In this exclive excerpt, the thor of Sexplosn! From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange: How a Generatn of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos tells how Midnight Cowboy's party sequence and a gunshot om Valerie Solanas helped make Joe Dallandro a gay in.
Contents:
- HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
- MIDNIGHT COWBOY, ANDY WARHOL, GAY HTLERS, AND ONE LBIAN FEMIST
HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
The ntroversial bt-picture wner wh Dt Hoffman and Jon Voight arrived at a ght moment not jt the evolutn of filmmakg, but the stggle for visibily of gay liv. An excerpt of a five new book. * is midnight cowboy a gay film *
” So is wh Midnight Cowboy, one of the classics of the short-lived New Hollywood era and the only X-rated film ever to w an Amy Award for bt long-standg myth is that the Motn Picture Associatn of Ameri’s pdish ratgs board, repelled by Midnight Cowboy’s scen of fellat, sodomy, homosexualy, and sadomasochism, slapped an X on the film before s release May 1969. Fortunately, the tth is a better st of characters clus one of the film dtry’s preement power brokers, who got squeamish over the sex scen and generally rnchy subject matter of the movie; a gay film director who was still the closet even while he sought to make a movie that alt openly and ankly wh sexualy, straight and gay; a polilly nnected former ai to Print Lyndon Johnson who tried to steer the motn picture dtry around the shoals of ntroversy; and a clever psychoanalyst wh a passn for power who provid the phony ratnale that allowed the stud head to do exactly what he wanted to story tak place at a pivotal moment Amerin cultural and polil history, when homosexualy was still wily viewed as a ntag disease and a dire threat to Amerin youth, while filmmakers were stgglg for more eedom to tell adult the storm ro Midnight this is a Hollywood story, let’s start wh the man wh the most money and power.
” Adultery, premaral sex, homosexualy, and abortn for any reason were not allowed, nor was anythg else that might “lower the moral standards of those who see . Hollywood was even more squeamish when me to homosexualy.
Still, jt as other adult them started to seep to mastream Amerin films, homosexualy took s first baby steps out of the closet, but only films that picted gay people as praved, unhappy, and self-stctive. The films should have rried a surgeon general’s warng: Homosexualy, like cigarette smokg, n be hazardo to one’s first Valenti toyed wh the ia of killg the Productn Co outright and replacg wh a simple utnary label: “For Mature Audienc. His bs plan turns out to be fatally flawed—the only ctomers who show any tert Joe’s sexual prows are a handful of gay men, while he himself be fair game for a seri of predators who quickly relieve him of his small stash of sh.
MIDNIGHT COWBOY, ANDY WARHOL, GAY HTLERS, AND ONE LBIAN FEMIST
Growg up, I hankered after imag of other gay men, however they were treated, wr film cric Ryan Gilbey * is midnight cowboy a gay film *
One of those on his feet appldg was Arthur soon had send was early sprg 1969, and New York was enterg a new era of revolutnary change the way many creative people thought about and picted homosexualy. Mart Crowley’s The Boys the Band, the first mastream play to foc on gay men, had opened six months earlier to sold-out crowds off-Broadway. The Stonewall rts, a landmark three-night nontatn between ps and gay and lbian bar ctomers Greenwich Village, were jt around the rner.
Still, sodomy even between nsentg adults was a crime 49 stat, and would be four more years before the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn erased homosexualy om s official list of mental disorrs.
Not jt the cy’s lg ele but a large subsectn of s llege-ted middle class was unr the fluence of the psychiatric tablishment, which 1960s Manhattan enjoyed the sacred stat of a secular prithood and which by and large viewed homosexualy as a scen Midnight Cowboy troubled Krim. But like many of his fellow shrks, he clung to the nventnal wisdom that homosexualy was a viant liftyle choice that children need to be protected om at all sts. Homosexuals, he argued, were narcissists who chose to be gay bee they uld only love people exactly like themselv.