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In the end, the trans character is driven out of their home, left with nobody to turn to for help. Imagine another story where a trans character is perfectly happy with themselves, but is unaccepted by their immediate friends. When he falls in love with someone and finds a sliver of happiness, he contracts AIDS, and the film ends with him looking into the waning sunset. Imagine a story where a gay character is struggling to accept his sexuality. by Leste Chen / Image Credit: Far East Film Festival The ending scene of “Eternal Summer” (2006) dir. How the film chooses to end also shapes what we expect the characters’ lives will be like after the film ends. What we hope won’t happen to us, we hope the same thing of them too, especially the likeable characters. We witness the characters ultimate fates and experience their emotions vicariously. Most importantly, the way in which a film ends determines what emotions us viewers leave the film with. It’s also where all the loose ends are tied up, with all important plot-related questions answered. It’s arguably the most symbolic part of the film’s narrative arc, where the mise-en-scene, the last strand of dialogue, the characters’ emotional states, all come together and potentially consolidate the film’s thematic explorations. What’s in an ending? Definitionally speaking, it’s where the story ends and when the credits of the film starts rolling. If their on-screen presence are limited to deaths and tragedies by the end of the film, then what are these films suggesting of queer people’s ultimate fates? What do queer audiences take with them when they finish watching such films? Living in a Sad, Sad World Every opportunity at representing queer characters counts. In any case, the ending of a film is important - this is true of every film, and definitely truer of LGBTQ films. Indulge in happy endings, and we might start ignoring that the world is rife with homophobic people and laws. Indulge in sad endings and we might contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy that queer people can never attain happiness. That’s not to say that sad endings are absolutely unacceptable, or that good endings are all we need. The ending of Your Name Engraved Herein seems to have gotten mixed reception – some people think of it as sad, maybe because the two could have had so much more, while some people think of it as happy, or at the very least, bittersweet. A case in point is Dear Tenant, which recently swept three Golden Horse Awards, and its ending probably left many people broken-hearted. In fact, even Taiwan, the most progressive Asian country with respect to LGBTQ laws, still releases LGBTQ films with soul-crushing endings. This is unsurprising, considering how homosexuality and/or same-sex marriage are still criminalised in most Asian countries. Somehow, Asian LGBTQ films that are well-known tend to end sadly. Where are the Asian LGBTQ films with happy endings? Well, they exist, but they’re films or television dramas that fall off the radar. Even then, the lists of LGBTQ films with happy endings that appear are dominated by Western films. Frankly, I can’t even think of a LGBTQ film – Asian or Western – that has a happy ending until I Googled.
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It’s no secret that LGBTQ films tend to end in the most heart-breaking ways where queer characters are left unfulfilled, alienated and rejected, or in the most extreme cases, dead. (Spoilers ahead for “Dear Tenant’ (2020)”, “Your Name Engraved Herein” (2020), and “Happy Together” (1997)) The Happy, The Sad, and The End: Why Endings in LGBTQ Films Matter 15 min read Reading Time: 10 minutes