The Homosexual Villain Analysis

The Hays Code-era requirement that “perverted” characters must not be made sympathetic or rewarded meant that these such characters had to be shown as villains in contrast to the morally upright straight-laced heroes and that they would almost inevitably be dead by the end of the movie. As a result, sissies and occasional tomboys of pre-Code era became replaced by monstrous queer villains, who unfailingly kicked the bucket at the end of the movie, preferably from the hands of the protagonist. Queer villain’s motive was usually their depraved sexuality or as a variation of that lust towards the protagonist or protagonist’s love interest in comparison to straight villains, who were actually given a backstory, a proper motivation. In "The Homosexual Villain," a tract written in 1954, American novelist Norman Mailer acknowledged that in the forties he had used to liken homosexuality to evil and widely utilized homosexual stereotypes; back then he believed "that there was an intrinsic relation between homosexuality and 'evil. ' "It was a time when homosexuality could be used as a plot device to reduce exposition and simplify motivation.

The audience was taught that amorality and queerness are indiscerptible, they are each other’s cause and effect. That’s the role that the queer villain plays; a threat to the “correct” order, intrinsically maladjusted to the way the world

We might make an assumption that during the Code era the villainy and codes used to connote queer characters got so interwoven, that it is difficult to tell them apart. It is possible that some filmmakers queer-code villains almost subconsciously, without fully realizing why they use this or that characteristic to make a villain more explicitly evil. They are just resorting to ideas so heavily ingrained in the culture and cinematic tradition that they do not see how their depictions can be