News/Research

Film changed the way people saw sexuality. Now, social media does

11 Jul, 2024

Film changed the way people saw sexuality. Now, social media does

Anne Brice writes "Film changed the way people saw sexuality. Now, social media does," highlighting the work of Damon Young!

Film’s strong influence on society’s ideas about gender in the 20th century shifted attitudes about who could express their sexuality in public, and how. Today, similar shifts are happening with the dominant cultural medium of our age: social media.

Young is the author of Making Sex Public and Other Cinematic Fantasies, a 2018 book that explores how portrayals of queer sexuality and women’s sexuality began to shift in film in the U.S. and France in the 1960s and ‘70s. Given that film had a strong influence on society’s ideas about gender, these shifts changed attitudes about who could express their sexuality in public, and how. Today, he said, similar shifts are happening with the dominant cultural medium of our age: social media.

Read the full article here!