In the 1930s, it’s safe to say that there wasn’t a whole lot of queer representation on screen – which is why Wonder Bar had the impact it did. The film, an adaptation of a Broadway musical of the same name, features a small yet seismic moment in which a man “cuts in” on a couple dancing – but instead of going off dancing with the woman, he whisks the man off his feet.
That wasn’t the first example of gay representation on screen, but it was an early example of Hollywood daring to depict queerness. Films like Wonder Bar were “pretty rare”, says Harry Benshoff, a film professor at the University of North Texas. Since the medium of film was first invented, LGBT+ identities have either been absent or cloaked in subtext. That continues to this day in big-budget, major studio fare.
Benshoff says European cinema was much better at depicting queerness on screen in the early film era. He draws attention to the 1919 German film Different from the Others, which is considered to be the first pro-gay film in the world, as an example of the differing approaches taken. You can watch it in full length here.
“The Europeans were a lot more open to those ideas in the teens and 20s than the United States was,” Benshoff says.