Justice League: Cry For Justice #1. Gay man killed to make a super-hero feel bad.

Justice League: Cry For Justice #3. Gay man killed, and skinned, to make us think that a super-villain, one who single-handedly took out the Justice League once for God’s sake, is scary and important.

These incidents probably wouldn’t stick in my craw except, well, twice in one series? And at a company where the only other gay male character of significance*, Obsidian, just got turned into an egg after several years of doing nothing much but hang out literally as a shadow in the background. And if killing the faggot wasn’t such an old and monumentally stupid cliche in genre fiction.
When Marvel, the company that gave us the historic “Hulk gets raped” comic and the “Lol, fag” version of Rawhide Kid, is doing a better job by their gay characters, something has gone wrong**.

*_{I don’t count Mikaal as a gay character, as “aliens who don’t perceive gender and sexuality as we do” was last excusable as a metaphor for homosexuality in The Left Hand of Darkness.}
**_{Yes, Rucka’s Detective Comics run with Batwoman is brilliant and remarkable, and DC should be lauded for it. But if you think that the prurient interest many straight men have in lesbians didn’t play a role in getting it published you’re delusional.}

It’s an interesting time to be a Torchwood fan. First of all, you have to be able to watch the show past that Cyberwoman episode. Which means you have to spend some time defending the show from the people who couldn’t watch past that episode. You also have to find some way to talk about how you’re glad that the show found a way to put a gay relationship in the foreground of a sci-fi action drama without sounding like an obsessive shipper who only watches the show as fodder for slash-fic stories.

Which all made the meltdown over the third series, broadcast over five nights as a mini-series, so interesting. Given it’s biggest audience and biggest venue yet, the show performed very well and attracted critical acclaim.
And fans raged.

As for the praise, it was well deserved. “Children of Earth” was a fantastically plotted, amazingly acted television event. A frequent point of criticism for the series is that, while it aspires to mature story-telling and was presented as a more “adult” take on Doctor Who, producers and writers seemed to think that all you needed to make a sci-fi series mature was add in lots of swearing, violence and sex. It’s a partly valid complaint, and the unevenness of the first season is testament to that. But by the second series most of the tonal problems had worked themselves out and the show was able to balance a sophistication in story and character with a self-deprecating sense of humor. That frequently focused on sex. This third series continued that evolution even more, and it’s probably telling that shortening the series to one story told over multiple episodes allowed for a more carefully crafted and thoughtful approach to the series than the need to get out thirteen weeks worth of episodes out the door.

The regular cast do a remarkable job, with Gareth David-Lloyd in particular turning in a excellent performance, and Eve Myles stepping up and showing us a Gwen that wasn’t quite always there in previous seasons but comes to the fore remarkably as well. The supporting cast, particularly Peter Capaldi as ill-fated civil servant John Frobisher, do excellent jobs as well. It’s a terribly well-acted show, and writers Russell T. Davies, James Moran and John Fay should be congratulated for giving such meaty roles for strong actors. If there is a fault to be found with the show, it’s in the rather laggy pacing, particularly in “Day Five”, which frequently felt like a thirty-minute story padded out to sixty.

There are some nice nods to the wider universe the show appears in as well, with Gwen making a fairly convincing case as to why, in certain times of deep crisis, the Doctor doesn’t appear on Earth. It’s a telling indictment, since for those who have been watching the new series of Doctor Who, a significant part of the problem faced here can be traced back to the Doctor upsetting history by removing Harriet Jones from power. And, of course, even if it is slightly selfish praise, it is nice to see a big, mainstream, action sci-fi show headlined by an openly gay man that places one of its heroic leads in a same-sex relationship.

And now, for those of you wishing to avoid spoilers, don’t read past the uncomfortable looking gentleman…

Read the rest of this entry »

Occasionally my desire to be vocal about what I feel are problematic depictions of gay men in the media comes into conflict with my…baser urges. And by that I mean, I’m sometimes tempted to overlook things I would normally tend to criticize if a television show or movie features a hot guy in a prominent role. It’s that conflict between being a good homosexual and speaking up about something that could potentially encourage homophobia or being a bad homosexual and just perving on the hot guy.

