Fifty Years of Reviewing Films About Homosexuality: Discursive Shifts in the Moral Evaluations Within the Belgian Catholic Film Periodical Film en Televisie (1956–2005)

In twentieth-century Western Europe, film periodicals played an important role in people’s lives and their decision-making process regarding film attendance. This symbolic power was recognised early on by the Belgian Catholic Film League, resulting in the foundation of the monthly periodical Film en Televisie. The periodical published the moral ratings issued by the Catholic Board of Film Classification and film reviews. This article turns to reviews of films about homosexuality and explores how reviewers evaluated these films and to what extent their moral evaluations changed throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on the results from a historical discourse analysis of 174 reviews, spanning fifty years (1956–2005), we observed multiple discursive shifts. Although moral condemnation, practices of othering, and heteronormative lenses to discuss homosexuality were present, we also observed neutral and inclusive discourses early on, contradicting the Catholic Church’s prevailing views on homosexuality.