Times change. Few communities know that as well as we do, having seen their rights and acceptance evolve radically in a few short years–and begin to erode under He We Need Not Name. For proof, look no further than the annals of queer cinema, which has mostly kept up with the times. Queer characters and stories have grown rich and diverse, depicting people from all walks of life, and with all kinds of different experiences.
Of course, it wasn’t always so. Which brings us to these films. Once upon a time, they purported to spotlight the community with sharp accuracy–and in some cases, they actually did. Today, however, they feel dated and in some cases, downright infuriating.
Have a look, and consider yourself warned.
Edge of Seventeen
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Some of us of a certain age can recall a certain time not long ago when it seemed like every movie about a gay man had to be about coming out and having a tragic love affair. Edge of Seventeen exemplifies that trend, and in a post Love, Simon/Moonlight world plays cliché and dull. Worse, the gay relationship at the center of the story feels more rapey than romantic, as one half of the couple cruelly deflowers the other and purposely breaks his heart. Then, as now, gay men deserved better.
The Boys in the Band
Mart Cowley’s 1968 landmark play became a film in 1970, courtesy of Oscar-winner William Friedkin’s (The Exorcist, The French Connection) direction. By the time it hit movie screens, however, critics and audiences alike already decried the material as dated. Chock full of self-loathing, pathetic characters, negative stereotypes and a lot of homophobia, the idea that the film would ever be considered a watershed for its positive portrayal of gay men nauseates us. The 2018 Broadway revival of the play overcame this issue by purposely making the characters seem antiquated and dated. Too bad the film version doesn’t have the same luxury.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The public raised a collective eyebrow when Oscar-winner Clint Eastwood announced he would direct this film version of the celebrated John Berendt novel. To this day, the novel about the underground queer culture of 80s Savannah remains the longest-standing bestseller in the history of The New York Times. The problem with the film: Eastwood forgot to add the gayness. Though the Lady Chablis—the noted transgender cabaret performer—plays herself (which we love), the male lead (played by John Cusack) suddenly becomes straight. For that matter, in a cosmic twist destined to elicit laughs, Kevin Spacey plays a closeted predator of young men…though the film seems a bit wishy-washy on if his character is actually gay. Given that Spacey’s character allegedly kills his boyfriend, that makes this movie adaptation both nonsensical and straight-washed to the point of stupidity.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Have two stars ever looked so beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? We’re not sure that’s even possible, which makes the epic failure of this screen adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play all the more tragic. Williams loved Cat as his own favorite of all his plays, and despised this bowdlerized film version which eliminates all the references to homosexuality that should drive the plot. In the play, Newman’s character, Brick, had a romantic attraction to his best friend Skipper, who commits suicide just before the play begins. The movie drops this crucial point, muddling Brick’s character and the rest of the story along with him. Someday, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof could make for an incredible film if the screenplay retained Williams’ original script. Dear Hollywood, somebody please get on that…
The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy
Director Gregg Araki recently returned to horny, juvenile antics in his new show Now Apocalypse, and proved himself a mature director with Mysterious Skin. Both somehow make The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy—a series of three films that include Totally F*cked Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere—look all the more ridiculous. The plots, such as they are, concern a lot of pretty teenagers and 20-somethings hooking up and going to parties…and not much else. Whereas once seeing gay characters express physical affection had a certain degree of novelty, nowadays it just seems trite without anything interesting to support it. With the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, what once seemed groundbreaking and bold, now seems more like tedious, softcore porn.
Related: Guess which superstar just offered to replace Kim Cattrall in Sex and the City 3?
Six Degrees of Separation
Will Smith made his first foray into drama in this adaptation of the popular play about a scheming gay hooker. That’s also the problem: Smith (reportedly on the advice of Denzel Washington…jerk) refused to have any scenes that would involve him kissing or otherwise showing affection to another male. That hinders the overall impact of the piece, not to mention Smith’s credibility in the part. Thank goodness then for Stockard Channing who recreates her stage performance, and who provides an even enough keel to keep the film engaging. To his credit, Smith eventually regretted and apologized for his decision, which almost makes his performance here tolerable. Almost.