Television, lately, has been giving me many such opportunities. Some shows I can come to an internal accommodation with. My Name is Earl, for example, could be easily criticized for the use of the Kenny character, a hysterics prone, effeminate gay man. But other characters on the show treat Kenny with respect, every other character on the show is cartoonish in some way, and Kenny’s relationship with ex-cop Stuart is played very sweetly by both Gregg Binkley and Mike O’Malley, that I tend to forgive the queenier moments the writers give Kenny. (Hell, I think Kenny and Stuart are one of the very few gay couples on television that actually appear to have a sex life, so that’s worth a few points anyway.)

More recently, two new show launches have brought up this trend once again. Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, for example, wants to be a broad farce, but is somewhat constrained by how naughty it can be by the standards people over at Comedy Central. A co-production with the BBC, it’s possible that the overall quality of the show might be improved by seeing it in the original, unedited form, but as it stands now it’s the sort of show that manages only one, maybe one-half of a good joke for every dozen groaners it throws out there. And most of those good jokes are, frankly, not so good, and are saved primarily through the delivery of the actors.

It’s the character of Bruce that I feel that I should be upset about, and to tell the truth, if the show were better, I probably would be. Marques Ray plays the character as chirpily upbeat, so it’s hard to actually dislike Bruce, but he’s also played as a sex-obsessed, shallow stereotype. The character’s introduction is even part of an extended “prison sex” joke, and the show’s promotional materials have referred to the character as a “queen.” But to complain about Bruce is to miss the larger picture, that no character on the show comes off in a particularly positive light and it’s a much deeper problem that, at the end of the day, the show simply isn’t very funny. To single out the character of Bruce for criticism feels like laughing at the guy who just fell and broke his arm.

By coincidence, another show that debuted the same night as Krod Mandoon is the cop-drama Southland. At first glance, it’s your typical cop ensemble, and it owes much to Homicide, including a distracting and intrusive over-use of musical cues. But it’s a very well-acted cop ensemble show, and Michael Cudlitz’s Officer John Cooper is particularly note-worthy because with this character we’re actually seeing something quite revolutionary for American television: a gay character who gets to be the hard-nosed cynic, and a bit of a macho bad-ass. It’s not clear, after two episodes, how much of Cooper’s personal life is know to the other officers, and the revelation of the character’s sexuality, a last-minute pan-out in the premiere episode to show him in a gay bar, was shot in such a way as to suggest that his sexuality is meant to be a secret or somehow “shocking” to the audience, but it’s strongly refreshing to have a gay character who doesn’t fall into any of the usual paradigms for gay characters on television. He’s not the butt of an easy joke and he’s not there to be a sexless neuter solving all the straight people’s problems for them.

Lest you think there’s not a “Bad Homosexual” angle here, because when word got out that Cudlitz was playing a gay character, there were multiple reactions in the gay-blog world along the lines of “why couldn’t the hot one be gay?” Which floored me, for two reasons. First of all, for gay men to be judging the merit of a gay character based purely on the character’s attractiveness pretty much confirms some of the worst stereotypes of the superficiality of gay men. And secondly, and most importantly, Cudlitz is most definitely the “hot one.” His partner on the show is cute enough, but he’s a child, while Cudlitz is both ruggedly handsome and mature.

Oh, who am I kidding…if Krod Mandoon keeps giving us shirtless Sean Maguire, I’ll keep watching…

Renaissance man and gay porn icon Jack Wrangler died today of complications from lung disease. He was truly amongst the greats, bringing a sense of humor, masculinity and versatility to his erotic roles, in addition to his talents as an actor and director. Those wishing to learn more about his fascinating history should seek out the documentary Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon

Another shot of Jack, in all his glory, is below the cut.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the evolution of gay jokes in sex comedies, teen comedies, and related genres of late. It’s come to mind because I’m frequently finding myself perplexed by which films get a pass from gay critics, and which ones get criticized.

Take, for example, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. It’s not quite as good as the original film, and that’s being kind to a fault, but it was certainly a…continuation of the kinds of humor and situation that the first film dealt with. Fairly early on in the film, there is a sequence in which Harold and Kumar narrowly escaped being raped by the prison guards at Guantanamo Bay. And, as you would expect, the point of the scene is to fear the 18-25 male target demographic with revulsion at the thought of a straight man being forced to perform oral sex on another man. Now, personally, I think that it’s a sign of deep sickness in our society that we make jokes about rape being “okay” because it’s happening in prison. But the way the scene is played in the film is slightly more nuanced than the usual “guys get raped in prison” gag. The guards, of course, are laughably homophobic. Yet they’re the ones seeking sex with other men.

