In a sea of nned cktails, Gay Water wants to stand out.
Contents:
- THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
- GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
- 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
- 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
* western gay films *
(Image cred: Alamy)The actor Sam Elltt's ntroversial recent ments cricised The Power of the Dog's 'allns to homosexualy', but queer readgs of wterns stretch back s, and Zachariah is a prime example, wr Sean the ialistic 1960s gave way to the cynil 1970s, US cema began servg up creasgly nihilistic and psychologilly plex stori, all wh sour endgs to match.
Zachariah ptur the overlap between anti-Vietnam War, rock mic, sexual liberatn, femism, the emergence of gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism – they're all alcg – Gary NeedhamZachariah's screenplay was rewrten many tim.
In all s Firign-fuelled youth-culture provotn, Needham tells BBC Culture, the film "ptur the overlap between anti-Vietnam War, rock mic, sexual liberatn, femism, the emergence of gay rights, civil rights, environmentalism – they're all alcg" wtern was a predomant mo through which mascule performance was tght, pecially to young whe Amerin menThe boys' embrace at the end of Zachariah, then, is an earnt rebuttal of the toxic, vlent mascule mor on which the wtern genre was built.
GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
Celebrate the bt gay movi wh our list of the 50 most sential LGBTQ+ films ever ma * western gay films *
Wh Don Johnson gracg s ver, the March 1971 edn of The Advote, the US's olst LGBT publitn, featured a review wh the headle "Are they gay? On the homosexual implitns of the iendship, he wrote, "I'm aaid that's all is – iendship, " addg that the film's script leads to the brk of homosexualy only to back away before be explic.
" Gay people will be posive that the boys were lovers, and the straights will be left wh only spicns. The New York Tim' Roger Greenspun looked closer (too close, perhaps), ncludg that the film "propagandised homosexual love". In his book Idol Worship: A Shamels Celebratn of Male Bety the Movi (2003), Michael Fergon refers to Johnson at this stage of his reer as "an stant h wh gay dienc", and "sold as chicken feed and pecked at wh light".
'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
Dear lennials, the generatn born durg the '80s, the are the gay-themed movi — some wonrful, some wonrfully terrible — worth your time. * western gay films *
Nu stills om his works were regularly prted gay magaz, and Johnson was, says Fergon, "extremely gay-iendly and gay-thankful". When Zach first approach Matthew, he’s shirtls and sweaty, wearg ltle but a blacksmh's smock, Fergon wrote: "the homoerotic possibili of this exchange [might] turn to the first gay wtern sce Andy Warhol's Lonome Cowboys (1969)".
16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
Red River (1948), a film laced wh nuendo which John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, a closeted gay man, admire each other's firearms, was labelled a queer touchstone – alongsi Calamy Jane (1953) and Johnny Guar (1954), which also upend genr rol – Vo Rso's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexualy the Movi, and the documentary of the same name (1995). Andy Warhol's Horse (1965) and Lonome Cowboys (1969) make clear the nnectns between stume, Amerin male inty and homosexualy.
"The wboy has always had a lot of currency gay eroti and eventual pornography, " says Needham, who pots also to gay-liberatn films such as Song of the Loon (1970), and gay porn featur such as The Savag (1971), as exampl. Zachariah picts men, even if they're not terpreted as gay, as unbound by the mascule paranoia that surrounds touch, feelgs and emotnsIn 1969, Midnight Cowboy would repackage the them and athetics to ask qutns about Ameri's mols of masculy.
Needham wr his say Hollywood Tra: Midnight Cowboy and Unrground Cema, the film "'outs' post-war gay culture's cultural productn and erotic fascatn wh wboys". That, says Needham, might be part of Zachariah's appeal to gay dienc: bee picts men, even if they're not terpreted as gay, as unbound by the mascule paranoia that surrounds touch, feelgs and emotns. There was clearly a precent for gay wboys by 1971, even if was mostly unknown to Zachariah's makers.