Pri Month: Gay directors who refed cema

Contents:

• PRI MONTH: GAY DIRECTORS WHO REFED CEMA
• HOW DID TOP GUN GET SO GAY?
• JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’
• WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET
• HUNGER, THE ( 1983) GAY, CATHERE DENVE, DAVID BOWIE, SAN SARANDON, TONY STT, DRAMA, HORROR

PRI MONTH: GAY DIRECTORS WHO REFED CEMA

Where openly gay director Tony Stt filmed sweaty and hard-bodied Tom Cise and Val Kilmer gettg wh kissg distance to smack-talk each-other or to play a round of homoerotic beach volleyball set to Kenny Loggs’ aptly named “Playg wh the Boys”. Was really a “gay” movie? But while we’re on the subject of Tony Stt, let exame how some of the bt films of all time- or some of the most inic- have been directed by gay men.

Emmerich is a huge LGBTQ+ proponent, and is openly gay. His beg gay was an open Hollywood secret, and the director very famoly opposed labels, as you n read a betifully touchg obuary piece penned by Matthew Hays of tled “Joel Schumacher: Reluctant and Conflicted Gay Trailblazer”. Had enough overtly gay overton to suck your blood dry.

Easy Bety Hack Doubl As Primer While Protectg Your SkOffEnglishGif: ParamountYou ParamountTop Gun, my experience, is synonymo wh s perceived gayns.

HOW DID TOP GUN GET SO GAY?

There are untls piec probg jt how homosexual s pictn of a (mostly) homosocial world of naval aviators is.

JERRY BCKHEIMER WEIGHS ON TARANTO’S ‘TOP GUN’ GAY FILM MONOLOGUE: ‘A COMPLIMENT’

Such disurse was observable om the begng, too: Ple Kael’s review of the film that ran the June 16, 1986, issue of The New Yorker, about a month after the blockbter’s release, observed that when McGillis, Cise’s love tert, is offscreen “the movie is a shy homoerotic mercial: the pilots stt around the locker room, towels hangg prerly om their waists. Perhaps the most famo, and certaly most passnate argument for readg Top Gun as an explicly gay text is Quent Taranto’s monologue Rory Kelly’s 1994 film Sleep Wh Me, an apparently improvised (and entirely Tarantoian) b which Top Gun is fed as “a story about a man’s stggle wh his own homosexualy”:This sort of postmorn readg was particularly hip the ’90s (pecially Taranto’s work—see the multi-character “Like a Virg” analysis Rervoir Dogs), although is certaly heterocentric and, while jokgly so, predited on the notn of gay recment (Kilmer’s Ice Man, the film’s facto antagonist, leadg a crew reprentg gay men who are tellg Cise’s Maverick, “Go, go the gay way”).

WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUDS MARRIED OFF GAY STARS TO KEEP THEIR SEXUALY A SECRET

On Nexis, the search rults for “‘Top Gun’ and gay, ” suggt that this disurse only grew the years after the film’s release. In the mentary on the physil releas of Top Gun, director Tony Stt says he found spiratn a book of black and whe photographs by gay photographer Bce Weber. “Everyone was sred bee was famo terms of the gay muny, this book, ” said Stt, who died 2012.

Key to the fun of exvatg the homoeroticism of Top Gun is s prentatn as a bastn of straight culture: It picts aggro ary men giant jets who are tent on blowg everythg up eher wh their ln-dollar toys or penis. ’s script is full of gay nuendo, both overt (“This giv me a hard-on, ” says one of the naval trae durg a class, to which his buddy rponds, “Don’t tease me”) and seemgly unnsc (“I’d like to bt your butt, but I n’t! But if terpretg Top Gun as a gay movie is predited on s tend prentatn as straight, effectively teasg out subtext for sport, the fun is largely missg 2020.

Its gay reputatn (due no small part to the yearslong mors about Cise’s own personal life) is so tablished that reads like a total exaggeratn today, pecially a movie wh so much open-mouthed hetero kissg. Screenshot: ParamountScreenshot: ParamountOne uld argue that Cise’s endlsly dartg tongue is dog a lot of heavy liftg, prottg too much whout sayg a word, but otherwise, so much of the supposedly gay dialogue is dog jt the oppose.

HUNGER, THE ( 1983) GAY, CATHERE DENVE, DAVID BOWIE, SAN SARANDON, TONY STT, DRAMA, HORROR

The adpan votn of gay sex amongst straight-intified men is rigur sh-talkg, a way of affirmg the unassailabily of one’s heterosexualy: “I’m so straight that actg gay will do nothg to alter me. ” It’s an exprsn of power that, however subtly, others gayns and often impli s weakns or unsirabily direct opposn to the man who’s recg .

Top Gun’s efulns 2020 is not as an alternate gay text—we have plenty of actual queer texts by now mastream media ma by actual queer people—but as a straight one that expos how siar homosocial male environments tend to be, regardls of how they’re anized by sexual orientatn. Beg straight looks pretty gay, and vice versa.