This is offensive humor, but to complain about this particular joke, and gloss over the numerous jokes about race, religion and Appalachia is to miss the larger point, which is that the film is one of those all too rare “equal opportunity” offenders when it comes to offensive humor. In fact, if one takes the approach that the prison rape jokes are really centered around the irony of the abusive, homophobic guards secretly craving sex with men, rather than the usual “its funny because they’re faggots” than it becomes notable that gay people are not singled out for ridicule. And yet, this is the film that I saw bloggers, apparently in all seriousness, implying that Neil Patrick Harris owed the world some justification for appearing in.

Along similar lines is the film Sex Drive. It’s actually a fairly superior example of the “teen sex comedy” genre, with a bit of a bildungsroman lurking beneath the surface (and it doesn’t hurt in the slightest that in, oh, say five to ten years, lead actor Josh Zuckerman is probably going to be making all those “handsomest men alive” lists). The plot is typical: nerdy teen is on a quest to lose his virginity, chaos ensues, social order is restored when he realizes that love is more important than sex. What elevates the film is that, unlike most examples of the genre, its actually funny, with some good performances and the right air of plausible absurdity. But it has two gay jokes that stick out and seem to have aroused the ire of many gay critics. The first, is a man who attempts to solicit Ian, the character played by Zuckerman, in a men’s room. As much as I personally try to remind people, when the topic of men’s room sex comes up, that the kind of men who most frequently engage in it tend to think of themselves as straight, as far as the general public is concerned it’s still a “gay” thing. To the film’s credit, the scene in question is not played as Ian being preyed upon, but rather as Ian being naive and accidentally sending out the wrong signals, but overall, yeah, let’s call that a point against the film.

Interestingly, to me anyway, was that the character that really seemed to bother people was Ian’s older brother, Rex, played by James Marsden. Rex is a sadistic bully and virtually every line out of the character’s mouth is a homophobic taunt of his younger brother. Incessantly. To the point where other characters begin to comment on Rex’s seeming obsession with gay sex. And the pay-off, of course, for all of this is that Rex is revealed to be gay at the end of the film. His homophobic insults were a cover. What critics who objected to Rex seemed to miss is that at no point in the film is Rex a sympathetic character. Even after coming out he’s somewhat of a bully. To object to Rex is to object to homophobic characters as much as homophobic jokes. It’s dangerously close to arguing for no gay jokes whatsoever in popular films, even as a sign that the character making the joke is to be viewed with disdain.

The flip side of these types of characters and jokes has been the slightly older aimed films like I Love You, Man. While being, in general, a very good film, it was highly praised by many gay critics and bloggers, and the film itself seems to pride itself in its lack of offensive jokes simply for the sake of having offensive jokes. But it is also the recent film that I had the most problems with when it came to the portrayal of gay men and the use of gay-aimed humor. First, there is the Thomas Lennon character, Doug, who goes on an ill-fated “man date” with Paul Rudd’s Peter, who has managed to reach his mid-thirties with no male friends. When Doug is introduced, he’s played as a regular guy, not totally dissimilar to Peter. He even checks out their waitress at dinner. At the end of the dinner, however, he kisses Peter, and we find that Doug is gay. The kiss itself is drawn out to mine humor from the (supposed) uncomfortableness the audience will have with watching two men kiss. Later, Peter goes home to his fiance and tells her what happened. He then brushes his teeth, multiple times, and jokes about cleaning his mouth with detergent. The set-up for those jokes is that Doug is a smoker, but the notion of Peter going to such extremes because he kisses a man is not going to escape the audience. That ambiguity is compounded later in the film when Doug reappears, and he has gone from a regular guy to an over-emotional, prissy queen. It’s as if the film-makers, having now identified the character as gay, felt the need to resort to a tired, effeminate stereotype to prolong the joke.

