$100m and a sequel the works: why has M3gan bee such a h (and a gay in)? | Film | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY VLENCE
• EROTIC GAY THRILLER ‘IN BED’ DEBUTS TRAILER AHEAD OF RELEASE ON HOME TURF ISRAEL (EXCLUSIVE)
• 944 GAY VLENCE STOCK VIOS, 4K FOOTAGE, & VIO CLIPS
• 944 VLENCE GAY STOCK VIOS, 4K FOOTAGE, & VIO CLIPS
• INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR
• « ROOM 303 » : UN TERRIFIANT ET VLENT URT-MéTRAGE GAY
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• THIS POST-WAR PRISON DRAMA ISN’T A “GAY MOVIE”, IT’S A LOVE STORY
• 27 YEARS AGO, THE VLENCE-DRENCHED FILM 'CISG' SPARKED OUTRAGE THE GAY MUNY. HOW WILL THE MOVIE, SET FOR DVD RELEASE, PLAY TO TODAY'S DIENC?
• THE SERIAL KILLER WHO PREYED UPON GAY NEW YORKERS
• $100M AND A SEQUEL THE WORKS: WHY HAS M3GAN BEE SUCH A H (AND A GAY IN)?
• HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

GAY VLENCE

Culled om a longlist of hundreds, movi nsired for the list promently feature gay, lbian, trans, or queer characters; ncern self centrally wh LGBTQ+ them; prent s LGBTQ+ characters a fair and realistic light; and/or be seen as a touchpot the evolutn of queer cema.

EROTIC GAY THRILLER ‘IN BED’ DEBUTS TRAILER AHEAD OF RELEASE ON HOME TURF ISRAEL (EXCLUSIVE)

And we regnize that some of the films the list will re-igne healthy bat that have been fixtur of discsn around LGBTQ+ films — straight actors playg gay characters, cis actors playg trans characters, and the historil domance of whe male perspectiv. For our most recent update to the list, we’ve add mastream edi Fire Island and Bros, thriller Knock at the Cab (featurg two pairs of hbands whose vatn is terpted by the potential apolypse), Disney feature Strange World (wh the stud’s first openly gay lead character), Blue Jean (a Brish drama set durg the Thatcher premiership), the extremely well-reviewed Girl Picture), France’s magil realist The Five Devils, and Cann 2023 buts Monster and Strange Way of Life.

Photo cred: Foc Featur“Nocturnal Animals” (Foc) It’s surprisg that a film directed by a gay in (the notorly provotive signer Tom Ford) would get dged by GLAAD — but the film’s two gay characters (one played by Michael Sheen, one only referenced the history of characters played by Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal) did not pass mter. Y, Tman Capote was gay, y he is portrayed as such, y shows his partner, BUT the primary foc of the film was Capote's alholism and his wrg of In Cold Blood (and that is FINE, aga, was an EXCELLENT film, jt not a LGBT film my opn). Terrific st wh excellent chemistry and some genuely funny moments, Fourth Man Out is a rehg gay edy that I thk many would enjoy (even the "manlit" men of this world), thanks to the rehg and likable performance of Evan Todd as the likable, awkward, r-mechanic Adam and his goofy well-meang straight "bros.

Not nearly as good or funny as Borat, but the film do a good job revealg the nonsense that is homophobia (Brüno viss a gay-to-straight nverter, a group of redneck hunters, and a martial arts expert who shows him how to "fend himself agast the gays"). It is important to note that the time between Rso’s first and later revised edns, the AIDS crisis had taken hold, and wh that negative imag particularly of gay men gaed renewed currency, which did not nvce Rso of Hollywood’s progrsive polics wh regards to queerns but rather only renfirmed his ial outrage, as he stat at the very end of his study: “The history of the portrayal of lbians and gay men mastream cema is polilly fensible and athetilly revoltg. 2Twenty years after Rso’s landmark study on the homophobic history of Hollywood, Joe Wlodarz an say, aptly tled for the purpose of my paper “Rape Fantasi: Hollywood and Homophobia, ” affirms Rso’s earlier claim that there is no arth queer imag Hollywood cema as such, and siar to the many exampl showsed by Rso, Wlodarz also highlights that what is missg the stanc are sex-posive filmic pictns.

944 GAY VLENCE STOCK VIOS, 4K FOOTAGE, & VIO CLIPS

Referrg to a group of films that pict male rape and which he refers to as the “children of Deliverance”—John Boorman’s 1972 film famo for one of the most explic on-screen pictns of a man beg anally raped1—Wlodarz is trigued how “male rape be symbolilly d as homosexualy” (68). Furthermore, we also need to look at films which no longer homophobilly rrelate queerns, sexualy, and vlence whout crilly asssg this nflatn and offerg alternative viewpots, but which self-reflexively engage both the history of the stereotypil cematic otherg of queerns and ongog revaluatns of queer liv, cludg experienc of abe, shamg, and other forms of vlence sexualized ntexts.