Basic Instinct
Whether or not Basic Instinct should even be lumped in with other queer movies remains a heated debate. What is certain is that the film—one of the biggest hits of 1992—does not do justice to its LGBTQ characters. Sharon Stone commands the screen as a bisexual, sex-crazed author who also might just be a killer, but the movie handles her sexuality, as well as that of several other bi and gay characters, more as a plot device aimed at titillating the straight men in the audience rather than a believable portrayal. Moreover, it plays into the longstanding cinema trope of queers as cold-blooded murderers. The community deserves better, but then, so does the general moviegoing public.
Fried Green Tomatoes
Wait a tic, you say? Fried Green Tomatoes is a gay movie? Well, it’s supposed to be…not that the film wants you to know. What served as the center point of the novel—a lesbian relationship—gets watered down to the point that nobody even realized the film’s leads, played by Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker—were actually supposed to be a couple. In a telling move, both Parker and Masterson, as well as author/screenwriter Fannie Flagg, have all criticized the movie since its release for deleting the lesbian romance in favor of a “just friends” plot. All that said, Fried Green Tomatoes still has plenty of charm, so next time just watch it and imagine the lesbian sex is happening off-screen. For extra help, pour yourself a very large glass of wine.
Myra Breckenridge
Hollywood first attempted to take on transgender characters with this mostly-forgotten “comedy” based on gay writer Gore Vidal’s novel. Apart from the casting choices—two separate cisgender actors, Raquel Welch and Rex Reed, play the title role—which today seem insensitive, the movie fails as a comedy on an epic scale. Whereas Vidal’s novel focused on the emancipation of Myra by her gender transition and worked as a scathing satire of Hollywood in the 70s, the movie comes off cruel and ugly as exemplified by a rape scene played for laughs. How Welch, John Huston, Farrah Fawcett and—of all people—Mae West ended up in this cinematic excrement is beyond us.
Sex and the City 2
Is it just us, or did the once-relatable ladies of Sex and the City lose all their luster when they transferred to the big screen? Characters that once seemed real and fun now felt greedy and narcissistic. That goes for the series’ gay characters too, never more so than in the cringe-inducing wedding scene in the second film. Though we love Liza Minnelli in any capacity, having her show up to officiate a gay wedding ceremony and perform a Beyonce number feels dangerously close to an insult to the diva. Worse, the loveless marriage between Willie Garson’s Stanford, who just wants to have a wedding, and Mario Cantone’s Anthony, who’s more interested in hooking up with the Gay Men’s Chorus rather than his actual groom. In fairness, Sex and the City 2 has problems way beyond just its treatment of queer characters. Still, in a movie with myriad problems, it’s one foul we can’t overlook.
broadshoulder
You shouldn’t be damning these films. They show what being gay was like in the seventies. It was no picnic.
Sometimes I lose patience with this generation.
kiriakis1
Since only one of them was set in the seventies, it’s a bit odd that you would say that
Ronbo
I agree with broadshoulder.
Trust me, things were no better prior to the ’70’s. And yes, some in subsequent generations have the arrogance to ignore the struggle, heartache and pain that brought about change. I wonder if they even remember or know of Matthew Shepard. Do they even know Dan Choi is a hero? That drag queens bore the hate of society and WON… eventually.
We stand today on the shoulders of GIANTS.
KennyB
Broadshoulder, I agree. It’s okay to have a discussion of these issues so viewers from previous generations can be reminded and enlightened, but it seems to have been sensationalized here. Important teaching moments should not be turned into click-bait.
However “closeted” these issues were at the time, the audience was closeted then as well. The scripts may have been in code, but whether we realized it at the time, some of us were cyphering the code. Consciously or not, we all were getting a message, and it also allowed the straight community to recognize members of their family in these portrayals. It played a positive role for that moment and we shouldn’t damn those who made a commercial decision to put it on display, even if only subtly.
djmcgamester
Agreed. Admittedly, I wasn’t out until the 90s but it doesn’t matter. It’s out history, a reminder of where we came from. Not cringe-worthy. It’s worth remembering when it was bad and to be grateful how far we’ve progressed.
georgebaez
What kind of reporting is this? They make you cringe? Without these and what older gay generations have done, you would still be in the closet. I am disgusted at the level of poor reporting this site produces, stop these stupid fluff pieces, they do more damage than not.
