Which gay movi serve a bigger dience? We asked our favore directors, entertaers, and artists to help pile a h list.
Contents:
- 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
- 15 MOVI KNOWN FOR THEIR GAY NTEXT (AND IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, NOW YOU DO)
- HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC
- BARBIE SAID “GAY RIGHTS!” LONG BEFORE MARGOT ROBBIE OR GRETA GERWIG SHOWED UP
16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
Yterday at Salon, Caleb Cra, thor of the highly praised novel Necsary Errors, talked a b about beg a gay novelist and the effects non-heterosexual subject matter has on the chanc for a novel’s publitn. In rponse to a qutn… * classic movies with gay undertones *
—Emma SpecterFire Island (2022) Matt Rogers, Zane Phillips, Tomas Matos, Joel Kim Booster, Torian Miller, and Bowen Yang Fire Courty Everett CollectnThis (very loose) adaptatn of Jane Aten’s Pri and Prejudice, om director Andrew Ahn and wrer and star Joel Kim Booster, follows a group of gay iends who take their yearly summer trip to inic queer vatn statn Fire Island, only to fd that their days the sun may be numbered. Chartg the forbidn romance between a peasant girl servg as a maid to a wealthy heirs through a seri of ntradictory, Rashomon-style perspectiv, The Handmain is a meticuloly librated erotic thriller for the ag. Directed by Barry Jenks and adapted om a play by Tarell Alv McCraney, Moonlight serv as a powerful g-of-age story across three chapters the life of a gay Black man growg up an impoverished rner of Miami.
Is the Warmt Colour (2013)Adèle Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux Blue Is The Warmt Courty Everett CollectnFirst premierg to a divisive cril rponse at the Cann Film Ftival 2013—both for s graphic pictns of gay sex, and the allegatns of mistreatment by director Abllatif Kechiche on set—Blue Is the Warmt Colour still serv as a powerful ttament to the tumultuo love between s two ma characters, Emma and Adèle, as they drift an out of each other’s liv over the urse of many years. Weekend (2011)Tom Cullen and Chris New Courty Everett CollectnAndrew Haigh’s sensual, tenr, utterly charmg portra of two young Brish men (Tom Cullen and Chris New) meetg and fallg love over the urse of 48 hours is ank s pictn of sexualy as well as emotn, touchg on the specifici of gay life today as well as the universal aspects of an electric and immediate nnectn.
15 MOVI KNOWN FOR THEIR GAY NTEXT (AND IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, NOW YOU DO)
Dear lennials, the generatn born durg the '80s, the are the gay-themed movi — some wonrful, some wonrfully terrible — worth your time. * classic movies with gay undertones *
Adapted for the screen by Mike Nichols, Tony Khner’s sprawlg “gay fantasia”—a Pulzer, Tony, and Drama Dk-wng phenom centered on the AIDS epimic 1980s New York—beme a vasatgly good miseri, starrg Al Paco, Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Wilson, Jefey Wright, and a brilliant, shape-shiftg Meryl Streep.
Starrg Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the wild-livg Brish mician Brian Sla, loosely based on David Bowie, and Ewan McGregor as his Amerin unterpart Curt Wild, loosely based on Iggy Pop, the story trails Arthur (Christian Bale), a gay journalist attemptg to track down the now-reclive Sla for a magaze story, wh the heady days of his life at the height of global fame revised through flashbacks. When Bowie himself was asked about this apparent tribute to his life and legacy, he said, “When I saw the film I thought the bt thg about was the gay scen. Photo: Courty Everett CollectnAnother director whose non featur a number of queer masterpiec, Derek Jarman’s radil adaptatn of Christopher Marlowe’s history play Edward II saw the director apply his signature time-hoppg spir to draw parallels between the life of the ntroversial medieval kg and the vibrant spir of gay life ’90s London.
HOW TOP GUN BEME A GAY CLASSIC
* classic movies with gay undertones *
(The film featur both members of a ntemporary gay rights anizatn as Edward’s army, and a meo by Annie Lennox sgg a Cole Porter song to the film’s central lovers. It se a gay doctor, Daniel (Peter Fch), and a divorcee, Alex (Glenda Jackson), an open relatnship wh the same handsome young artist, Bob Elk (Murray Head), whom both are aaid of losg. Yterday at Salon, Caleb Cra, thor of the highly praised novel Necsary Errors, talked a b about beg a gay novelist and the effects non-heterosexual subject matter has on the chanc for a novel’s publitn.
In rponse to a qutn about needg a “gay non” of lerature, Cra said, “The straight non is very gay… I don’t read somebody bee they’re a gay wrer. ” It’s te that seems silly and rctive to sist on settg gay wrers apart om their straight hort (although dog so n help raise awarens that they do, fact, exist), pecially sce there’s enough queer subtext popular lerature already. Hton’s classic about rough-and-tumble teenage lquents 1960s Tulsa, and while the book is equently banned nsirg all the vlence, bad language, and unrage smokg and drkg, the homoerotic unrton of those boys’ bromanc have fely evad plenty of rears.
BARBIE SAID “GAY RIGHTS!” LONG BEFORE MARGOT ROBBIE OR GRETA GERWIG SHOWED UP
Strangers on a Tra by Patricia HighsmhPatricia Highsmh was no stranger to homosexual overton — her antihero Tom Ripley was, sentially, a gay monster, and she even dipped her toe to the lbian bildungsroman genre — but her thriller Strangers on a Tra was a b more subtle s pictn of one man’s murro obssn wh another. Danvers, who is so obssed wh her former employer, the tular Rebec Wter, that one n’t help but read a b to the way she gently strok her perfectly kept nightcloth across her Club by Chuck PalahniAs this say pots out, ’s hard to claim that Fight Club has a gay subtext, as there is nothg particularly subtle about s homoeroticism. The symbolism of Tyler splicg scen om hardre porn is a pretty good metaphor for Chuck Palahni trickg the macho lerary dience to lovg a pretty queer of Grass by Walt WhmanNoted homosexual Walt Whman clud several turns of phrase his llectn of poetry voted to the love of the male form, and l like, “O how shall I warble myself for the ad one there I loved?
” om “When Lilacs Last the Dooryard Bloom’d” — his o to the Civil War’s ad, particularly Abraham Lln — is jt the tip of the fey Budd by Herman Melville Let’s jt take a look at this passage om Melville’s novella, via Dana Sliva’s paper “Explorg Homoeroticism Herman Melville’s Novella Billy Budd, Sailor, ” which explas all:Claggart, the master-at-arms, official rattan hand, happened to be passg along…Steppg over [the soup], he was proceedg on his way whout ment, sce the matter was nothg to take notice of unr the circumstanc, when he happened to observe who was that had done the spillg…Psg, he was about to ejaculate somethg hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and potg down to the streamg soup, playfully tapped him om behd wh his rattan, sayg a low mil voice peculiar to him at tim, ‘Handsomely done, my lad! LawrenceSure, the women of the tle — the unfortunately named Ursula and Gudn Brangwen — are ed love wh the typilly broodg Englishmen, but one nnot possibly ny the homosexual overton the nu wrtlg which Rupert Birk and Gerald Crich gleefully take Great Gatsby by F. In addn to stg a bunch of mcular men and makg them wear very ltle, there are many other homoerotic allns, such as lots of thstg and plungg.
When asked if the film was about a gay man’s stggle, the screenwrer said that he thought stgglg wh your own sexualy would be a terrifyg experience, so he worked to the script as subtext. When a Facebook er posted a ment about how X-Men movi weren’t about homosexualy, one of the ntributg screenwrers, Zack Stentz, rpond that all the movi have gay them.