“Let's Go to the Movies”: Filmic Representations of Gay Foster and Adoptive Parents

Abstract

As a growing body of research evidence demonstrates, increasing numbers of gay men across the world are choosing to become foster or adoptive parents. Most important, the families that these men form are continually found to be supportive and positive environments in which to raise children. Yet despite these positive findings, other empirical evidence from examinations of popular media representations of gay parents highlights the negative assumptions that continue to be perpetuated against gay men who are parents. More specifically, these findings suggest that print and popular media promote an account of gay parents that is often either normalising or pathologising. The findings presented in this article extend this latter body of research by exploring filmic portrayals of gay men variously engaged in fostering and adoptive arrangements. Through an analysis of five recently released films, four dominant themes are elaborated: (1) the capacity of gay men to parent and under what circumstances; (2) the relationship between gay men's sexual identities and their identity as parents; (3) the agency of children who are cared for by gay men; and (4) constructions of kinship in the films. Implications are explored for what these themes tells us about the representations of gay men deemed acceptable or intelligible at present, and the identities the films offer to gay parent viewers.

KEYWORDS:

• gay father
• gay adoptive father
• gay foster father
• children of gay foster parent
• children of gay adoptive parent
• film representations

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the sovereignty of the Kaurna people, the First Nations people upon whose land he lives in Adelaide, South Australia. This research was supported by an ARC Discovery Grant, DP0666189.