Why In & Out Remas a Good-Hearted Gay Film

Contents:

• 25 YEARS LATER, 'IN & OUT' REMAS A GOOD-HEARTED GAY FILM AHEAD OF ITS TIME
• AM I GAY?
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

25 YEARS LATER, 'IN & OUT' REMAS A GOOD-HEARTED GAY FILM AHEAD OF ITS TIME

“Well, you’re about as gay as Tom Selleck In & Out! The implitn here, of urse, is that Will and Grace are no more gay or Jewish than actors playg rol wh those intifiers, who are not those thgs real life. It’s a plat still lodged agast mastream queer films today—why do Hollywood still sist on nsirg straight actors for gay rol when there is an endls list of eligible queer actors?

Box office succs, no doubt, but the mentaly that an creasg number of queer moviegoers tend to hold where they won’t support films starrg straight actors as gay characters n also cloud our visn of enjoyg gay films that hold up spe their flaws. Released 25 years ago this week, In & Out stars Kev Kle as Howard Bracken, a high school English teacher Greenleaf, Indiana who is outed as gay by a former stunt, Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), durg his acceptance speech for the Amy Award for Bt Actor.

The film’s edic premise was based on Tom Hanks’ real-life Osrs acceptance speech 1994, where he won for playg a gay man wh AIDS Philalphia. Referrg his speech to a former teacher and classmate as “two of the ft gay Amerins, two wonrful men that I had the good fortune to be associated wh, ” In & Out imag a fictnalized acunt om the perspective of one of those men, who didn’t believe himself to be gay until that very moment.

AM I GAY?

I watched In & Out for the first time about a month ago and would be lyg if I said I didn’t watch wh bated breath for all the ways this gay edy film that was so obvly ma for straight dienc didn't age well. The fight for gay rights was an entirely different place, pecially Hollywood, where the thought of stg gay actors gay rol was surely on no one’s radar. I was half-expectg 92 mut of misfired jok that might’ve read as progrsive 1997 but homophobic 2022.

Whether ’s the fact that the film was perhaps mentg however subtly on Hollywood’s tenncy to shower straight actors wh aclas for gay rol (Cameron sr his Osr for playg a gay soldier what looks like a precursor to Brokeback Mounta) or Joan Cack’s brilliant performance as Howard’s fiancée who promptly has a breakdown when he announc he’s gay at the altar (“Fuck Barbra Streisand! ”), In & Out don’t so much make a mockery of gay people but allows them to be their te, unabashed selv, even if those selv happen to le up wh “tired” gay stereotyp. Gay Stereotyp Are Only Ma Tired By Straight People.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

Although do rporate homophobia when Howard’s stunts beg potg out his effemate mannerisms or when he ends up beg fired over his newfound sexualy, the film remds that those gay stereotyp only beme “tired” once straight people started g them agast . But has never told that gay people n have and be those same thgs and still be worthwhile.

In & Out flips that narrative by tellg the dience that gays are, for lack of a better term, here and queer and they better get ed to .

It would have been so easy to have Howard’s queerns be the punchle of every joke like most gay reprentatn up until this pot, but stead, the film mak society the punchle for not nsirg that there is more than one way to be a man.