How is sexuality portrayed in Torchwood?

There are many stereotypes of homosexuals in today’s society, in the fight scene in Torchwood, Series 2, we see some of these stereotypes confirmed and some are reversed.

Homosexual people are often represented through the media as overly feminine and concerned with their appearance. In this scene, close ups are used to show the character Captain John pouting and to show how groomed the two men are. With a closer look at the characters we see that they have feminine ways and care about their appearance, with perfect teeth and slick hair. There is also a close up of the drinks, being spirits and shots rather than beer, which most men are expected to drink. These reinforce the stereotype of homosexuals being feminine.

After the fight, the camera pans around the characters, keeping to the 180 degree rule, and cutting from one face to the other. This movement shows the characters closeness after the fight, which was used as a metaphor for sex, showing their passion and enjoyment through violence. The intimacy and passion shown by this movement, presents their relationship as a homosexual relationship, representing gay people as being openly intimate with one another. This passion is also presented by the colour in the scene being mostly red, the colour of passion, and a fire on the plasma screen behind them when they kiss.

The dialogue in this scene contains each character making jokes about their appearance, ‘you’re losing your hair’, ‘you’ve put on weight’, their banter and flirting shows their flirty nature with one another but also shows a bitchy tone, representing gay people as flirty and fun, although very bitchy in confrontations. In the cab, we see the other characters talking about Captain Jack as more fun and mysterious, which supports this idea.

Some of these stereotypes in this scene however, are reversed. The violence in the scene breaks the feminine stereotype as it shows them as more manly and tough. The heavy drinking and fighting also shows this. The violence is accompanied by the non-diegetic soundtrack of Blur-Song2, presenting the chaos but also enjoyment of the fight. The sounds of the fight are emphasised to involve the audience and make the fight more intense. The fight is also shown as fast paced, by the exclusion of certain shots during the hitting and getting up again. This shows that it is an intense fight but also aggressive, as very masculine men would fight, again reversing the feminine stereotype of gay people.

The mise en scene has a western feel, with the ‘Bar Reunion’ and the action of walking in from either side, through the swing doors. As Western settings are associated with cowboys and fighting, this again reverses the stereotype, representing homosexuals as manly, and able to fight. The costume also subverts these ideas, Captain Jack is wearing a long military style jacket, the camera pans up this outfit to emphasise the lack of fashion and style, and the fighting, violent image.

Overall, this scene represents homosexuals as quite versatile, whereas they are sometimes represented as feminine and girly, Torchwood reverses some of these ideas, showing them as violent and fighting.