The text I have studied is the film 'Pride' by Matthew Warchus. The theme of secrets is littered throughout 'Pride'. It is shown within this film that gay people are constantly forced to keep secrets. They keep these secrets from their families, friends and the public in general. This is primarily seen in the character of Joe, who leads two lives. One is a secret life as a gay man, working with the volunteer group: 'LGSM', and another is his public life with his family, where he must keep his homosexuality a secret from them. Another example where we see secrecy is in the character of Cliff, who kept his homosexuality a secret for his entire life. He finally feels comfortable to 'come out' as gay to Hefina, who surprises him by saying that she has known for decades. Cliff keeping this a secret highlights the theme of secrecy and due to Cliff's comfort in telling someone this secret shows how secrecy is becoming less necessary and how this theme is becoming less relevant.
This secrecy is still prevalent in the gay community due to the stigma which many older generations still hold today, but younger generations have a more liberal view on homosexuality and many agree we have, as a society, become more accepting of homosexuality. Many gay people still feel they must keep their homosexuality a secret, just like in this film, but many also feel the secrecy has become less necessary. Making this theme of secrecy less relevant today, though still relevant.
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ReplyDeleteThe theme of secrets is shown in 'Pride' by Matthew Warchus, similarly, it's prevalent throughout 'A Doll's House' by Henrik Ibsen. Both these texts deal with the theme of secrets and present how the characters lives are shaped around these secrets. In 'Pride' the theme of secrets is mainly seen about Joe hiding his secret double life from his strict middle-class family, whereas Nora hides a deep secret that would have torn the family apart and is left alone to decide the best thing to deal with the secret. Joe is forced to hide his sexuality from his family as he knows they would not accept him if they knew. As Tolkien Book states above, Joe develops a double life, one for his family and the other where he can be an openly gay man in LGSM. These secret lives enable him to pursue both life as a gay man and a pastry chef. However, this does not last for long as his parents discover the hidden pictures and news articles of LGSM stuffed away in a book. On the dawn of the new morning after the 'Pits and Perverts' concert, Joe returns to a silent home like usual except this time his parents are waiting for him. He walks into the sitting room to see the pictures littered across the table and his parents horrified reactions of their son's secret. We're only shown a snippet of his parents reaction but we could already predict their reaction due to the acceptability at this time in 1970. He is quiet as he listens to his parents berate him. His secret had been revealed without his consent. Similarly to Nora in the text 'A Doll's House' the theme of secrets is shown as her life is centered around these lies and preventing her husband from finding out, again this secret is revealed without her consent. At the beginning of 'A Doll's House', Nora has just returned home from a Christmas shopping trip. She is just in the door and she has already lied to Torvald and tells him she did not buy macaroons, that is forbidden in the house. He sees the chocolate around in the mouth, catching her out from her lie but he does not mind. She keeps many secrets from Torvald almost like a mini-rebellion against his rules. She stuffs the macaroons away in the piano. She lies again when Dr.Rank questions how she got the macaroons due to them being forbidden in the house. She lies again, telling Dr.Rank that Christine had bought them and told him that Christine was unaware of the ban against the chocolates, to Christine's surprise. Nora decides the best thing to do to is to leave the children. Hopefully, that will prevent her from tainting them and without revealing her secret contract to the family. Unfortunately, she is unable to leave before Torvald reads the letter, detailing her fraudulent contract with the devil. She is confronted and abused by each word Torvald spits at her. She is very quiet through this confrontation but, she is weighing out her options similarly to Joe and his parent's reaction. However, Krogstad is forgiving, sending the contract to Torvald and laying the fraudulent contract to rest. As Torvald overjoyed about being in the clear and his position at the bank is no longer threatened, Nora sternly tells Torvald to sit down and that this is the first time they've talked about something serious in their 8 years of marriage. She says how she would've hoped that when her secret was revealed that Torvald would do the chivalrous act and protect her and instead confess he committed fraud. This fight is very much the opposite of that outcome and Nora decides the best thing for her right now is a restart from life after this secret contract controlled her life.
ReplyDeleteThe theme of secrecy is relevant today as many relationships in this day and age are built on lies and secrets. These relationships do not last for as long as many crumble after one problem and do not last the test against time.