More bothersome and problematic for me, however, was the role of Peter’s brother, Robbie, played by Andy Samberg. Robbie, the clearly preferred son by their father, is a macho, guy’s guy kind of fellow, who happens to be gay. The film takes great pains, in fact, to make sure that we understand that Robbie is a really cool, macho, masculine guy. It’s almost an over-reaction, a deliberate attempt to forestall criticism about the portrayal by making him the most stereotypically straight-acting character of either gender in the entire film. What makes me uncomfortable about the character is Robbie’s assertion that he’s only sexually attracted to straight men. The makers of the film are presenting a gay male character as a lech who pervs on straight men, and presenting it as a positive portrayal of a gay man. It’s one of the oldest and most tired of all anti-gay stereotypes, the gay man who sexually obsesses over straight men, and I’m frankly astonished that in 2009 it can appear in a film without attracting more conversation.

What makes all of these films and characters worth discussing to me is that, with the exception of Neil Patrick Harris in the Harold and Kumar films, none of these films feature openly gay actors, or to the best of my knowledge, are made by openly gay writers or directors. While I’m not suggesting that only gay men should be allowed to make gay jokes, it does tend to beg the question for me: are these straight men laughing with gay men at homophobia and gay caricatures, or are they simply exploiting their audience’s homophobia to dress up a “it’s funny because he’s a faggot” joke in slightly more politically correct clothes. A good example of this “are they or aren’t they” problem occurred recently on Saturday Night Live, again with Andy Samberg:

The satire in that skit works beautifully, because the films being parodied are, by any possible standard, homoerotic to the point of satire being nearly redundant. However, the skit does dance around the issue of whether or not we’re supposed to laugh because the films in question contain unacknowledged homoerotic undertones, or are we supposed to laugh because Samberg and Seth Rogen are two guys who look like they’re about to kiss. That area of ambiguity seems to be the zone in which most contemporary comedies are addressing gay issues.

Gratuitous gay-baiting in Watchmen?

Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That
A pivotal moment in the “Watchmen” plot has Nite Owl and Rorschach hacking into Ozymandias’ computer. Keep a close eye on his desktop, and you’ll see an ominously titled file folder. “Adrian’s sorta like very asexual, but he’s possibly a homosexual,” grinned Matthew Goode, referring to a long-held suspicion among “Watchmen” fans. “There’s a very small thing in his file window, and it just says, ‘Boys.’ Which is very funny, and that’s the kind of detail that Zack works with.”

Added by Zack Snyder? The devil you say!

This movie is going to suck on a scale heretofore never imagined, isn’t it?

• In a particularly stunning display of how the vast majority of comic book nerds, no matter how patiently you explain it to them, actively refuse to get it, at the now no longer worth reading (now that all the good writers have left for Robot 6), Blog@Newsarama, writer J. Caleb Mozzocco engaged in a rather sad bit of gay-baiting in aid of a joke that, frankly, wasn’t the slightest bit funny in the first place.

  The real fun starts when readers point out what an incredibly stupid, not to mention potentially offensive move Caleb’s little joke was, prompting increasingly hysterical and defensive reactions from both Caleb and fellow Blog@ writer Troy Brownfield. For Christ’s sake, they even pull out a sad variation of the “I can’t be homophobic, I have gay friends” defense.

  It was the most pathetisad spectacle of the week. At least until the New York Comic-Con started.

• I thought the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of was the latest revival of the New Mutants comic, the fourth for those of you keeping count. It’s always sort of sad to see Marvel wallowing in shitty 80s nostalgia like this. It’s so contrary to the image they like to present of themselves as a corporation that it almost feels like a betrayal of their core principles. I mean, DC has been publishing Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman comics for 70-plus years; I expect them to look to their past for inspiration from time to time (though, honestly guys, bringing Barry Allen back? There’s a limit, you know?). Marvel is supposed to be the hipper, younger, forward-looking company.

  I suppose this is just them finally admitting that their core audience is man-children unwilling to let go of their childhoods.

• Of course, the absolute stupidest thing I’ve heard so far (non-politically) this week was the annoucement of the Dark Wolverine series. I’ll let you all take a laugh break now.

  …

  Got it out of your system? Good.

  I mean, really? Dark Wolverine? That’s what you think the comic industry needs? A “darker, grittier, edgier” version of Wolver-frickin-ine? And then, to top it all off, the series stars, not Logan, but Poochie Daken, Wolverine Jr.? If X-23 was created to make a certain segment of fandom feel better about their masturbatory fantasies, what audience is Daken created to satisfy? Fangirls who didn’t have quite enough people to pair Logan up with in their slash stories?

