The Power of the Dog and the Armored Closet Gay trope

Best picture favorite is a sad reminder on one of the most tired modern day tropes.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Kodi Smit-McPhee starring in The Power of the Dog

The 2022 favorite for best picture is undoubtedly an impressive film. The Power of the Dog is a patient, meditative, piece on predation, control, and abusive power. The cinematography is claustrophobic in, ironically, the way it gives the characters contradictory amounts of freedom on the screen as much as it traps them. This is due to the presence of the main character Phil, where even when in the far reaches of the desert, no character is safe from his wrath. While initially appearing to be nothing more than a bully, it is later revealed that he actually has some depth. It seems like this character development is worthy of praise, when in reality it actually reveals a tired trope in mainstream media; the armored closet gay.

The armored closet gay is the closeted character who is violent towards others as a result of their internalized homophobia. Not only do they try to act masculine in an attempt to hide their secret, but they usually present this masculinity with aggression and hostility. Their toxic masculinity is so obvious that they’re usually unlikeable with very little redeeming qualities. However, we forgive them for their sins because they’re actually closeted, hiding a part of themselves from the world and compensating to cloak themselves in a society that hates who they truly are. Throughout the story they are the most hateful, rude, at times sadistic characters in the entire film until, gasp, it’s revealed it was all because they were gay. Toxic masculinity and closeted gay men go hand in hand in media, and it’s been a trope that has found leverage since the 90s, with a modern day example appearing in the hit show Euphoria. It is heavily implied Nate is so mentally unwell, has violent tendencies, blackmails his classmates, beats innocent people to a pulp, and generally manipulates everyone around him in the cruelest ways possible because he is secretly closeted and hiding his sexuality from everyone, including himself.

However, this trope presents a plethora of issues in terms of representation. With the prominence of the armored closet gay trope, it makes it seem as though this is one of the most common forms of gay representation out there. Meaning, homosexual people are understood as needlessly violent, generally unpleasant, and in some cases downright evil. It’s demeaning and presents an entire demographic of people as unlikeable, a demographic that has already faced isolation and hatred just for existing, therefore only perpetuating existing homophobia in thick skulled viewers. Essentially, these characters aren’t evil and gay, but evil because they’re gay, and it’s easy to see how that can quickly build a poor perception of an already oppressed group. Secondly, the trope also removes the blame from the straight homophobic viewer by presenting “gay on gay” violence. In their article “Why the closeted homophobe trope needs to die”, Vrai Kaiser perfectly explains this consequence when saying “Because homophobia is rarely dealt with in fiction outside of this character archetype, it tends to be automatically assumed that any character who expresses homophobic attitudes is closeted. The straight viewer gets to walk away and pat themselves on the back because they’re not guilty of the most outre acts of violence—nay, it must be a case of ‘gay on gay’ violence.” Essentially, the trope is made for straight viewers and presents homophobia as a problem facilitated by homosexual people, so it is not the straight homophobic viewers fault if they perpetuate the oppression of gay citizens.

Similarly, the trope creates a lack of nuance in the representation of a group that desperately needs it. There’s a reason this trope is not only offensive at this point, but overused and tired. It’s a go to for the evil male character, which results in a multitude of stories with this poor presentation and not stories for the homosexual community. It’s lazy, overdone, and shouldn’t be celebrated as nuanced character development as it is in The Power of the Dog. From the outset Phil is the most unlikeable protagonist possible. He is rude to his heart of gold brother, makes an innocent women break down in tears, and needlessly bullies a young server all in the first ten minutes. Essentially, there is no reason to like this man, and it turns out he is like this because his lover died and he has no way to deal with his homosexuality. Again, he isn’t evil and gay, but evil directly because he is gay. Eventually, the young waiter, Peter, that he insulted earlier for acting feminine kills him, with the audience meant to rejoice in the murder of a somewhat sympathetic villain. Essentially, the audience celebrates the murder of a gay man unable to cope with his own sexuality. Rather than getting the help and care anyone struggling with their sexuality deserves, he is murdered, dealt away with in a scheme that satisfies the audience with its complexity rather than prompting the viewer to consider alternative options. Meaning, The Power of the Dog not only uses a tired trope as a means of “nuanced development”, but only worsens the offensive nature of it by ending the film in the way it does. In this way, the film is not a best picture nomination deserving of every ounce of its praise, but a reminder of why this trope should die forever for its despicable and lazy representation.