Joe was only “gay for pay” when he went dirt broke. It was obvious he didn’t care for those encounters one bit.
The recent Jane Austin Book Club has one of the group of women as gay. It is brought up because she has a hard time finding the right partner, but it isn’t a “gay” movie. Most of the women are having a hard time finding the right partner. As was mentioned earlier, The Family Stone had one of the siblings a deaf gay guy, with his partner welcomed like another son in the family. In fact, one of the points in the film is when they’re all sitting around the table and the girlfriend says “surely you don’t want your son to be gay. It’s fine that you accept him, but wouldn’t you rather he was straight? Life is too hard when you’re gay.” The family all looks at her like she has said the most insulting thing imaginable. Rent, of course, has a cast of mostly GLBT characters. But they’re all annoying. So are the token straights.
None of these characters is played for laughs, or stereotyped. They’re just a person.
BobMmmm - Then am I supposed to be offended that John Mahoney (who is gay) played a dad in Dan in Real Life?
StG
Well, we like to think we’re more enlightened, inclusive, diverse, etc. So the question is will non-Jews want to go see a Jewish love story? Or better yet, will they want to go see a cool action movie where the protagonist hero just happens to be Jewish? Of course they will, if it’s a good movie, and despite the fact Jews are something like 1-3% of the population.
When Will Smith takes on yet another traditionally white role, do his movies become “black,” and only blacks will want to go see them? In I, Robot, there was no reason the main character had to be white or black. Was there a reason the main character had to be straight? They clearly made him straight, but did they have to?
But, do any of us have to see Will Smith in a movie? We could have all survived not seeing Hitch or Wild, Wild West.
I know that movies require a suspension of belief but I get distracted when I see a gay person in a hetero love scene and vice versa. When I watched Kinsey and it got to the scene in the hotel room, I watched Peter Sarsgaard and Liam Neeson kissing and all I could think was, “Nope, couldn’t have played that part.” Same thing when I watch T.R. Knight kissing Sara Ramirez on Grey’s Anatomy and wonder how he gears himself up for the scene.
I can’t be the only person who thinks this way. Didn’t we look at Rock Hudson movies differently after we found out he was gay?
This is probably going to sound really stupid, but maybe it is easier for LGBT* actors to play straight roles because so many have to “play straight” in real life. It is probably difficult for straight actors to overcome the discomfort (would that be the right word?) of performing a homosexual scene. Look at Deathtrap.
*(I almost typed GBLT. That would be a Gay Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich)
It was equally obvious that he and Rico were in love.
I think it comes down to gay being more “offensive” than black. It doesn’t really matter to people anymore what color a lead is. A black lead might bring in a couple more folks to see the movie - people who want to support black actors or something - but I don’t think these days it would deter anyone.
A gay lead, where the part is a gay person, might still keep people from buying tickets in this day and age. I can’t rationalize it but I can bet that someone like my dad, a grumpy middle-aged dude who’s mind is closing instead of opening as he gets older, would be less inclined to spend money on a movie where the lead is gay, no matter what the plot.
I can also see news outlets making a stink about it. “Hey! Congratulations to ‘Big Action Movie III’, the first big action movie to feature a gay lead!” - and my dad promptly declaring the movie to be “faggy” and never giving it a chance.
Sucks, but I think that’s pretty much the way the studios see it too.
Um, no.
Not in a homosexual way. I’ve had platonic friendships like that. In fact, Joe and Ratso’s friendship reminded me a lot of a friend of mine in particular.
Oh, don’t worry about it. You got all the right letters. I’m not a big fan of the LGBT abbreviation anyway. Doesn’t roll off the tongue like a good acronym should.
Sorry, never saw it that way. Joe had a platonic love for him and was willing to do anything for his friend. I never saw their relationship as homosexual.
Next thing you know you’ll be telling me that Dumbledore wanted Harry to stop by his office so they could “polish their wands” together.
What do you mean, we?
