Against the homophobia of innocence
In a post on the NYRB’s web site about Carol, Francine Prose writes:
Ramping up the drama is the fact that we are never permitted to forget the social pressures and restrictive mores of the mid-twentieth century. In one scene, the bewildered Therese asks her even more clueless boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy) if he’s ever heard of a woman falling in love with another woman. It’s an innocent, almost comical moment…. Therese asks if he’s ever heard of ‘two people who fall in love suddenly with each other, out of the blue. Say two men or two girls’. Has he ever been in love with a boy? Of course not, says straight-arrow Richard.
I think this misses something important about the film, though, which is how clearly it rejects what you might call a homophobia of innocence. Read more↴