7Lookg back, Benshoff and Griff agree that “[d]pe the era’s facile bat over whether or not Cisg was a posive or negative velopment the reprentatn of gay men, has proved to be an endurg queer film that explor the borrs (however murkily or irrponsibly) between male homosexual sire, ‘straight’ homosocial bondg, and vlence” (183). This scenar has led many crics to lament the genre’s logic, which lls for searchg and fdg the perpetrator wh this queer unrworld a manner that Kathryn Montgomery has outled more generally as the “fundamental goal of garnerg the largt possible dience [necsatg that] the story foc upon the heterosexual male lead character and his reactns to the gay characters rather than upon the homosexual characters themselv” (56).

944 VLENCE GAY STOCK VIOS, 4K FOOTAGE, & VIO CLIPS

And yet, while Steve’s admtance that “what I’m dog is affectg me” is a realizatn of this claim, also pots to a more plex readg than that sce ntrary to Montgomery’s further claim that such a film mt “avoid any overt display of affectn which might be offensive to certa segments of the dience” (56), Steve’s immersn to the gay scene fact clus an emotnal attachment to his gay neighbor as well as repeated sexual enunters wh men gay bars. 9Cisg may rema a problematic film (not only) om a queer perspective, but the film certaly addrs a still rampant taboo cematic reprentatns as well as amic rearch on such films: sexual vlence agast mal—homo- and heterosexual.

In ristg to produce purely posive imag of queer and mastream realist filmic nventns, Kal aims at renstctg alternative histori of queer inty, both by showg homoerotic imag—and th for the first time explicly pictg the sexual relatnship of Leopold and Loeb—and by highlightg—pecially through an exaggerated non-realist visual manner—the unjtifiably ostracizg mechanisms of the legal, medil, sexual, and ethnic disurs of mastream society. And although the film is highly self-reflexive and nstantly pots to s own artificialy, forcg the dience to reevaluate imag of (closeted) queer inty that stem om films such as Rope and Compulsn, Kal’s film has also been cricized for neglectg to ll to qutn the naturalizatn of malens (whether straight or gay) and s relatn to ializg and sexualizg vlence: “In fact, this queer cema has more mon wh the current crop of male vlence films … than do wh any femist cema. While the arth of rearch on the reprentatns of sexualized vlence agast gays and lbians film has fally given way to an creasg scholarly attentn, there is still ls rearch on cematic transgenr characters beg victims of rape, and clearly Boys Don’t Cry serv “as an illtratn of the extreme vlence experienced by some transgenr people” (Davi and Hudson 239).

INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR

In sglg out Lana—not Brandon—as the viewers’ object of possibly queer intifitn as Aaron’s ments support, do the film then only appear to disavow queerns, or do succumb to the endurg homophobic powers of mastream culture?

« ROOM 303 » : UN TERRIFIANT ET VLENT URT-MéTRAGE GAY

Aaron opts for a posive solutn argug that wh mastream dienc a “new queer spectator” has emerged who is willg to spend the ual fensive mechanisms: “New Queer Cema’s impact upon mastream cema n be measured not only terms of the flux of lbian and gay directors, or of ‘fiant’ characters or queer them, but terms of the dience’s nsensual flirtatn wh genr and sexual ambiguy wh some of the most popular texts” (“The New Queer Spectator” 187). The genred and sexual ambiguy th not only relat to Brandon, but also to Tom and John, whose pubcent looks suggt men--the-makg and whose timate homosocialy—their toxited iastic embrac after rapg Brandon, for example—give e for irratn (cf. In this sense, Boys Don’t Cry is a paradigmatic example for a crossover succs of pennt/queer cema, and while heterocentric and potentially homophobic imperativ still reign mastream cema, wh films such as Boys Don’t Cry there has e forth a broar spectm of queer moments ristg tegoril unambiguons of genr and sex and th fyg a clear-cut reprentatn of the dynamics of sexualized vlence.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

Acrdgly, this scene n be lked to “down low” films such as Cover (Bill De, 2007) featurg “the paradigmatic ‘down low’ (DL) man” (Strongman 17), who typilly is a lower-class black man who has sex wh other (black or whe) men whout nsirg himself gay and who is marked by dangero hypersexualy and traracial homophobia. Whereas films such as Another Gay Movie (Todd Stephens, 2006) celebrate this screamft the munal effort of a group of young gays tryg to get flowered which clus many scen of playful over-the-top vlence but never a way that do jtice to the queer characters, The Skny this humor turns sour when nonted wh a scene that is nowhere near funny but a vic, unplayful, and unjtifiable stance of sexual asslt, even though or perhaps precisely bee is drawn wh the nventns of porn athetics. The black queer ensemble st, the refal of monogamo uplg, and above all the cln of a very unromantic and un-il plot twist wh Sebastian’s rape all help to create an alternative to such formulaic films, where “the one who has really never been kissed, at least Hollywood romantic edi, is the queer/gay subject, pecially the queer/gay subject of lor” (Modlmog 163).

