Rock of Ages hits theaters on Friday and our sister in salaciousness Michael Musto reminded readers the jukebox movie musical has a gay twist.
No itâs not Tom Cruiseâhis character, washed up rocker Stacy Jaxx, sucks face with a lady reporter (Malin Akerman).
But itâs two of the other stars who end up flirting with sexual subtext, finally erupting into a musical declaration of mutual love (âI Canât Fight This Feelingâ) and a big, old, wonderful kiss on top of it.
Musto says the same-sex sceneââone of the better things in the filmââwas also in the Broadway version of the show.
Is it Julianne Hough and Catherine Zeta Jones? Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand? If you know for a fact, please keep it to yourself. Wild guesses are welcome in the comments!
Chris
Ok since queerty doesn’t want comments from people who know for sure, I will say that the star who was one half of the “gay kiss” has given several interviews about it in recent days, probably to generate interest in possibly the only musical in history without much of a gay following. đ
This mess was a nightmare on broadway, and I can’t imagine it’s much better in a film adaptation, no matter how much star power you throw at it. Although, I will admit that I was never a fan of the genre of musical where they take old pop songs and try to make up a story that kinda fits the lyrics.
ZachV
Is it made explicit in the film? In the musical it’s just a bromance put in there for laughs.
Spike
I’ll be sure to see this right after I see Magic Mike. Yea right.
Bryan
@Spike: Except that this actually seems to be a really good movie, while Magic Mike is probably just gonna be some shallow eye candy fodder for gays and girls to ogle over.
Ty
@Chris:
Why doesn’t Rock Of Ages have a gay following? I am sick of gay men who hate rock music because of its perceived “butchness”. I love divas and electronic music, but I also love rock music as well. A shame so many gay men won’t go more “rock” than Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” or Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat” because they think it’ll make them look like they’re selling out to the heteros.
I am a card-carrying gay man and I love the rock music of my childhood, cannot wait to see this for the same reason I wanted to see “Mamma Mia” (which at least is accepted by gays because of ABBA), because of the music.
Chris
@Ty: This isn’t rock music, it’s 80s hair bands. If you consider that rock music that’s your business.
And to say that you are sick of gay men who dont have he same taste as you is ridiculous, no one really controls their taste in music.
Ty
@Chris:
No, I see gay men all the time who act like anything that isn’t divas, showtunes or electronic is somehow selling out to the heteros. To like rock music is a bad thing. I remember when Pet Shop Boys did the Release album and how so many people I knew suddenly saw them as making a pact with the devil for doing a “rock” album. I knew someone who chewed me out for listening to an AC/DC album as if its a crime, never mind that 20 million plus other people bought that album in question, but because I’m gay, I’m not allowed to like that sort of stuff?
I grew up in the 80s. Groups like Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Poison, Journey and others used in this music were part of the musical fabric growing up in the time. Not going to make some argument that these bands made art, because they didn’t, but still, the songs were fun and I can still enjoy them 20+ years afterwards. Unlike some gays, I can appreciate more than one genre of music. I like those bands, but I also love the divas and electronic artists and other more “gay-friendly” styles of music.
Spike
@Bryan: Really, you think so? I’m thinking it will be more like Grease 2 with Tom Cruise in the lead. It will be interesting which movie has a weaker opening weekend, this mess or Magic Mike.
keoki3
Alec Baldwin & Russell Brand get their smooch on, but eew on both accounts.
Mastik8
This doesn’t have a gay following because it’s awful.
Joseph
And, just to be anal about it all, the title of the REO Speedwagon song is simply “Can’t Fight This Feeling”…no “I” at the beginning.
jason
80’s hair bands were simply a marketing exercise in male heterosexuality. It was all so very fake. In fact, rock and roll is very fake. The lyrics are so cliched, it’s not funny. It’s all about meeting girls. LOL. How rebellious…not.
Tom
OK so I have to share my Tom Cruise story and this seems like a good place to post it. I firmly believe Tom is a big ol MO, wont argue it with anyone its just what I believe after 50 years of developing my gaydar ;-). Anyway I work for a large drugstore chain and see the National Enqiurer weekly , yea I know its a rag blah blah. So last week the have this huge headline and picture of Tommy and it says Tom Cruise caught in bed with two models , pictures threaten to destroy his marriage, photos inside. My first thought was this has to be a set up story because of all of the problems Travolta is haing latley, ( check out the photo of his suposed 6 year BF in this weeks issue lol ) So I have to see this story I open it up and it is a story about Cruise doing a promotional photo shoot with 2 hot models for a magazine to promote Rock of Ages. I fckn died laughing , employees and customers wondering what the hell is wrong with me, i couldn’t help it though. This is a classic Hollywood story bought and paid for. Cruise or his people are truly worried about all the shit with Travolta and are paying to have stories such as this put out there. I LOVE IT he wouldnt come within 100 miles of any role with gay subtext if it was a guarenteed oscar LOL
Tom
Oh and BTW on the Rock and Roll is cliche and for hetero guys. When I was 16 and saw Robert Plant in those skin tight hip hugging jeans singing Whole lot of Love I would have gave anything to “squeeze that lemon and fell the juice running down his leg” LOL older guys will understand
Ty
@jason:
The music was fun and the songs were catchy though. To dislike it because of the blatant heterosexuality is as ignorant as those who refuse to listen to Scissor Sisters or Erasure or something just because it’s “gay music”.
Hair bands were over the top and bombastic, it was never meant to be anything besides fun.
XJ
I would take hair bands/ hair metal to almost ANYTHING in pop music these days, I tell you what. The amount of heterosexuality in hair metal was a FRACTION of what we see currently in hip hop.
jason
XJ,
Well, that’s true about hip hop.
