27 Thgs You'll Only Know If You Grew Up Gay In The '90s

Still, by the early 1990s, seemed almost every movie hero or heroe had a lovable gay neighbor–a lovelorn iend Frankie & Johnny, a flower-totg sissy The Prce of Tis.

But not until 1993 did a major stud, TriStar, release a film hgg on gay characters — Philalphia, which was cricized wh the gay muny for playg safe and never even givg Hanks and his lover Anton Banras an on-screen kiss.

) Even many recent pictns of gay characters — the psyt-strokg upstairs neighbor 1992's Sgle Whe Female, for stance — seem posively Cro-Magnon today, so rapidly are perceptns evolvg. Or so said gay groups earlier this year when the actor-turned-director (who has received flak for publicly exprsg his disda for homosexuals the past) picted Braveheart's Prce Edward as a rouged-up, mcg queen (a pictn, should be noted, that might have a basis historil fact). It's drawg long l s limed release, and 's st wh an imprsive lot of stars playg a balanced array of gay characters, om Patrick Stewart as a likable (and stereotypilly flamboyant) terr rator to Steven Weber (Wgs' womanizg Brian) as a stralaced young gay Manhattane who swears off sex for fear of AIDS.

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY: 10 HILAR GAY BOOK COVERS OM THE ’90S

And as g out beme more mon, there was a ccial shift the perceptn of those veterate culture nsumers, the baby boomers: Acrdg to an Entertament Weekly/Gallup poll, 71% of 30- to 49-year-olds say they unt a gay person among their relativ, workers, or iends. " And jt as 's impossible to fe what is funny (or even polilly rrect) when rporatg a gay reference to a punchle, has bee impossible to fe pop material as gay or straight. For straight dienc are not only embracg gay characters, they're also lghg at the gay sensibily, which is far ls easy to spot than, say, a drag queen.

Both Frasier (about a straight man who tak his retired father) and Roseanne (about a uple tryg hard to raise a fay while balancg on the poverty le) are among the Nielsen fay edi wh substantial crossover appeal to gay dienc — and not jt bee they have rporated gay characters. " The gay sensibily was born om the plight of the disenanchised — gay people are aware, as much as anyone, that life acrdg to The Brady Bunch exists nowhere outsi a Hollywood soundstage.

Last sprg's send-up The Brady Bunch Movie ( which a gay teen had a csh on an obliv Marcia) was a triumph of the new mp, a shy subversn of mastream Amerina that proved a h wh mastream Amerins.

CAN GAY STARS SHE?

Gay dienc have always had a soft spot for certa performers — Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Jam Dean — but the attractn was an -joke among the stars' gay fans, who turned the cur hero and hero to almost mythic begs based on their mascule/feme personas or operatilly tragic liv.

But the current crop of heterosexual performers htg big wh gay dienc may not spawn the next generatn of dragsters; if they've got dual appeal, they get the joke and 's fe wh them. Based on the rults of Entertament Weekly's survey of attus toward gay characters and openly gay performers, one thg is clear: The majory of Amerins are not nmng this revolutn — most don't even thk about at all. " And even outspoken gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile, an early proponent of outg public figur — and long a voice favor of Kle's homoerotic imagery — tends toward agreement.

GAY 90S

The Hollywood axm that there are no good rol for women, for example, extends to the relatively small number of lbian films the gay niche-cema market, and lbian TV rol are also few number.

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