do so in modern society. A variety of places that celebrate members of the LGBT community have been established to help welcome them into society, along with an improvement of the attitudes of others and their treatments towards the communities’ members. However, homophobia and the segregation of LGBT individuals still persists in modern society to prevent their integration into civilization.

For many years, psychologists described homosexuality as a disorder or a treatable complex. Recently, homosexuality was removed from the DSM and is no longer considered a disorder. The gay population is no longer treated as sick but accepted as a diverse set of individuals. The many distinguishing attributes and characteristics of a gay or lesbian individual are considered to be personality attributes.

Masculinity can be defined as the behaviours, social roles, and relations of men within a given society in addition to the meanings that are attributed to them. The term masculinity stresses gender, unlike male, which stresses biological sex. Despite, this we often times see masculinity being represented as directly correlating to men with an inability to adhere to this is shown making you less of a "man". As put by Katz (1999) there is an expectation that men on screen must be void of emotion, not backing down from a fight, tough and an embodiment of the male gaze. Katz (1999) argues that essentially what

The history of the gay rights movement goes as far back as the late 19th century. More accurately, the quest by gays to search out others like themselves and foster a feeling of identity has been around since then. It is an innovative movement that seeks to change existing norms and gain acceptance within our culture. By 1915, one gay person said that the gay world was a "community, distinctly organized" (Milestones 1991), but kept mostly out of view because of social hostility. According to the Milestones article, after World War II, around 1940, many cities saw their first gay bars open as many homosexuals began to start a networking system. However, their newfound visibility only backfired on them, as

Billy Elliot was a story of adversity and struggle. It follows a young boy who becomes a great success at ballet after he starts attending dance classes instead of his boxing classes. The play uses parallel storylines of the struggle for coal mine workers’ rights and Billy’s struggle to become a great dancer. It takes place in an impoverished town in the UK during the 80’s but it was performed in 2017 at the Berkeley playhouse. The play is impactful because it satires gender stereotypes and advocates for the payoff of hard work.

The topic of homosexuality in religion has many sides. There are those who believe that it is a sin in God’s eyes and according to the Bible, and there are those who believe the God and the Bible are not specific to homosexuals. It is a tough debate based on whether you are a religious person, how you were raised, and where your morals and ethics stand. You cannot truly believe one way without taking into account the other side and have valid proof to back it up.

Bisexual. Gay. Lesbian. These are all words that in today’s society are becoming more and more common to hear. Although just a few years ago hearing these words might have shocked some and angered many, they are becoming a part of today’s norm. People are broadening their views on sexuality and the possibilities open to them. Being bisexual, gay, or lesbian is slowly becoming accepted. On television a few years ago, a comedic sitcom Ellen attempted to make gays even more accepted by casting the main character as a gay woman. Sadly, Ellen failed because viewers weren’t ready for gays to be seen in a comfortable TV setting. The idea was too new and the show was before

Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry, details the life of an 11-year-old working-class boy who is caught up in the poverty and violence of North-east England during the 1984 miner’s strikes. After a local ballet teacher discovers Billy’s raw talent for dancing, Billy decides he wants to be a ballet dancer. Billy had to overcome many obstacles in order to follow his new found dream. Two of these were family traditions and expectations, and social class. Billy also received help to overcome many obstacles, this help came from Mrs Wilkinson.

As being developed by poststructuralism, feminism, lesbian & gay studies and even American pragmatist theory (Parker,2001; Seidman,1997), queer theory has become one of the most important theories, which contributes to the research of sociology, arts and organizations. On the one hand, queer theory has been used to study the relations between the sexuality, gender and workplace. On the other hand, by utilizing denaturalized, deconstructive and performative methods to queer the presumptions of the taken-for-granted norms, queer theorists question and disprove the traditions which people cherish (Seidman,1995).

Homophobia Through the years it would be delightful to believe that society has gotten more accepting of minorities. While in many ways this is true, it is also a false statement as well. The United States has gone through leaps and bounds over the last century. Women were the first to win their rights, and after that African Americans broke through the barriers of oppression.

Sexual orientation is something that people hear about daily in the news, media, and daily lives of others, especially when it comes to the field of psychology and the nature versus nurture debate. For being as commonly debated and discussed as it is, there are many questions that come along with it: what is sexual orientation, how do people know their sexual orientation, what causes homosexuality, is it normal, is it possible to change, and can wanting LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, youth to change lead to suicide?

“All men are created equal, No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words,” Harvey Milk. A homosexual, as defined by the dictionary, is someone of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex. Homosexuality is ethical, and I will provide rational arguments for, and irrational arguments against the topic. A few objections are as follows: It is forbidden in the Bible and frowned upon by God; It is unnatural; Men and women are needed to reproduce; There are no known examples in nature; and the most common argument that concerns homosexuality is whether it is a choice or human biology.

It has long been debated where our sexual orientation comes from, particularly whether its biological or social forces driving these behaviors. In regards to homosexuality and bisexuals, some have argued that it may be a choice that these individuals are making.(Levay 2012: 41)Some have even said it is a mental disorder that one can recover from, but there is plenty of data that says otherwise.(Levay 2012: 41)(Levay 2012: 65) I believe diverse sexual orientations develop in humans due to sex hormones during fetal life, gene influences, and other effects such as birth order influences. I’ve come to this conclusion based on the narrative provided via Dr. Simon LeVay’s book Gay Straight, and the Reason Why, and the research that has been compiled showing strong influences from a multitude or reasons. I will also be looking at a research paper by Francesca Iemmola and Andrea Camperio Ciani, who looked into genetic factors influencing sexual orientation in men. It is clear there are gender differences between men and women, and this is probably one of the strongest indicators that hormones can affect the outcome of variations in gender traits.