Although a couple of years after his death, I was talking with a professor of mine and the topic came up. He related how his father never forgave Ingrid Bergman for having a child out of wedlock with Roberto Rosselini, that decades after the fact the man was not able to watch Ingrid Bergman becuase of his anger at her. I can’t begin to imagine that level of irrationality.
For every idiotic thing like that there is a Harry Hamlin, who has interviewed a number of times about the absurdity of peoples’ reactions (especially the press reaction) to straight actors playing gay. They get praised for their “courage” on the one hand and on the other have their sexuality speculated about. He draws the analogy to playing a murderer. Countless actors have played murderers in the course of their careers and no one ever asked them on a press junket if they were a murderer in real life.
Well, that’s certainly some high-level critical analysis there.
Just you wait. Acronym creep is afoot and soon it’s going to be LGBTQI. That abbreviational abortion is already popping up here and there and I freaking hate it.
You think that’s bad, I’ve seen LGBTQQASI. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Straight Allies and Intersex. And sometimes another T for Transexual.
I think it can be read both ways. It can be read as purely platonic, but it can also be argued that they engage in a level of physical closeness that would probably make heterosexual men today, let alone straight men in 1969, feel uncomfortable. It’s complex and both interpretations are valid.
Let’s start pronouncing it “lug-butt-quasi” and maybe they’ll knock that shit off.
…because then we wouldn’t have gratuitous Megan Fox scenes, and that, my friend, would be a wrong far greater than lack of gay characters in Hollywood.
Couldn’t it just be changed to NH for Not Heterosexual? Or NK0 for Not Kinsey 0 (meaning not a 100% heterosexual)? It would simplify so much.
I have a difficult time watching Woody Allen movies because of the creepy relationship he had with Soon-Yi Previn. I think he was entertaining and used to be hilarious (I got sick of him after Stardust) but I found it hard to reconcile the man on screen with the guy sleeping with the adopted daughter of his partner, Mia Farrow. Does that make me prudish and narrow-minded? Maybe. But a lot of people look at actors and compare their performance to a different role the actor had or they remember a speech the actor gave in the real world. Jane Fonda learned that the hard way. Tom Cruise learned it. Mel Gibson, Michael Richards all have seen how their real world behavior influences how people receive them as performers. Ellen Degeneres watched her sitcom disappear when she came out and it took a long time before she could come back.
Before you are tempted to jump down my throat, I am not comparing racists or religious wackos with homosexuals. I am showing that outside actions and attitudes effect how the viewing audience will perceive a performer. Streisand’s political opinions turned off some people. So did Heston’s.
If an actor can play the part convincingly, more power to them. I never thought Kevin Bacon was a pedophile just because he played on in The Woodsman any more than I thought that Anthony Hopkins had a secret recipe for liver with fava beans.
However, how many times have we heard of an actor dredging up some traumatic memory to help them in an emotional scene? What does a straight actor call up to give the proper emotional “zing” in a scene where they have to perform a non-straight kiss (or more)?
Frank Oz’ very weird remake of The Stepford Wives has a main character who is gay, and the movie isn’t about gayness.
Hey, for that matter, what about S.O.B. and Victor/Victoria and the Mel Brooks To Be or BNot to Be? All have gay characters near the center of the action. I’m sure there are others.
If you’re asking why there aren’t more movies with gay characters as the main focus, but the movie isn’t about gayness, consider that it was hard enough having gay main characters in mainstream films. Why would you fight hard for that and then not have that be at the center of what’s going on?
Because the Ts (transgender/transsexual, a distinction I don’t claim to understand) aren’t by definition not heterosexual.
Had no intention of it.
Do you imagine that the love and passion that people feel for members of their own sex is so different that it’s impossible for a straight actor to analogize?
I can’t speak for gay people, but I imagine that there are some of them who don’t want to make a loud, strident, ear-splitting clarion Call To Arms out of every gay character. They may simply wish to be part of the audience without feeling like they have to be shouting “Amen! Testify!” at the screen. They want gay characters to be seen as normal — so they’d be one step closer to being treated as normal in the real world.
But hey, that’s just my impression, from having read this article.