Diogenes
Thank you.
PinkoOfTheGange
“We”? What? You all got a frog in your pocket?
Unless you were there when the movies came out or the time they represented, you would never understand. Post millennial revisionist historians putting their stamp on fiction now…what cheek.
Heywood Jablowme
Maybe that frog “used to love” “Sex and the City 2” but no one else did, ever!
Selverd
Is the bit about Edge of Seventeen where “one half of the couple cruelly deflowers the other and purposely breaks his heart” really accurate? Rod blows Chris off after, but I don’t think he intentionally had sex with him just so he could hurt him afterwards.
S.anderson
Thanks again, Queerty, for reminding us that LGB people of previous generations weren’t compliant with the optics today’s Queer Movement enforces. Boo-hoo.
Chevelter
Slow news day huh?
Goosecurls
I will always have a place in my heart for “Edge of Seventeen”. My story is too similar to the movie’s story to ignore. “Boys in the Band” is being played out somewhere as I write this. So, not exactly dated. “Midnight in the Garden of Good or Evil”, the problem with that is the source material. When not in court, or describing the characters, it was rather dull. In the article, you mention the problem with “Cat” is that the original material being watered down for the screen. The same was done with “Streetcar Named Desire”. As for “Fried Green Tomatoes”, I knew they were a couple. I for one don’t need to see them getting it on to know about their relationship.
Your argument about “Basic Instinct” is the same as when the movie came out. I know I’ve grown since then. And, even then, I saw the movie as fluff.
As for the others, either I didn’t see them, or it was so long ago I can’t express an opinion. I know I’m in the minority on that. Too often lately there are occurrences of people criticizing a movie that they never have seen. They base their critique on the previews or the poster.
On the topic of “gay” films, I recommend “Giant Little Ones”. Very interesting film. And the story unfolds without the usual dopey tropes.
Brian
You really think the problem people had with Fried Green Tomatoes was that there was no sex scene?
Dan Renzi
I am revoking your gay card for calling “Basic Instinct” *FLUFF.* This is Paul Verhoeven’s masterpiece! What’s next? Will you refer to “Showgirls” as campy? Or “Starship Troopers” as just an action movie? Oh wait that’s all true. Never mind.
chris_clb614
When a movie like Basic Instinct begins the way that it goes, with cops discussing a murder victim’s bodily fluids, “fluff” is the wrong word to use.
Brian
Some people might look at these films as moments in history and appreciate that they exist as a reminder of how much has changed for the better in a relatively short amount of time. But I guess that would be too much to ask at a time where we are using what people did as teenagers to disqualify or try to get people fired from their jobs 3 or 4 decades later.
Heywood Jablowme
Some of them are “moments in history,” okay. But some of the objections are as simple as: the original book or play had LOTS of gay stuff in it, and yet the movie cut out ALL of the gay stuff, absolutely all of it, and turned the gay characters into straight ones! You don’t need to be young (I’m over 60) to agree that sucks. That’s not even homophobia in the sense of a negative portrayal; that’s totally ignoring our existence.
Anyway… a remake of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with the gay stuff back in? – great idea!
jjose712
This reminds me about the women who complain about the fact that women didn’t work in Jane Austen’s novels.
Some people really have problems with context.
Of course there are novels and films that don’t pass the text of time but provide the context in where they were written or filmed helps a lot
iamru2
When one is running out of current events to be “outraged” over then it’s time to dig up the past!
Rock-N-RollHS
Guess what kids (and the writers and non binaries of QTY are probably “kids”), “art” is not meant to make you feel good about yourselves and reinforce the myth of the world as a just, safe, and democratic place. It is to offer a window into the world as it is. Politically correct art is boring and a massive lie. Yes, we fags (used proudly) deserve better than Oprah-fied feel-good b.s. Look around the world, it ain’t no feel-good therapy session. You want safety and support, go to a therapist or group therapy (and if either are any good, they will actually challenge you).
