TEN YEARS after the massive succs of Brokeback Mounta, Hollywood films centerg on gay characters and them have bee unremarkable. This fall, the release of the gay dramas Stonewall, Freeheld, The Danish Girl, and Carol, all wh roughly two months of ...
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GAY HOLLYWOOD & ‘DARK CHOLATE BARS’
* orson wells gay *
TEN YEARS after the massive succs of Brokeback Mounta, Hollywood films centerg on gay characters and them have bee unremarkable. This fall, the release of the gay dramas Stonewall, Freeheld, The Danish Girl, and Carol, all wh roughly two months of each other, has aroed barely any ment.
Roughly a quarter century ago, films uned unr the loose banner of the New Queer Cema sought, like today's gay dramas, to portray queer inti and sexuali that had been rigoroly exclud by Hollywood throughout s history. G Van Sant’s first feature, the 16 mm Mala Noche, opened to ftival acclaim 1985, and afterward he immediately began pchg, unsuccsfully, his next project about a gay, narleptic street htler Portland.
Prervatnists are workg to rtore Richard Oswald’s 1919 German film, “Different From the Others,” the earlit known full-length feature to showse gay characters. * orson wells gay *
It’s not difficult to see the quali that Van Sant’s queer sensibily may have found spirg: Well parts om Shakpeare by centerg Falstaff’s tavern rather than Bolgbroke’s urt, giddily portrayg the homosocial affectn stas and the plitns engenred when the “young, wanton and effemate” Hal prepar to assume the throne, disavowg Falstaff and his associat orr to retablish social rpectabily. (Fanced part by an NEA grant, the film’s breakout succs aroed the righteo passns of nservative culture warrrs who angrily nounced the film as publicly fund “homosexual pornography.
The film also had the dacy to claim that homophobia, not homosexualy, was a surge of society.
The followg year, censors banned “Different From the Others” throughout Germany, claimg that the film uld endanger public safety or turn imprsnable youths gay.