The Skny is a rare stance of a progrsive queer black cema that productively problematiz the triple margalizatn of black queer men “as black mal, as gay mal, and as trmatized mal who may have ternalized the wanton vlatns of civil rights” (Lemelle 147) and acrdgly fi stereotyp that eher femize or hypersexualize black queer men. Bis films that clu scen of homophobic queer-bashg and rape wh trmatic effects for s victims such as Amnia: The Jam Brighton Enigma (Denis Langois, 2005) or a more playfully surrealist mo Strapped (Joseph Graham, 2010), porn films are a major venue to palize on this nvergence.

In ntrast, gay male porn has bee an important ponent of assertg one’s sexual inty as a gay man: “Bee if you thk the problem facg you is that your masculy is doubt bee you’re queer, then the promise of gay male pornography looks like fivens and remptn” (Stoltenberg 72). Kg Cobra (Jt Kelly, 2016), for stance, is a film about the porn dtry, based on the actual early reer of gay porn star Sean Lockhart aka Brent Corrigan (played by Garrett Clayton), and picts porn producers as nrotic, abive, and exploative. Frisk, his first feature film, tapulted Verow to the ele of the New Queer Cema while at the same time, as the director himself rells, givg e to outrage and disgrace remiscent of reactns to Friedk’s Cisg 15 years earlier: “A rt broke out at our screeng durg the San Francis Lbian & Gay Film Ftival, the edor of The Advote magaze said I should be shot, the wrer of the book nounced the film and The New York Tim clared the film the ‘ne pl ultra of queerre.

THIS POST-WAR PRISON DRAMA ISN’T A “GAY MOVIE”, IT’S A LOVE STORY

Rist closure and embrace ambiguy” to unter the “shy happy films, a New Gay-sploatn Cema” (394) that simply pleas the dience, a jab at those queer films that have lost the cuttg edge of the origal New Queer Cema polics and athetics. Films such as The Livg End (1992), Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generatn (1995), and Nowhere (1997) placed him right the midst of that wave of films appearg around 1990, which were shockg their phoric scen of vlence and the radil lack of offerg any mediatn for a non-gay dience. ”He advised an “appropriate fancial award” should be ma to veterans affected by the pre-2000 ban on homosexualy the armed forc, an pennt review has Etherton’s report remend: “An appropriate fancial award should be ma to affected veterans notwhstandg the expiry of ligatn time lims.

27 YEARS AGO, THE VLENCE-DRENCHED FILM 'CISG' SPARKED OUTRAGE THE GAY MUNY. HOW WILL THE MOVIE, SET FOR DVD RELEASE, PLAY TO TODAY'S DIENC?

Vcent, anal sex is punishable by up to 10 years prison, while “gross cency” wh another person of the same sex is punishable by up to five years, acrdg to lonial-era laws that are mon the socially nservative Caribbean rarely voked, the rights group and a lol activist said the laws help legimize hostily and abe agast gay people. ”Human Rights Watch terviewed more than 20 members of the island’s LGBTQ muny who shared their stori but were not intified to protect them, notg that lol police are often openly discrimatory toward gay people who seek help.

Several reported that their fai are homophobic and physilly and verbally abed them, g them to bee homels and promptg some to nsir also stggle to fd jobs amid a high unemployment rate and said they face discrimatn, cludg a 19-year-old gay man who said he has rorted to beggg: “Sometim I am so hungry. ” is the retort that preces a btal physil attack on a gay uple near the start of It Chapter film ntu the adventur of Stephen Kg’s “Loser” outsts, who battle the killer alien clown, Pennywise, and al wh the hate-filled attus of their townsfolk Meg Ryan quip om Adrian Mellon, the gay man who is beaten by homophob before beg murred by Pennywise. But, tth, this is lopsid: the story ntas hate speech aimed at (legally-protected) disabily through to (as-yet unprotected) fatphobia, but the BBFC’s guidance foc only on homophobia: “A young man is subjected to homophobic abe (‘faggot’) before beg serly beaten” and “a young boy beg verbally abed a siar manner.

”One of the ratgs body’s ma ncerns is preventg pyt behavur: the BBFC not that, to get a 15 ratg, “the work as a whole mt not endorse discrimatory language or behavur, although there may be racist, homophobic or other discrimatory them and language”. While the film was not overtly gay -- censorship would have prevented that at the time -- the lbian unrton are hard to 's Prison MassacreThis 1983 horror film follows Emanuelle, a reporter sent to prison on tmped-up charg. This Post-war Prison Drama Isn’t a “Gay Movie”, It’s a Love Story | AnOtherGreat Freedom, 2022(Film still)Great Freedom is “about longg for someone, about a society that don’t allow this to be, and the nsequenc that one has to take, ” says lead actor Franz RogowskiMarch 11, 2022.

