Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.
The Proto-Brokeback: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lands on just about every list of the Best Films of the 60s. The movie snagged four Academy Awards and became a major hit for the era, thanks in no small part to its two leads: Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
The plot: a pair of outlaws, Butch (Newman) and Sundance (Redford) struggle to control their gang in 1890s Wyoming. The pair plot to rob a pair of trains to make off with enough loot to sustain themselves for a good long while, and so Sundance could finally marry his longtime sweetheart, Etta (Kathrine Ross). All doesn’t go according to plan with their heists, and Butch, Sundance and Etta end up on the run from the law.
Director George Roy Hill, working from a script by William Goldman, uses the simple premise as a pretense to stage some wild action sequences, and as a prism through which to view masculinity. Critics compared the tale of Butch & Sundance to the pairing of Batman & Robin–the pair enjoy the same kind of witty banter…and maybe have more than a platonic interest in one another. The inclusion of Etta only adds a layer of complexity to the situation. Both men dote on her to the point we have to wonder: are they in a threesome?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Fans of The Celluloid Closet will likely remember Susan Sarandon’s take on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: that the movie is really about two men in love, and that its climactic shootout is a metaphor. Butch & Sundance have to whip out their pistols since they can’t whip out their privates. We hereby endorse a remake that embraces that homoeroticism: before our antiheroes meet with doom, let them enjoy a moment of affection.
As it is, we still enjoy the original for its direction by Hill, Goldman’s snappy dialogue and the performances of its three leads. It’s not hard to see how Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had an effect on the western genre; in particular, Brokeback Mountain some 25 years later. Both are films about same-sex couples living in a hostile world, and who can’t seem to imagine life without one another. So, until we get a full-on gay remake, we recommend spending an evening with a pair of legendary stars. Watch, and just imagine: every time they reach for their pistols, it symbolizes something else.
Streams on Amazon, VUDU & YouTube.
Diplomat
“Both are films about same-sex couples living in a hostile world, and who can’t seem to imagine life without one another.”
There wasn’t one scene in Butch that would lend to this statement. However, Redford had shot Indecent Proposal with Demi Moore and bet Newman 1 million dollars he wouldn’t do a gay sequel with him. Newnan bit tho it never happened.
Doug
This Queerty writer David Reddish writes column after column trying to find any inkling of a gay thread he can in primarily straight Hollywood films. How far he goes to stretch it is getting really absurd.
Troyfight
@Doug ……? so gd true. Hate that massive stretch…..of a fantasy (even if the fantasy is alluring). A waste. Next.
Brian
The statement is *technically* true, with a stretch. They are a “same-sex couple,” despite the lack of a marriage. Sort of like how you can have a “relationship” with a person who isn’t your spouse (if you have a friend, you have a friendly relationship with them). The terms can be neutral descriptions.
Two men, alone, in constant contact, partnering together to work together… that fits the description.
Diplomat
Brian,
Haha good try but you’re stretching “couple” past it’s boundaries.
A “couple” in our culture denotes sex and romance.
Popeye1965
Ridiculous!
This is a case of wishful thinking.
Just stop.
kevininbuffalo
Sheesh, not everything is sexual and not every male friendship is a case of repressed/latent homosexuality. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
monty clift
Paul Newman was a dreamboat. There needs to be a film or series on his gay romances.
Diplomat
Agreed! Seems he had many.
leo1008
Butch Cassidy is a great movie, I appreciate the favorable review.
But there is nothing gay about it. I think it’s safe to say that nothing in the movie even hints or suggests at anything gay between the two male leads. Not even slightly.
And it’s important to remember why that might be so. I have nothing against Redford and Newman, but it’s almost certain that neither one of them would’ve ever agreed to be in a 1960s movie with a gay subtext. At that time, to be gay was to be either a criminal and/or a pervert. Any association with homosexuality would’ve almost certainly ended their Hollywood careers. They knew that. And they would’ve had nothing to do with a film about homo characters.
The major studios also may not have even released the film, certainly not in wide release, if anyone had understood it in any way to be even a slight endorsement of homosexuality. Gay behavior simply was not accepted, allowed, or condoned in any way shape or form at that time.
