My Policeman: The real honest historical reason why this film matters so much
While My Policeman has been in selected theaters in the United States for a couple of weeks, the film is finally available to stream globally on Amazon Prime. Starring David Dawson, Emma Corrin, and Harry Styles, My Policeman is one of 2022’s most anticipated historical queer film releases. Based on the book of the same name by Bethan Roberts, this film tells the story of two young men that met and fell in love during the 1950s in Brighton, England.
There are many types of folks flocking to see this film, but it’s undeniable that hordes of people showing up for My Policeman are doing so because of Harry Styles. This is his first queer leading role in a feature film and only his third movie overall. Despite his new foray into the world of acting, Harry Styles is an individual that certainly comes with a built-in fanbase. Young, older, women, men, straight, gay, queer – you name it, Styles’ fanbase caters to it.
Harry Styles, however, is not the most important aspect of this film and is certainly not the reason folks should sit down and watch it. My Policeman is an incredibly important historical story that documents a very dark time in LGBTQ+ history in Britain, and it all took place a short enough time ago that wounds for some are still relatively fresh. For younger audiences who may not be so well-versed in LGBTQ+ history, the importance of this aspect of the film may slide past them because the history becomes enveloped in the broken love story.
When young Patrick (David Dawson) meets a young Tom (Harry Styles) in the 1950s, homosexuality was considered a criminal act in England. In fact, the 1950s and pretty much everything that came before it was a harrowing time for LGBTQ+ people in Britain, and around the world.
In My Policeman, neither Patrick nor Tom are living as out gay men for the simple fact that they couldn’t. Patrick has a much harder time denying that part of who he is and never actually tries to take a female companion, unlike Tom, who most certainly does. Tom is able to fall into the confines of how society expects him to live, and so with that, he takes a wife. The young Marion (Emma Corrin) just thinks that the two men are good friends when she meets Tom, but almost immediately after getting married, she seems to understand that their relationship extends far beyond the realms of friendship.
Marion takes matters into her own hands and does something that changes the trajectory of all their lives forever.
To provide some historical context about this important aspect of the film, in Britain during the 1950s, gay men, in particular, were targeted by the law. In the earlier portion of the decade police actively pursued and arrested men for engaging in acts of homosexuality. By 1954 there were more than one thousand men serving time in prison in England related to charges of homosexual behavior.
My Policeman takes a sort of “if you know, you know” approach to this issue, but it’s really the driving force behind the entire film. Marion tips off someone at Patrick’s work that the man has homosexual tendencies and he is picked up by the police and thrown in prison for two years. He doesn’t learn until he is much older that Marion is the one responsible for his imprisonment, but even more importantly, when the whole thing goes down Tom does absolutely nothing to help Patrick, and the two drift apart for most of the rest of their lives.
It wasn’t until 1967 that the law in Britain was changed to allow two men to be together without fear of arrest or imprisonment. Even when this did occur, many other prejudiced laws were in place to ensure that queer people did not have the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. It wasn’t until 1992 that the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality as a mental illness.
My Policeman shrouds this story in the tragedy of the unfulfilled love that exists between Patrick and Tom. Even well into their elderly days, they loved each other still. However, the tragedy that became both their lives would not have occurred if they had met each other later in life, during a different time, when being queer wasn’t considered a crime or any kind of abomination.
The great tragedy of Tom and Patrick isn’t unfulfilled love, it’s a tragic historical system that denied them (and many others) their human right to love as they want, to be who they want, and thereby exposed them to discrimination and legal persecution. Older audiences will undoubtedly pick up on the nuance of this message. However, it could potentially be lost on some of the younger fans showing up for My Policeman.
In many countries around the world, younger generations are now able to enjoy equal rights and have laws in place that protect them from discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, this was all made possible because of stories like this one, and because of all the people that endured and fought against the hardships of generations past.
While My Policeman is a great story of great importance, this factor is probably its biggest downfall. While the history was part of the film’s narrative, and it did move the plot forward, the sheer significance and realities that this time period had on the queer community were definitely diminished overall in My Policeman.
Nevertheless, this is a queer story that needed to be told.
My Policeman is available to stream globally on Amazon Prime now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!
