Everyone’s favorite heterosexual-ish filmmaker James Franco is urging Australia to lift its ban on I Want Your Love, a film by his friend and collaborator Travis Mathews, which was prohibited from being shown at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and several other festivals down under.
According to Gay Star News, the Australian Classification Board deemed the film unsuitable for audiences since it contains a six-minute scene of actual sex between two men—even though the board allowed a film which depicted sex between men and donkeys last year.
Franco approached Mathews to work on Interior. Leather Bar, his meta-critique on 1980’s Cruising, after seeing I Want Your Love. In his video plea to the ACB, the Oz, The Great and Powerful star says Mathews used sex in “a very sophisticated way.”
He goes on to say that “in this day and age” a film being banned for “using sex not for titillation but to talk about being human [is] embarrassing.”
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Franco’s got a point, but before he starts calling things embarrassing, he might want to wear a different shirt.
viveutvivas
Jeez, Australia. It’s the 21st century you know!
stfallon1028
A beautiful statement from a beautiful mind, the one and only James Franco
DarthKitsune
Who doesn’t love James Franco? He’s got us wrapped around his fingers!
Toro666
Yeah, he knows how to cash in on nimrods who are ready to throw money at him. He doesn’t represent ME, or speak for ME. He does not fit an an example to ME as a gay man. Gay men do. Not opportunistic heterosexuals, who have freedom of mobility in the sexual realm while all the while maintaining, their heterosexist male, white privilege. Guess what guys, he’s NOT going to have sex with you. Wake up.
Derek Williams
@Toro666: I don’t care, I prefer heterosexuals to be our friends than our enemies. Cash in? Negligible compared to the potential for stigma.