Fabulo fascists: that there have been more gay Nazis than gay victims of Nazis on-screen is evince of our culture’s entrenched homophobia
Contents:
- WHY THE GAY SUBPLOTS ‘THE LIGHTHOE’ AND ‘JOJO RABB’ DON’T GO FAR ENOUGH
- JOJO RABB: SAM ROCKWELL REVEALS WHAT ATTRACTED HIM TO PLAY GAY NAZI OFFICER IN THE OSRS NOMATED FILM
WHY THE GAY SUBPLOTS ‘THE LIGHTHOE’ AND ‘JOJO RABB’ DON’T GO FAR ENOUGH
* captain klenzendorf gay *
Both movi e om wildly ventive filmmakers wh styl so specific their films n feel like their own mi-genr, but they share half-baked gay subtexts that fall short of their amb visns. In a story about two men on a serted island, the homoeroticism is practilly baked to the log-le. ” But a foppish Hler is the least of Wai’s troubl — the real homoeroticism to play wh Sam Rockwell’s character.
(Wai don’t even beg to addrs that the Nazis were sendg gay people to ncentratn mps. The movie’s “exclively gay moment” may be lour than the one “The Lighthoe, ” but ’s far more problematic, as Wai plays for edic affect to generate sympathy for his characters — queerns as shorthand for humany. Of urse, neher Wai or Eggers are gay, which is not to say straight filmmakers n’t or shouldn’t e queer elements their work.
JOJO RABB: SAM ROCKWELL REVEALS WHAT ATTRACTED HIM TO PLAY GAY NAZI OFFICER IN THE OSRS NOMATED FILM
In Jojo Rabb (2019), both Capta Klenzendorf and Freddie Fkle’s self-ma uniforms have upsi down pk triangl, which is the patch Nazis would give to distguish homosexuals ncentratn mps.
I’ve never fotten, and will likely never fet, when, durg a lson about the Holot, my 11th-gra history teacher told our class wh matter-of-fact nfince that many men the Nazi party were “homosexual fiends.
” This was years before I would acknowledge my own homosexualy, but I knew well enough that this particular wordg, this claratn of the “gay Nazi, ” was beg ed to intify his aberrance more relatn to his gayns than even his fascism. The phrase me up ostensibly as a way to unrle the somehow noteworthy hypocrisy of the Nazis—that, y, they were markg homosexuals for ath alongsi Jews, Roma, and the disabled, but at the same time, so many of those Nazis were secretly, or as implied, not-so-secretly gay themselv. Intentnally or not, the homophobia of my teacher’s phrasg—homosexual fiends—created a kd of relatnal slidg sle of acceptable atroci, while also, I would e to learn years later, perpetuate a long-held stereotype.