• Of course, some of this makes sense when you consider that the man in charge had this to say about fan complaints about the number of cross-overs in Marvel books these days:
  

  “We’re going to do Marvel Slumber Party,” Quesada joked in response to a question about the pattern of crossovers. He said “giving the characters a rest,” as the fan had suggested, would mean “a bunch of books where nothing happens.”

  Either he’s being disingenuous and deliberately misrepresenting the people who think there are too many event books coming out from Marvel too close together, or he genuinely thinks that not having a book tie-in to some larger story means “nothing happens.” I’m not sure which position should insult Marvel fans more.

• Of course, the real tragedy of all this is, that while discussing how face-palmingly stupid all the above is with friends, I was suddenly struck with a really good idea for a Marvel book. Too bad I’d never actually get into a pitch meeting with the company.

  I don’t bash DC enough for that.

From a recent interview:

Speaking of “judging” Guggenheim said a lot of people who aren’t reading Spider-Man or refuse to read Spider-Man are judging it based on misunderstandings. “Part of the problem with the controversy behind One More Day is the understanding of what was retconned overstates the extent of what was done,” he said. “Everything that happened in the last twenty plus years of comic book history happened! The only difference is that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson weren’t married. They still dated. They still lived together. They still love each other. They just weren’t married. Judging from the letters and death threats we received, I think some people were confused. It all still happened.”

“Here’s my attitude, if anyone is upset about the marriage going away, then they must all be pro gay marriage,” he continued. Because if you’re pro gay marriage, you understand the distinction between a marriage and a civil union — that a civil union is not equal to a marriage. We downgraded Mary Jane and Peter to a civil union. If that bothers you, then you’re pro gay marriage.”

See what he did there? That’s a rather nice bit of gay-baiting he pulled off. Guggenheim basically just called anyone who didn’t like the One More Day story-line a faggot, while phrasing himself in such a way as to make it look like he’s being gay-supportive.
Now, it’s possible that Guggenheim isn’t really meaning to call people who didn’t like the storyline faggots. You could read his statement as a knowing dig at the homophobia of comic fans. But, if so, that doesn’t really help his case, because he just compared an ongoing civil rights issue, an issue that is at play in the current election cycle, an issue that affects real people’s lives, to a fucking super-hero melodrama.
That kind of belittlement of the issue is even more offensive.

I usually ignore those “XXty Greatest XXXXXX Movies” lists because, honestly, the lists are so subjectively put together and so barely plausible in their justifications of what belongs on the list and what doesn’t that it becomes a fool’s game to try to make any sense of them. And, shockingly, I find it hard to believe that anyone really cares how many of the “200 Greatest Car Chase Films” I’ve seen.
But then AfterElton had to go and make a list of the 50 Greatest Gay Movies, and I realized that, oh yeah, I can be infuriatingly opinionated about gay films.

1. Brokeback Mountain: It’s probably fair to quibble over whether or not this really qualifies as a “gay” film. Everyone involved in the production was straight, after all, but it’s probably the most successful and well made film on gay themes to come out so far. The acting is superb, and it’s an emotionally moving story, but it’s problematic that the most widely acclaimed gay love story set to film is about two closeted men, one of whom dies at the end.

2. Beautiful Thing: The gay film genre is crowded with coming out stories, so it’s nice to see the best example of the trope placed so highly, as it really is the only one you ever need to see to know everything there is to know about that particular sub-genre.

3. Shelter: I suspect this film places as highly as it does because it’s very recent and well regarded. And it is a good film, to be sure, I’m just not certain it’s “third best gay film” good. It’s another coming out story, and it has the pacing problems common to independent films, but it’s mercifully free of that irritating gratuitous male nudity that many gay films feel obligated to have while still showing intimacy between men very tenderly and believably.

4. Latter Days: Another film to benefit from recent memories, I suspect. It’s a coming out film, again, but the religious back-ground of the story is an innovative and compelling variation of the genre, and the film-makers deserve some credit for taking the “sexy Mormon” subgenre of porn mainstream and taking it seriously.

5. Maurice: Unwatchable, melodramatic clap-trap, in my opinion.

6. Trick
7. Get Real

8. Big Eden: A surprisingly good film about being gay in a small town, even if the notion that no one in rural Montana is homophobic or racist is a bit fantastic.