THE SERIAL KILLER WHO PREYED UPON GAY NEW YORKERS

The feature is ambiguoly tled – though Meise offers one terpretatn, namg the gay bar Hans viss the film’s fal act, ‘Great Freedom’ – and for Rogowski that offered the space to sctise his on-set environment, a former prison near Magburg. And so, when Uned Artists produced William Friedk's vivid tale of murr n amok New York's gay leather scene, and gay protters tried to dispt the productn and block the film's release, their anger wasn't triggered by Friedk's alleged exploatn alone, but by s of Hollywood stereotyp.

First Amendment advot, both gay and straight, warned agast the urge to censor: "If the efforts to obstct 'Cisg' succeed, " wrote gay novelist John Rechy, "might that not set the stage for anti-homosexual groups to squash pro-gay films?

It was another two years before The Chronicle reported on "a pnmonia that strik gay mal" (June 6, 1981) and the Washgton Post scribed a "medil mystery that appears to be on the sle of the toxic shock syndrome or Legnnaire's disease" (Aug. Standard crime thriller terrory, you might thk, but for the fact that Angel and Nene are gay lovers known as the ‘tws” and Cuervo brgs his own sexual tensy along wh his hottie girliend Vivi, and BTW all of this is based on a te story.

$100M AND A SEQUEL THE WORKS: WHY HAS M3GAN BEE SUCH A H (AND A GAY IN)?

However, the pellg hook of Anthony Caronna and Howard Gertler’s four-part HBO vtigatn (July 9) is that ’s both a whodun and a soclogil crique of the era and environment which s tale took place: early 1990s New York Cy, whose climate of homophobia facilated s villa’s homicis. Otherwise, however, there was ltle eful physil evince procured om the ems, so ps shifted their attentn to Mulhy’s movements the days and hours leadg up to his they soon learned, Mulhy had last been seen on July 8, 1992, at midtown Manhattan’s Townhoe Bar, an upsle gay waterg hole where olr well-to-do gentlemen often met younger suors.

Cops, meanwhile, found difficult to nvce people and around this tablishment to talk to them, sce 1992, the relatnship between the police and the gay muny was fed by distst, if not outright antipathy, much of born om the former’s history of prejudiced harassment and hostily. Jt as ptivatg, though, ’s a vivid snapshot of s particular moment, narrated large part by two dividuals who were on the ontl of the fight for equal LGTBQ+ rights: The New York Gay & Lbian Anti-Vlence Project’s Bea Hanson and Matt Foreman.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: ANTI-GAY LAWS PROMOTE VLENCE, DISCRIMATN ST. VCENT

Rellg a time when gay Amerins were both emergg om the shadows force (pecially NYC) and facg creased antagonism and threats (cludg om the ragg AIDS epimic), Hanson and Foreman offer timate and passnate first-hand acunts of the cultural and polil atmosphere of the early ’90s. Employg plentiful archival material, Last Call is a simultaneoly vibrant and sorrowful look backwards, s nostalgia for the burgeong gay movement lored by the fear that so many felt bee of homophobia and the mortal danger posed—as well as the anger that was a direct byproduct of beg ignored, slanred, and opprsed.

Still om Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New YorkHBO In separate terviews wh different tectiv, Last Call highlights police officers’ ignorance about the gay muny and their reticence to relate to the murrs. Wellman 1927 and featured what is nsired the first gay kiss an Amerin follows two Air Force pilots World War I, Jack and Dave, who pete for the affectns of a betiful girl before disverg the te love they feel for each other. "The crimalizatn of gay sex giv tac state sanctn to the discrimatn and vlence that LGBT people experience their daily liv and pels many to look abroad to live eely and fulfill their dreams, " said Cristian González Cabrera, gay rights rearcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league.

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league,” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league.

MOSCOW, Sept 25 (Thomson Rters Foundatn) - Receivg photos of mutilated bodi wh the warng “you’re next” rattled gay rights activist Nika Toov but when he saw surveillance men outsi his home, he fled Rsia for threats via social media me om Pila - Rsian for “saw” - a homophobic group which has said was behd the fatal stabbg July of an LGBT+ activist whose name was among a dozen on their wily-circulated assassatn “blacklist”. Although the police did not treat the murr as a hate crime ially, they promised to vtigate whether Pila had anythg to do wh Grigoryeva’s ath after plats om lbian gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT+) rights - which tak s name om the “Saw” Amerin horror movi - is the latt threat to shake the LGBT+ muny Rsia, where homosexualy was emed a crimal offence until 1993 and classed as a mental illns until 1999.