“There is an unspoken homophobia.” For Olivier Py, actor and playwright, long-time director of the Avignon festival, Muriel Robin tells the truth. The actress denounced this weekend on France 2 homophobia in the world of cinema, ensuring that she has not been offered roles on the big screen, due to her homosexuality.
“Unfortunately, you are right, we are still in the era of Cary Grant, who lived with Randolph Scott but couldn’t say it,” believes Olivier Py, invited to the BFMTV set this Monday. “The Hollywood system, even in France, still exists,” he adds.
“And it is true that young actors and actresses, as my agent advised me when I was 20 years old, must remain silent.”
“We are surprised because we have the impression that the world of cinema is very liberal and that it is much more complicated in the police or the army,” underlines Olivier Py. “But it is true that in cinema it is complicated and that there is tacit homophobia.”
“These are widespread practices”
“Evidently, homosexual actors and actresses in the Hollywood and French system are not ‘financeable,’” he says. “It’s the public’s fear. But the public is often more intelligent than the producers and directors,” emphasizes Olivier Py, for whom this homophobia is “diffuse.”
“They are diffuse practices, just as machismo is diffuse. Muriel is homosexual, but she is also a 50-year-old woman, and it is also discriminatory in the world of cinema.”
“Cinema is ruthless towards women,” she adds, referring to a patriarchal world and an industry run by men.
Muriel Robin celebrated Saturday night on the set of the show. What a time!very strong words, to denounce homophobia in the film industry.
“Name an actor or actress in the world [homosexuel] “He has a great career,” he said, citing examples and assuring that many actors and actresses hide their homosexuality for fear of not working anymore.
According to her, French gay actors remain silent “otherwise we will never have a woman in their arms again.”
“If you are homosexual, you are not desirable, you are not penetrable, and when you are not penetrable, in this society and in the cinema, you are worthless.”
Speaking to young actors, he also said that they had to hide their homosexuality if they wanted to make films.
“We have to tell the young actors and actresses of 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, the directors, the producers, we have to tell them ‘it makes no sense for you to do this work, you won’t do it in the movies,'” he declared. He added, “I don’t want them to experience what I experienced.”
Source: BFM TV