9. The Broken Hearts Club

10. The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert: While the film is worth watching at least once, it inspired America’s love affair with films about magical drag queens that solve people’s problems, and I’m afraid that is a sin it cannot be forgiven for. And no, lots of shirtless Guy Pearce scenes don’t make up for it.

11. Longtime Companion: A bit too earnest to really be good or enjoyable, but historically an important film. And still loads better than what Hollywood gave us when they decided to finally acknowledge AIDS.

12. Torch Song Trilogy: The second gay film I ever saw, and still one of the best. It’s a funny, humanistic story about one man’s search for love, and is easily one of those films that everyone really owes it to themselves to see at some point.

13. My Beautiful Laundrette: Probably my choice for “best gay film” and another one of those movies that anyone who calls themselves a film fan should have watched by now. One of the things I like most about it is the casual, matter-of-fact way that the gay relationship is handled. It’s a film about two gay men in which the central conflicts have nothing to do with their sex lives, and that’s still remarkably rare.

14. Parting Glances: A film important to indie film history and gay film history…and yeah, that’s about it. It’s at best mediocre, and even after all these years I strain to find any reason why everyone is so hung up over Steve Buscemi’s character, as he’s just a morose loser.

15. Just a Question of Love
16. Mysterious Skin

17. Summer Storm: Hey, everybody! They remade Beautiful Thing in German!

18. The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Really? Fifty films to list and you put this one there? Don’t get me wrong, I love it for the pansexual, cacophonous riot it is, but to put it on a “best gay films” list is to narrow the point of the film so much as to make it laughable.

19. The Birdcage: And every gay man who voted for this film needs to go ahead and slap themselves right now. Hard. And promise never to take any drugs before voting in an online poll ever again. While the original French version might (and that’s a pretty fucking conditional “might”) deserve some leeway for being both a product of it’s time and French, the people who unleashed this abomination on the world have no excuse. Unfunny, homophobic and just plain bad are the three words that come to mind when I think of this gut-churningly awful movie.

20. Sordid Lives

21. Hedwig and the Angry Inch: An amazing film with a fantastic soundtrack, that also feels strangely limited by trying to pin it down as just a “gay” film. You need to see it. It’s as simple as that.

22. Shortbus: John Cameron Mitchell managed to pull off what many have tried to do and failed miserably at; making a sexually explicit film that is both dramatically satisfying and non-pornographic. It’s a brilliant work, and I wish I could recommend it unconditionally, but I can’t, because there is a lot of sex in this movie, in occasionally graphic detail. It works, because sex is such an important aspect of how humans relate to one another, and it never feels exploitative or cheap in the film. But we’re Americans, we don’t want sex in our films, especially not anything that reeks of non-heteronormative serially monogamous sex.

23. All Over the Guy: It’s telling that I had to look to see who was in this film to remember if I’d seen it or not. It’s that memorable. I remember enjoying it, but apparently it was very slight.

24. Another Gay Movie: A guilty pleasure. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not that the gay film genre has matured enough that we can get cheap, exploitative teenage sex comedies on the level of American Pie, but we’ve got ‘em.

25. Boys in the Band: It’s a little disappointing this didn’t place higher, as historically it’s an important film, but it can be very hard going, especially to viewers used to more positive and upbeat gay films. It’s probably best to view it as something of a time capsule; this used to be the reality for gay men all over the country. And, you know, it’s actually good. It’s funny when it needs to be funny, and dramatic when it needs to be dramatic, and pretty much every character is memorable and recognizable. And it’s got one of the best “character introduction” lines in film history:
“What I am, Michael, is a 32 year-old, ugly, pock marked Jew fairy, and if it takes me a little while to pull myself together, and if I smoke a little grass before I get up the nerve to show my face to the world, it’s nobody’s god damned business but my own. And how are you this evening?”

26. Philadelphia: How telling that when Hollywood finally deigned to making a movie about AIDS, it was all about a straight man learning to have pity on those disgusting faggots.

27. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar: Really, really amazingly awful. Yet another “Magical Fairy” film in which gay men are neuters who only exist to make the lives of straight people better.

28. Boy Culture

29. The Wedding Banquet: Ang Lee’s first crack at a gay movie, and slightly more relateable than his masterpiece. It’s obviously an earlier example of his work, but there’s some nice character development here, with more recognizable motivations.

