Netflix’s first gay Christmas movie is here! Learn about the surprisg history of queer holiday films here.
Contents:
- THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
- BARBIE SAID “GAY RIGHTS!” LONG BEFORE MARGOT ROBBIE OR GRETA GERWIG SHOWED UP
THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
If “Barbie” tells anythg, ’s that a movie don’t have to be gay to be, well, gay.
So what mak a movie gay if isn’t explicly? Cast a few top-shelf gay ins there — your Bette Middlers, your Joan Crawfords, your Faye Dunaways playg Joan Crawford — and pecially have them reparteeg bchy l tearg each other to piec, and have an athetic that’s outre and unironilly mp, and you’ve got the wng-formula starter-pack for somethg licly fabulo and queer, even if not by tentnal sign. But settg a precent for movi now nonized by gay culture that don’t technilly have any (non-d, anyway) gay characters were some of Hollywood’s most all-time legendary actrs: Bette Davis “All About Eve” ma “’s gog to be a bumpy ri” an idmatic quip, while Elizabeth Taylor then ma Bette Davis’ “what a dump” even more inic aga the openg le of “Who’s Aaid of Virgia Woolf, ” livered while gnawg down on a chicken wg.
BARBIE SAID “GAY RIGHTS!” LONG BEFORE MARGOT ROBBIE OR GRETA GERWIG SHOWED UP
Ed Bianchi’s 1981 “The Fan, ” meanwhile, livered perhaps the greatt gift to gay film fans of a certa era stg Lren Ball as an agg actrs stgglg to hold onto her legacy while beg stalked by, what else but, a psychotic gay fan.
Films like “9 to 5” and “Steel Magnolias” keep ptivatg bee their sts are all top-to-toe, inic-among-the-gays women who n duce tears and lghs and shout unfettably quotable l the same scene.
There’s also, of urse, the trend many of the movi of men beg huiated and based — somethg the gay mal the dience love to partake — leavg our inic women wh all the chips the end and whom we n leave the theater rootg for. Below, IndieWire rounds up some of the bt cidly non-gay films that are actually gay after all — and gayer than many ntemporary movi proclaimg themselv as such actually are. Why ’s gay: Bette Davis, we (the queer muny) love you.