btw, love Boys in the Band. The self-loathing (and love between many of the characters) feels as real as it ever was. (Never saw Edge of 17, but your description sounds like a common bad hook-up on grinder.) You think we are in such a “woke” place now, just wait a decade or two, and you will really awaken from your deluded dreams of Kumbaya.
thisisnotreal
Omg preach! Was hearing angel choirs while reading this cuz it was that good. Generations these days are so unbelievably soft and everything is exactly like you said where it’s all about safe spaces and being triggered by everything and feeling victimized by everything all in an attempt to feel like your being heard and part of the crowd and it just needs to stop. The world frequently sucks and the people in it frequently suck even more than that, but that’s ok because struggles and hardships build CHARACTER which a lot of people these days are sorely lacking in. art that makes you feel sad, or scared, or anxious, or angry, or anything else not considered rainbows and roses is a good thing because it challenges your thinking and takes what you think you know about the world and your place in it and throws that on its head. We need a lot more of that in this world, not a world where everyone is a democrat that uses every single PC term currently created in order to avoid hurting people’s feelings and upsetting them because they think “differently”.
sfhairy
Preach!!!
Wolfie
The only thing cringe worthy is stupidity of the author who wrote this piece of shite.
talktalktalk
well said
Crystix
Amen
Squeak
Bravo!
Ptar1
I must agree.
Bob Scardino
I’ll only speak to The Boys in the Band and will not use the editorial “we.” For a closeted, 17-year-old gay kid in High School in Pompano Beach, it told me that I wasn’t the only one.
jpcolter
This whole story is crappy. Cat on a Hot Tin roof still stands up today. Awesome movie.
DarkZephyr
Sorry, I still love “Edge of Seventeen” and still watch it any time I want to get a taste of the 80s.
Aunt Sharon
May I suggest the somewhat cheesy, but loveable, “Outrageous” (1977) as a fun, unapologetically gay film. Amazingly positive in outlook for 40+ years ago. It’s the antidote to “Boys in the Band”, and free to Amazon Prime subscribers.
nitejonboy
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES is probably my second favorite movie of all time, I saw it like ten times when it was in the theater. In defense of it, there are no sex scenes or even lesbian romantic scenes in the novel. It is hinted at that the two women are in a relationship, but like the movie, it is is never fully admitted to or explained. I actually think the movie improved on the novel, though it did eliminate a lot of characters. I’d recommend everyone who enjoyed the movie read the novel, it’s very touching and hilarious, despite it’s sad ending that they changed for the movie.
Dan Renzi
I agree that this is a lovely movie. The book version of “Fried Green Tomatoes” is all about the nuance, subtext, and innuendo of their relationship. Everything was hinted, as perceived from an outside perspective. Idgie and Ruth lived in the same house, but it was never mentioned in the book if they shared a bedroom, from what I can remember. And if readers want to believe Idgie wore pants just because they were comfortable, then fine. The movie didn’t betray any of that nuance, although it was very diluted. But that scene in the lake, the “This is the best birthday I ever had” moment, the actresses did their jobs and conveyed what needed to be said. I saw the movie before I read the book and I figured everything out. Maybe the movie’s director wanted to cut out the love story, but the actresses did not let that happen and they figured out ways to work it in.
nitejonboy
NOWHERE always pissed me off, just as he finally gets to kiss a boy the boy turns into a cockroach…it was a full on indictment of homosexuality and it made me hate Gregg Araki from then on.
Doug
After I saw “Mysterious Skin,” I realized what a great director Araki is. Unfortunately, he keeps falling back into the campy, pop-art teenage stuff, and I think he’s really wasting his talent.
GetOffMyInternet
None of these films make me cringe like David’s writing and his joke of a comic book he put out awhile ago. Such a pretentious asshat.
Kangol
There’s a decent documentary on The Boys in the Band, entitled Making the Boys (2011), that’s on some streaming services and worth watching. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof suppresses overt mention of Brick’s relationship with Skipper, but the entire film basically makes it clear that that’s what’s going on. He won’t have sex with his wife, played by Elizabeth Taylor, his father keeps pressing him to have kids, and he limps around and drinks heavily out of sorrow and shame. It’s actually worth seeing just for Newman’s and Taylor’s performances, though a truly gay adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s work came one year later in 1959 in Suddenly, Last Summer, which sets a standard for outrageousness rarely matched even today.
