Being gay in the movies

[kweerwolf]

From the "sissy" to the killer to the wisecracking sidekick, gay and lesbian characters have long been featured on the silver screen. Here is a sampling of mainstream movies released over the last several decades with these themes: Note how the roles have changed over the years.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959): Hollywood often resorted to a game of hide and seek when it came to the sexual identity of Tennessee Williams' characters (see the 1958 Elizabeth Taylor-Paul Newman version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Here, an immoral gay man, whose face is never shown, is killed in front of his cousin (Taylor) during a European vacation.

The Children's Hour (1961): Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn star in this film version of the Lillian Hellman play, a depressing and tragic drama about the fallout from a child's rumor that two teachers are lesbian lovers.

The Detective (1968): Frank Sinatra steps into the shoes of a detective investigating the murder of a gay man in New York. Considered sensational and daring at the time, the film took audiences into gay bars and lingered at seedy cruising spots.

http://www.fsunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/01/09/43c17eef51141

An interesting list of films with gay themes is included in the article.

[ronnykmarshall]

1. My own comments about "Crusing".

Cruising (1980): A killer carves up gay men who frequent New York leather bars in this lurid thriller that prompted protests within the gay community. Al Pacino dons a leather jacket,black tank tops and dancing like shit to play a cop who goes undercover to investigate the murders. Violent and explicit, the film, directed by William Friedkin who should have stuck with filming Linda Blair throwing up pea soup after this pile of trash, (The Boys in the Band, The French Connection) received savage reviews.

[xchrom]

2. thanks -- my hope is that

brokeback signals a kind of realism brought to the subject.

''kind of''? -- gee -- xchrom -- what the fuck are you on about?

realism -- just realism -- brought to our lives.

whew.