In Oscar-winning films such as "The Times of Harvey Milk" and "Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt," documakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have been instrumental in presenting gay-related issues to a wider audience.
The Celluloid Closet (1995) is a documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on the 1981 (revised 1987) book of the same name written by Vito Russo, and on previous lecture and film clip presentations given in person by Russo 1972-82. Russo researched the history of how motion pictures, especially Hollywood films, had portrayed gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters. It was given a limited release in select theatres, including the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in April 1996, and then shown on cable channel HBO.
The documentary interviews various men and women connected to the Hollywood industry to comment on various film clips and their own personal experiences with the treatment of LGBT characters in film. From the sissy characters, to the censorship of the Hollywood Production Code, the coded gay characters and cruel stereotypes to the progress made in the early 1990s.
Vito Russo wanted his book to be transformed into a documentary film and helped out on the project until he died in 1990. Some critics of the documentary noted that it was less political than the book and ended on a more positive note. However, Russo had wanted the documentary to be entertaining and to reflect the positive changes that had occurred up to 1990.
Russo was one of the first people to persuade gay and straight people to examine the role that popular culture plays in shaping our attitudes about sexual orientation and gender identity.[citation needed] It started a genre of research that examines how movies, television shows, comic books, and video and computer games depict LGBT people.
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gives an award called the Vito Russo Award to openly gay or lesbian people within the Hollywood film industry who advance the cause of fighting homophobia.
