Dear lennials, the generatn born durg the '80s, the are the gay-themed movi — some wonrful, some wonrfully terrible — worth your time.
Contents:
- THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
- THE GAY ESSENTIALS: THE 50 MOVI EVERY GAY MAN NEEDS TO WATCH WHILE STUCK AT HOME
- 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
Celebrate the bt gay movi wh our list of the 50 most sential LGBTQ+ films ever ma * best gay cult films *
It starred gay in Dolly Parton as well as Sally Fields, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dakis, Shirley MacLae and Julia Roberts, who beme a star bee of this film and her next role Pretty Woman. Along their trip, the tr perform Gloria Gaynor’s h, ‘I Will Survive’ wh aborig the sert and cross paths wh a mechanic whose Filipa wife shoots pg pong balls out her, well, you know where. The film starred Nick Robson as the tle character, Simon, a high school stunt g to terms wh beg gay and how he starts an email relatnship wh another closeted gay guy om his high school.
That clip appears The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary based on Vo Rso’s study of homosexualy the movi, along wh untls exampl of how gay characters showed up, per narrator Lily Toml, as “somethg to lgh at, or somethg to py, or even somethg to fear. Some have been documents of a moment or era of gay history, some have been ed as rrectiv to s of negative clichés, and others have simply celebrated the fact that the movi n be queer, they’re here, get ed to .
It is nowhere near a prehensive ndown of every great movie to feature out-and-proud hero and villas, or a queer sensibily, or even jt visible (and/or risible) exampl of gay life cema; we uld have easily ma this list twice as long.
THE GAY ESSENTIALS: THE 50 MOVI EVERY GAY MAN NEEDS TO WATCH WHILE STUCK AT HOME
Also: Sramucci is followg all the gays! * best gay cult films *
The performanc are staggerg: Al Paco as the ignom Roy Cohn; Jefey Wright is the sharp-wted gay nurse who tends to him; Mary-Louise Parker as a pill-poppg hoewife wed to a closeted Mormon; Emma Thompson as an imper (and sometim sassy) angel; and Meryl Streep four rol, cludg the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.
Yet the film remas one of the first ank big-stud treatments of uncloseted gay and bisexual men, as follows eight iends (and one htler) who’ve gathered a New York Cy apartment to celebrate a birthday party. L like “show me a happy homosexual and I’ll show you a gay rpse” will still make you crge, but the film remas a time psule of a moment when men were nflicted wh how they “got” to be gay.
16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
REPOSTED FOR YOUR SELF-QUARANTINING NEEDS: The mp classics that fed generatns of gay men seem to have been all but fotten lately. After the jump, I've listed the 50 most ptivatg, spirg, and important movi that you absolutely NEED to see before you die. It's Homo 101 on the WOW Report. (You don't need to * best gay cult films *
It works bt as a signpost and a throwback — jt ask the all-gay st who starred the a major Broadway revival, or Ryan Murphy, who’s adaptg the cematic remake as a savage, ic perd piece for a new generatn. It was still nsired a bad reer move for a movie star to play a gay role 2005, and Hollywood’s track rerd was ls than stellar when me to treatg homosexual romanc wh the same pth as heterosexual on (if emed f to tackle such stori at all).
A page-to-screen take on Vo Rso’s semal book regardg LGBTQ reprentatn (and misreprentatn) the movi, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary prents the perfect show-and-tell plement to the late scholar’s work — you n lerally see the evolutn of cematic homosexualy as progrs om punchle to social pundry, sikick-and-stock-villa fodr to queers beg the hero of their own stori. To say that William Friedk’s thriller about a serial killer targetg gay men New York was ntroversial would be puttg dly: Village Voice lumnist Arthur Bell (whose verage of murrs the Wt Village bar scene was a partial spiratn) lled the script “the worst possible nightmare of the most uptight straight”; tablishments that had agreed to operate sudnly whdrew their support; activists dispted filmg at every turn; theaters were picketed; and one massive prott led to a traffic-stoppg s- and arrts. ) But 40 years after Al Paco’s unrver p first stepped to the Mhaft, this lurid exploatn movie has been reclaimed by gay film crics such as Nathan Lee and Melissa Anrson, noticeably for the way prents the late ’70s leather-bar scene wh an almost véré-like sense of observatn.
Mixg herage-drama aspects wh outré postmorn flourish and a heightened sense of homoeroticism, the movie prents the relatnship between the two men as a polil act as much as a romantic one; Edward’s army is refashned as ACT UP-style activists, and the behd-the-scene machatns of Edward’s wife, Isabella (longtime Jarman llaborator Tilda Swton), double as a crique of Bra’s opprsive, historilly strict anti-homosexual laws.