In this exclive excerpt, the thor of Sexplosn! From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange: How a Generatn of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos tells how Midnight Cowboy's party sequence and a gunshot om Valerie Solanas helped make Joe Dallandro a gay in.
Contents:
- HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
- MIDNIGHT COWBOY, ANDY WARHOL, GAY HTLERS, AND ONE LBIAN FEMIST
- QUTN ABOUT MIDNIGHT COWBOY - WAS RATSO RIZZO SUPPOSED TO BE GAY?
- MIDNIGHT COWBOY AND THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT OF 1960S AMERI.
HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
The ntroversial bt-picture wner wh Dt Hoffman and Jon Voight arrived at a ght moment not jt the evolutn of filmmakg, but the stggle for visibily of gay liv. An excerpt of a five new book. * is joe gay in midnight cowboy *
”“Twenty mut to that movie, Jon Voight has a gay sex scene the balny wh a kid who was played by Bob Balaban, and people would get up at that pot and jt walk out of the theater, ” Hoffman told Larry Kg. “He had the fantasi that if he were openly gay on a film set, that if he tried to give the crew an orr, they would turn on him.
” So is wh Midnight Cowboy, one of the classics of the short-lived New Hollywood era and the only X-rated film ever to w an Amy Award for bt long-standg myth is that the Motn Picture Associatn of Ameri’s pdish ratgs board, repelled by Midnight Cowboy’s scen of fellat, sodomy, homosexualy, and sadomasochism, slapped an X on the film before s release May 1969. Fortunately, the tth is a better st of characters clus one of the film dtry’s preement power brokers, who got squeamish over the sex scen and generally rnchy subject matter of the movie; a gay film director who was still the closet even while he sought to make a movie that alt openly and ankly wh sexualy, straight and gay; a polilly nnected former ai to Print Lyndon Johnson who tried to steer the motn picture dtry around the shoals of ntroversy; and a clever psychoanalyst wh a passn for power who provid the phony ratnale that allowed the stud head to do exactly what he wanted to story tak place at a pivotal moment Amerin cultural and polil history, when homosexualy was still wily viewed as a ntag disease and a dire threat to Amerin youth, while filmmakers were stgglg for more eedom to tell adult the storm ro Midnight this is a Hollywood story, let’s start wh the man wh the most money and power. ” Adultery, premaral sex, homosexualy, and abortn for any reason were not allowed, nor was anythg else that might “lower the moral standards of those who see .
Hollywood was even more squeamish when me to homosexualy. Still, jt as other adult them started to seep to mastream Amerin films, homosexualy took s first baby steps out of the closet, but only films that picted gay people as praved, unhappy, and self-stctive. The films should have rried a surgeon general’s warng: Homosexualy, like cigarette smokg, n be hazardo to one’s first Valenti toyed wh the ia of killg the Productn Co outright and replacg wh a simple utnary label: “For Mature Audienc.
MIDNIGHT COWBOY, ANDY WARHOL, GAY HTLERS, AND ONE LBIAN FEMIST
Growg up, I hankered after imag of other gay men, however they were treated, wr film cric Ryan Gilbey * is joe gay in midnight cowboy *
His bs plan turns out to be fatally flawed—the only ctomers who show any tert Joe’s sexual prows are a handful of gay men, while he himself be fair game for a seri of predators who quickly relieve him of his small stash of sh.
One of those on his feet appldg was Arthur soon had send was early sprg 1969, and New York was enterg a new era of revolutnary change the way many creative people thought about and picted homosexualy. Mart Crowley’s The Boys the Band, the first mastream play to foc on gay men, had opened six months earlier to sold-out crowds off-Broadway.
The Stonewall rts, a landmark three-night nontatn between ps and gay and lbian bar ctomers Greenwich Village, were jt around the rner. Still, sodomy even between nsentg adults was a crime 49 stat, and would be four more years before the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn erased homosexualy om s official list of mental disorrs.
QUTN ABOUT MIDNIGHT COWBOY - WAS RATSO RIZZO SUPPOSED TO BE GAY?
Not jt the cy’s lg ele but a large subsectn of s llege-ted middle class was unr the fluence of the psychiatric tablishment, which 1960s Manhattan enjoyed the sacred stat of a secular prithood and which by and large viewed homosexualy as a scen Midnight Cowboy troubled Krim. But like many of his fellow shrks, he clung to the nventnal wisdom that homosexualy was a viant liftyle choice that children need to be protected om at all sts. Homosexuals, he argued, were narcissists who chose to be gay bee they uld only love people exactly like themselv.
)It was Midnight Cowboy’s “homosexual ame of reference, ” Stern would expla a 1971 rad terview, that ed him the most ncern. If you choose the homosexual life, that’s fe.
MIDNIGHT COWBOY AND THE GAY LIBERATN MOVEMENT OF 1960S AMERI.
But before you make that choice, you should unrstand what homosexualy stands for.
”Peerg past the nvoluted language, Stern was basilly sayg that Midnight Cowboy uld e young men to bee gay. ”Farber says he found Stern’s notn that a movie might have the power to change a teenager’s sexual orientatn “bizarrely I thk [Stern] was fely reflectg the views of the time about homosexualy wh the psychiatric profsn.