30. C.R.A.Z.Y.

31. My Own Private Idaho: The fetishistic devotion some people have to this film astounds me. It’s really, honestly, not very good, with some truly dreadful acting and an absolutely charisma-less leading man. It’s cold and emotionally uninvolving, but one of the stars died young, so we have to pretend that it was some great work of genius.

32. Jeffrey: One of my favorite films, to be sure. Yes, it’s fluff. But it’s funny, but a gay romantic comedy was almost unheard of at the time, and it managed to deal with the reality of AIDS without getting (too) preachy. Plus, it’s the finest work of Patrick Stewart’s career. He’s amazingly good in this.

33. The Trip

34. Edge of Seventeen: It’s…okay. It’s, yet again, a coming out film. Anderson Gabyrich is good in it, but the main cast are not particularly compelling, and the big dramatic “coming out” scene is so unintentionally comically melodramatic that screen-writer Todd Stephens even parodies it in his later film Another Gay Movie.

35. Priest: You watch it now, and you’re hard-pressed to see why it was so gosh-darned controversial at the time of release. I guess, given all the things people suspect of Catholic priests nowadays, for one’s big bad secret to be that he’s gay is small potatoes. Still, it has a love scene that I’ve had more than one straight man tell me almost converted them.

36. In & Out: This is just merely bad. It has it’s heart in the right place, but that’s about all you can say in the film’s favor. And yes, some men come out late in life, but it strains believability to think that a man could reach his fifties without the question ever occurring to him.

37. Eating Out: Utter garbage, and patently offensive. The “gay guy in love with straight guy” angle is played out and tired in porn! The only reason why anyone ever recommends this movie is the nudity. It certainly can’t be for the plot or acting, because you know what? THERE ISN’T ANY!
So, naturally, it was a massive success and generated a sequel…

38. Velvet Goldmine: A love-letter to the glam rock era. It’s very good, and criminally under-rated, with fantastic music. The pastiche of Citizen Kane was a clever touch, and the shadow of Oscar Wilde that hangs over it is a brilliant element as well.
For you slash fans, it also has Obi-Wan making out with Batman.

39. Angels in America

40. Love! Valour! Compassion!: I know I’ve seen it. But, even straining, all I can remember is that John Glover plays a stock “tragically doomed” gay man. So not a very memorable or compelling picture, then.

41. The Sum of Us: Amazingly, this is not the film which gave rise to the phrase “maybe someday Russell Crowe will play a straight character.” Father/Son dynamics are frequently overlooked in gay themed films, as most film-makers seem obsessed to nearly Freudian levels with dysfunctional Mother/Son relationships. It’s nice to see the focus turned the other way, especially since this is also one of those rare Father/Son films in which the Son is not beset with maddening Daddy Issues.

42. Burnt Money

43. Transamerica: I want to like it, but ultimately I just find it a little too problematic. I get prickly about actresses being cast as male-to-female transsexuals, especially when, as in this case, they seem to have cast a woman only to have an excuse to bury her in prosthetics to make her look like a man. She doesn’t, she looks like a woman in a prosthetic mask.

44. Victor Victoria: Now, I love Blake Edwards. I love Julie Andrews. I love James Garner. I love Lesley Ann Warren. I love Robert Preston. And I love the songs. But this? Very much of it’s time. You’ve got the “Magical Fairy” thing going on with Robert Preston’s character, you’ve got the “he thinks he’s in love with a man, but he’s really a she” bit that worked in Elizabethan drama and not since. It’s an amusing little comedy with some pleasant actors to watch, but oh, it can be cringe-making viewed out of it’s time and place.

45. Bent
46. Yossi and Jager
47. Bad Education
48. Gods and Monsters

49. Making Love: Any goodwill the film might have earned is undone when you remember that it came with a fucking disclaimer.