The entertainment industry is basically one great big form of pandering to the sexual fantasies of sleazy straight guys and the vanity of their female enablers.
Red Assault
I was at a screening of Snow White and they played this tralier. Once it’s bombastically craptacular noise ended and the theater was dark, a voice cut through the silence saying “I would rather deep fry my face than see that movie” and the audience erupted with laughter, applause and “THANK YOU” from all around.
Two days ago before seeing Prometheus, there was yet another trailer and when it ended, all you could hear we’re groans, people saying “that looks so lame” and a guy shouting “Just Stop!”
This movie is going to be a train wreck of Xanadu proportions without the loving cult following.
Ugh.
Red Assault
And for the record, the kiss between the Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand characters isn’t a gay love story, it’s a bit played for cringe-worthy and vaguely homophobic laughs. It’s put in there so we can laugh at the silly gays and guys can say “gross!” so everyone around them knows they aren’t gay, even if they ARE at a musical.
Red Assault
And further to the record, I’ve always been a die-hard metal and rock fan.
Hair bands of the 80s were just pop music with louder guitars who carried on like douchebags and played rock light that the girls could get into but still feel tough like Joan Jett ( who’d have kicked their asses).
Those bands not only weren’t metal, they destroyed metal. Took it years to recover.
Belize
@jason: Don’t you just wish that majority of the LGBT have the same paranoia as the right wing nutjobs that sent you here? That way, your job will be a lot easier. đ
Belize
@Ty: “I love divas and electronic music, but I also love rock music as well. A shame so many gay men wonât go more ârockâ than Madonnaâs âLike A Prayerâ or Janet Jacksonâs âBlack Catâ because they think itâll make them look like theyâre selling out to the heteros.”
I’m actually surprised at your grievances. I often thought that the kind of gay people you mentioned are mythical creatures especially since Madonna at her height is more or less a contemporary of Thurston Moore, and that kind of ideology (the one you mentioned) is simple SHALLOW considering the fact that it goes against the very fiber of the LGBT’s advocacy. I mean really, the greatest number of LGBT people I’ve seen recently (discounting the prides) was at an Arcade Fire concert.
There are also A LOT of straight people who watch Sigur Ros (gay lead singer,) Perfume Genius (gay lead singer,) Antony and the Johnsons (transgender lead singer,) Scissor Sisters (NEED I SAY MORE,) Owen Pallett, Patrick Wolf, and Tori Amos (yes she’s not gay but she’s more or less the Madonna of the “alternative” LGBT.)
Belize
@Red Assault: “Hair bands of the 80s were just pop music with louder guitars who carried on like douchebags and played rock light that the girls could get into but still feel tough like Joan Jett ( whoâd have kicked their asses).”
THANK YOU. Saying that these bands/songs are “metal” is like saying that Simple Plan is a punk rock (OR AT THE VERY LEAST, EMO) band.
Ty
@Belize: “Iâm actually surprised at your grievances. I often thought that the kind of gay people you mentioned are mythical creatures especially since Madonna at her height is more or less a contemporary of Thurston Moore, and that kind of ideology (the one you mentioned) is simple SHALLOW considering the fact that it goes against the very fiber of the LGBTâs advocacy. I mean really, the greatest number of LGBT people Iâve seen recently (discounting the prides) was at an Arcade Fire concert.”
You have no idea how many people I know who act like rock is the worst thing in the world and that no self-respecting gay man will listen to anything that even has a guitar on it. Hell, I know one acquaintance who blogs about how terrible Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam and the sort are because of his loyalty to synth-pop. I love synth-pop too don’t get me wrong, but Zeppelin and Pearl Jam are both amazingly talented bands as well and to be dismissed just because they aren’t in the “preferred genre” for gay men is sad. And don’t get me started on the people I know who acted like Pet Shop Boys personally betrayed them when they did “Release” in 2002, and if you listen to that album, it is hardly rock, but it isn’t exactly dance either, so it was a “sellout” to them.
Codswallop
Good lord. My first jobs were working in music stores (almost non-existent now) and while I heard from PLENTY of people, gay and straight, who didn’t like the bands whose music is used in Rock Of Ages, I never once heard anyone say it was because they were so heterosexual! In fact, now that I think about it, the only comments I ever heard about their sexuality was from teenage boys who made fun of Hair Bands because they were “So Gay!” for wearing pink lycra pants, lipstick, and pouting at the camera! (Is that where that silly-ass Jersey Shore kissy-lips pout comes from?) The real heavy metal fans knew Rob Halford from Judas Priest was gay and they were fine with that.
And for what it’s worth (admittedly not much) while there is some dance music I like the closest I ever got to “diva worship” was Debbie Harry and I’ve hated that wispy-voiced hag Madonna since the very day her POS debut album dropped like a steaming turd on the record-buying public. And I’d rather nail my feet to the floor and do jumping jacks than see Barbra fucking Streisand in concert!
Andrew
I wish you all realized how ridiculous you look arguing over whose taste in music is better and what group belongs in what category or subset of a genre. Musical taste is completely subjective and no single person possesses one that is better than anyone else.
Bryan
@Spike: Well, I’ve been hearing good things about this, soo… While otoh all I’ve been hearing about Magic Mike is about the character’s abs. I don’t think opening weeekends will really prove much. Twilight will have a bigger opening weekends that most films.
J Edwards
@Ty: I personally can’t wait to see this. I like all kinds of music, including 80s pop and “hair bands”. I think this will be a hoot, which is all it’s intended to be, nothing more. Not a great work of art. Not a timeless classic. A nostalgic lark for people who remember the 80s. Just like Magic Mike is just supposed to be shallow eye candy. Why would you assume it was supposed to have any other redeeming qualities?