Everyone in that film is camping out, though Katherine Hepburn wins by a mile. Its storyline involves a delicate rich young white American male aesthete basically pimping his young female cousin, who is facing a lobotomy pushed by his rich mother to keep the young woman quiet, to sexually troll for poor, hungry, beautiful teenage Mediterranean boys, so that he can have sex with them. Only he ends up literally torn to pieces by them, as Elizabeth Taylor hysterically screams out at the movie’s climax. Now that I think of it, that movie should probably be at the top of your list.
gregg2010
I watch “Suddenly, Last Summer” and I can’t believe Williams—or anyone—could come up with such a preposterous, campy, and insane idea for a play. The movie is worth it for La Hepburn’s over-the-top performance and Taylor’s line, “. . . and it looked like they were devouring him!” right before her psychological breakthrough. Poor Montgomery Cliff . . . it was after his terrible car accident, and he is a shell of his former self. This film is a must-see.
DHT
Some of these movies wouldn’t have been made if they were as explicit as the author would have liked, and they did serve to introduce the public to gay characters so they were valuable and don’t make me cringe at all.
QueerTruth
Fun article. But Fried Green Tomatoes doesn’t belong here.
I do see the point, but the movie is not cringe-like at all.
The book and movie are great. The love story within the book is barely noted. The love between the two characters was never an issue with the other characters really and never exactly addressed as such, which made the book more believable and lovely.
DCguy
This could be said about almost any movie. Frankly, the fact that “Love Simon” tried to rehabilitate the kid who blackmailed and outted him seems much worse to me than the one guy breaking the other’s heart in Edge of Seventeen.
talktalktalk
this article is utter nonsense. I am only in my thirties and have never seen a better gay-themed film than Boys in the Band. Yes, it’s of its time, but that is the wonder of it. You really need to stop seeing films and culture through your crazed leftist easily outraged spectacles.
tjack47
The disrespect of this article made me cringe Show those who’ve gone before some appreciation.
CMarks
For men of a certain age “The Boys In The Band” is our history. I didn’t cringe then and I don’t cringe now. Most gay men were, or knew many of, the characters portrayed in the movie. Although I understood some people’s dislike of the movie when it was released in 1970 I always felt it was not because the characters weren’t honestly represented but because it exposed the private lives of gay men that many in the community denied and/or did not want to acknowledge existed.
erik24
Some of these films were never great. But a lot of them served a purpose in their time. Don’t cringe at the past. Just be grateful it’s no longer that way. Condemning it is no way to understand it.
jcoberkrom
Cringe worthy? Give me a break. Poor David! Will someone please tell him what Samuel Clemons said, “It is better to be silent and thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt.”
Doug
These films are examples of how we as gay men accepted any crumbs thrown at us, mostly from Hollywood, because we so badly wanted representation. We’ve come an incredibly long way now… but these films are important milestones that got us where we are today.
simulations
The irony is that Six Degrees is largely about trivialising the human experience. Ouisa talks about turning these experiences into anecdotes. I’m sure if the play/film were rewritten today, ‘anecdotes’ would become ‘clickbait’.
dean089
The ‘first time’ encounter in ‘Edge of Seventeen’ isn’t ideal but it IS real life. Giving young people the idea that coming out is nothing but sunshine and lollipops is what’s cringe-worthy.
Zambos271
I loved Basic Instinct! Sharon Stone was amazing, and I enjoyed all of the complicated female characters. Plus, pre-internet, seeing Michael Douglas’s naked butt was a treat.
Polaro
Just goes to show now is not then. All these kids now trying to reinvent things that happened by their own perceptions is a lot like Trump and his delusional world. It did not happen that way, it did not mean what you say it does, and you have no clue about history because it is not a video game you can reset to you current desires.
Ptar1
I like these. Maybe dated and stylistic for their times.
Nothing cringe worthy about them.
Jon in Canada
So basically, what you’re implying is that LGBTQ people are so stupid so as to not understand the context and the times in which these films were made and that because they don’t reflect the reality of today they are to be discarded or ignored. Well done you, you’ve just committed queer historical erasure for the sake of ignorance.