50. Rent

Why No Love?
The films I’m surprised not to see on the list.
Adam and Steve: It suffers a bit from indie-itis at times, but it’s a refreshingly mature romantic comedy that deals with issues that many, if not most, gay men will recognize and relate to. It’s not a fantasy of gay life, nor is it a melodrama, but it’s warm and funny and squishy-feeling romance.
Straight-Jacket: A snappy comedy about a closeted, Rock Hudson-esque actor, set against the back-drop of the anti-Communist witch-hunts in Hollywood. It’s got great comic timing and characters, and a setting that’s been underused.
The Ritz: The first gay film I ever saw. It’s another one of those time-capsule films, possibly best viewed today as a reminder of what the gay world was like. But it’s an early gay-themed film in which the gay characters are not the butt of the jokes. And I can only imagine how the world reacted to the notion of a comedy set inside a bath-house. It’s worth seeing for Rita Moreno’s role alone, in any case.
The Hanging Garden: Magical realism comes to gay drama. It’s a heavily symbolic film with the lines between reality and fantasy and shared fantasy heavily blurred.

Oh Thank God It Wasn’t Listed
Hellbent: If anyone ever tells you this is a good movie, you can safely ignore their opinion on anything. Even by the standards of “basic cable stars in peril” horror movies, this is a sub-par example of the genre. That we’re meant to pretend that it is somehow transgressive or ground-breaking because all the victims are gay is just perplexing, if not downright insulting. Honestly, we’re supposed to be glad that the “the gay guy dies at the end” school of film-making has come back?

Dear Mark Millar,

No, that doesn’t happen. Oh, sure, I’ve heard those sub-Dane Cook level comedians make those same sophomoric jokes: “Hnurr hnurr, I wish I was a lesbian, I’d just stare at myself all day, amiritefellas?”
It’s not funny. It’s really kind of offensively stupid. And the joke really doesn’t translate when being applied to gay men. Especially not when it appears in a comic aimed at 25-35 year old man-children who would probably shriek in terror at the thought of a nude gay man.
And yes, this is me being appalled at something in the worst comic since Skate Man. A fool’s errand at the best of times.

---

Speaking of people who have apparently never met a real-life homosexual, I’m a little weary of people trying to make the Machine Gun Joe character in Death Race some sort of indicator of the progress of gay characters in mainstream films.
In the film, when the question of the character’s sexuality is introduced, it is quite clear from the context that it’s just a homophobic taunt. From one of the likable “good” characters, naturally, homophobic insults still being something that it’s okay for protagonists in mainstream films to say. Unlike smoking or racist insults.
Now, I’m aware that some of the film-makers have said that the character is meant to be gay, while others have not. In any case, there is nothing in the film itself to suggest the character is gay, save that insult. The character himself never declares himself to be gay. And the one vaguely “homoerotic” moment in the film is almost instantly deflected by the normalizing return of heterosexual values.
In a way, the film-makers have stumbled upon a neat trick; they get to take credit for a “ground-breaking” gay character in an action film without ever actually having to deal with a gay character.

---

So, I keep thinking about Kevin’s posts about bad retailing decisions, mostly because I’m baffled that smart people keep missing Kevin’s point so badly. Either they think it’s a good thing for a retailer in a small margins business to actively discourage sales in the names of “integrity”–which is an argument that really phenomenally misses the point that comic shops being run like club houses instead of businesses is bad for the industry, or they keep bringing in this asinine restaurateur metaphor, as if a waiter suggesting the crab cakes because the clams with linguine are a bit off tonight is anything remotely like a retailer sending out a mass e-mailing to existing and potential customers insinuating that they’re idiots if they like a comic he doesn’t.
It all makes me reconsider that “smart” adjective.
But what I keep coming back to is that telling your customers your opinion of a book, and still selling it to them, are not mutually exclusive.

Amazing Spider-Man #2338; While many fans, myself included, were upset with what it took to bring the character to the new status-quo, the new creative teams on this title have met with critical and commercial success. A new storyline starts here for those curious about what’s been going on.
Astonishing X-People #2222; While the combination of Ellis and Bianchi are not to my taste, a new storyline starts here, tying in to the larger “Manifest Destiny” branding in the X-books. It’s a good jumping on point for those who enjoy Ellis’s super-hero work.

Hey, whoa, did you see that there? I gave as neutral a judgement as I could while still finding a way to tell interested customers to check the book out. And it was easy.
Of course, this doesn’t address the concerns of those bloggers who see nothing wrong with what the retailer in question did because he was bashing super-hero books in his newsletter. But I’m sure that if he had slapped a big NOT BUY on Kramer’s Ergot or Love and Rockets, the art-comix bloggers would have had my back.