Also, the Academy would not have given it all those academy awards if they had understood it to be a gay film. Even then, the film academy was probably one of the more liberal institutions in the country. But even the most liberal of liberals in the 60s, 70s, and 80s would not have dared to endorse homosexuality. Such an endorsement likely would’ve ended their careers, friendships, and families.
We have to be careful not to judge the past by modern standards. There is clearly a lot of gay subtext in so much film and TV these days. But we live in times that are incredibly different from just 30-40 years ago. Gay kids growing up today live in a nirvana of acceptance compared to what their own parents grew up with just one or two decades earlier. And there’s very little point searching for modern attitudes in 50+ year old movies. The modern attitudes are not there.
But by all means watch Butch Cassidy: it’s a great movie about two completely straight characters.
Rick Notch
In 1965 Redford played a closeted 1930s movie star with Natalie Wood in “Inside Daisy Clover.” He romances Wood’s teenage Judy Garland type character. Wood suffers a breakdown when he leaves her after the wedding for sex with a man (off-screen, of course).
Saps48
>> Also, the Academy would not have given it all those academy awards if they had understood it to be a gay film.
This is so completely false, since that very same year, 1969, Midnight Cowboy was nominated for seven Oscars and won three: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
humble charlie
I thought Paul Newman was bisexual. He must have suspected something about the outlaw duo. Gore Vidal was obsessed by Newman.
Diplomat
Your last sentence. It would seem that situation would be the other way around. Is that documented anywhere?
What gave you the idea Newman was bisexual?
Lenny
I think that the film Buth Cassidy and the Sundance Kid got absolutely nothing to do with the more recent BrokeBack Mountain ! Oh, come on!!
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
I watched this movie on AMC a few weeks ago. Not only was it the first time I saw it from beginning to end I saw absolutely NOTHING gay about it. And to think I thought it pathetic enough each time something gay is found about Batman and Robin.
Rich85
By this standard every “Laurel and Hardy” film or “Abbott and Costello” film are brimming with repressed homosexuality. I absolutely love “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, one of my all time favorite films. In fact a huge original poster for it hangs in my home. But there isn’t so much as one frame of even the most buried gay subtext anywhere in this movie, what a ridiculous analysis.
Man About Town
“Both men dote on her to the point we have to wonder: are they in a threesome?” Hopefully “we” refers to Mr. Reddish, or, by extension, his employer’s insistence that he go there.
Paulie P
there is no nothing in this movie to connect it to the title of this article.
Oranos
If Susan Sarandon’s take on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is about two men in love, than her take on Thelma and Louise must, by logical deduction, be about two women in love, as both movies are about “outlaws” on the run.
Donston
I was pretty much a kid when I last saw this flick. I don’t recall even a subtle hint of anything homo-erotic, homo-passionate, homo-romantic or even homo-affectionate about this flick though. There was no indication of anyone being in love, not even from a meta or joke-y or had to be really low-key standpoint. The only reason anyone would see that is because both guys are hot. And the fan girls are gonna do what they do I suppose. Not saying that there’s absolutely no subtext of that. But it just seems like David is trolling at this point.
Oranos
They were buddies and co-conspirators. And that’s all they were. Redford and Newman never saw the characters as did a gay writer, seeking to connect the two in romantic matrimony. It is always in retrospect that another generation decided “they MUST have been gay.” As though men had no other close, tight friendships in an era where friendship was king. It’s more of a David and Jonathan story than a ‘Birdcage’ story.
Trix and for kids
FreddieW
As much as I like Redford and Newman, they don’t hold a candle to Jake Gyllenhaal. When I first watched Brokeback in the theater, I thought how great Heath Ledger was, but now I watch anything starring Gyllenhaal. He’s a great actor, and he gets better looking every year.
FreddieW
The best Robert Redford movie I’ve seen is “The Hot Rock”. It isn’t well-known, but it’s very funny, and you’ll always remember “Afghanistan Banana stand”.
DBMC
Amazing the hostile response to this. I would hate to hear what people say about the gay reading of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.