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BE GAY DO CRIME: ON LGBT REPRENTATN DOG DAY AFTERNOON AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD ERA
Content warng: this article ntas brief mentns of suicidal iatn and attempts, historil homophobia and racism. To go back to where this all started, 1971, Wojtowicz would meet Liz En, a trans woman, after gettg volved wh New York Cy’s risg gay liberatn movement. Filmmakg at the time was no doubt fluenced by thgs like the Vietnam War, ee love and hippie unterculture, the send-wave femist movement, the sexual revolutn, and the begngs of the gay rights movement, which was beg too loud to ignore, as well as Watergate and the Civil Rights Movement, which was also beg que powerful.
It would be adapted to a feature length film 1970 and nsired groundbreakg for the fact that nearly all the ma characters were eher gay or bisexual men. The way this film gave dienc a glimpse of actual gay culture and iend groups, however dramatized may be, still had an thenticy and unabashedns to that trigued a large dience.
Another new element this film was the way that the characters are not jt the same flat stereotype for gay/bisexual men, but rather all have dividual personali. No, but at a time when thgs like homosexualy and beg transgenr were still largely nsired forms of mental illns, showg dienc that people the LGBT muny were jt human begs like everyone else was pretty radil for s time, and perhaps helped even a small way to further evolve LGBT reprentatn on the screen for the future. Between the real robbery and the release date of Dog Day Afternoon, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn classified homosexualy as a mental disorr.