In contrast, my favorite film of that time and for many years afterwards was My Beautiful Laundrette written by a gay writer, starred Daniel Day Lewis and expressed a completely different view of gay men. Lewis made this film after appearing in Room With A View, so he wasn’t unknown. My point is that there were other views of gay men at the time. Yet, to this day, it’s rare for me to find other gay men who are even aware of MBL.
Even into the 90’s there was a rash of increasingly ugly films written by straight writers, acted by straight actors which purported to be about gay characters: In & Out; Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert; To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; etc. I don’t mean to incite a debate on gender stereotypes in film.
If I may use a racial analogy, I believe expression of homosexuality in American entertainment is still in its Amos & Andy phase. I’m hoping that BBM is the first light that a change is about to come.
(Forgive me, I thought I posted the following comment yesterday. Did I? Was it moderated off? Or did I just screw up the posting? Anyway, here it is again, with a few changes.)
Sactopete:
I, too, loved
My Beautiful Launderette. A charming, stereotype breaking film. I hate to say this, but I think only those of who were in our twentie's when it came out (1987?) remember it. Actually,
The Birdcage, the remake of
La Cage Aux Folles, came out almost ten later...in the mid-nineties. There also some other wonderful gay themed films that came out in that ten year time period:
Parting Glances,
Beautiful Thing,
Longtime Companion, and, I think the underated film version of
Love! Valour! Compassion! .
I am wondering, though, why you lump films like
Priscilla..., and
In and Out, and
To Wong Foo..... together as "ugly". I found none of them to be insulting or demeaning-just pure entertainment. True, both
Priscilla and
Wong has drag queens as main characters, but in both films they are presented as real people and not as stereotypes. Who among us HASN'T met people like the characters in these movies? (though
To Wong Foo...... was not so much a film about gay men as three, pardon the expression,
fairy godmothers....). In both films, the villians were the straight people who refused to accept or understand them. As for
In and Out, although it is a farce, I think it is fairly honest, albiet humorous and light take, on the problems of being a gay man in a small town.Yes, his town may be a little too perfect, and everyone a little too understanding of it all, but hey, its a comedy! I fail to find anything "ugly" in these films at all, except in the way the protagonists were treated by some of the other characters. All of these films had their own cultural impact, though not in the profound way that BBM is making one. In many ways, it was the financial success of the above films that paved the way for BBM to made in the first place.
Oh yeah: other films to recommend to your str8 friends who liked
Brokeback Mountain are
Big Eden (one of my favorite gay themed films of the past few years),
Latter Days, and the little known British import,
Bedrooms and Hallways , which is a charming, whimsical little comedy about the fluidity of relationships.