‘Barbie’: Ken Has Never Been Barbie’s Boyiend. He’s Her Gay BFF.

Contents:

• 10 GREAT FRENCH GAY FILMS
• INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD
• 10 GREAT BRISH GAY FILMS
• IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
• SCHOOL BOARD TERMAT TEACHER OVER DOLLY PARTON, MILEY CYS 'RABOWLAND' SONG, FOLKS STILL GAY
• KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
• 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN

10 GREAT FRENCH GAY FILMS

We’ve kept the list to films that are easily available to watch the UK, but honourable mentn should go to The Ostrich Has Two Eggs (1957), a dated farce that at least has a sympathetic gay son, albe one who never appears on screen, and L Amiés particulièr (1964), set a boys’ boardg school. Most reviews foc on the showy performance of the equently naked Nilas Cazalé as the rebel whout much of a e the first chapter, but the emotnal heart li the fal third, as Morel explor the plexi of the vulnerable gay youth who mt choose between aternal loyalty and a chance at romantic happs.

Nicht r Homosexuelle ist pervers, sonrn die Suatn, r er lebt ("It Is Not The Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But The Society In Which He Liv"), 1971: Perhaps one of the most ntroversial gay featur ever to e out of Germany, or anywhere else, this mouthful of a movie and s portrayal of gay men as shallow, fashn-obssed, limp wristed weaklgs created such a stir that the viotaped cricisms om gay activists nstute their own short. Taxi zum Klo ("Taxi to the John", or "Taxi to the Toilet"), 1981: Frank Ripploh's semi-tobgraphil drama about a prim and proper school teacher wh a hardre after-hours sex life was groundbreakg and sensatnal for s time, and ed remas a cult classic (and one of the sexit gay films acrdg to director John Cameron Mchell). In Fe Dead Girls Iva and Marija move to an apartment buildg that is home to a rogu' gallery of characters: a war veteran sufferg om post-trmatic strs, a prostute paid to break up the uple by a prit who is one girl's father, a homophobic gon of an apartment manager, and her son, a slacker mama's boy who rap one of the pair to prove his masculy.

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. 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.

INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD

A few d homosexuals n be found  Aled Hchck’s early work (check out the swishy drsmaker 1925’s The Pleasure Garn), while Ivor Novello’s films play up the flamboyant star’s androgyny, playg very odd, allegedly heterosexual men  The Lodger (1926) and The Man whout Dire (1923). It took another 10 years before partial crimalisatn took effect wh the Sexual Offenc act 1967, which allowed homosexual acts, private, between two men over the age of 21 – many feel Basil Dearn’s film helped liberalise attus and pave the way towards tolerance towards gay people.

The Leather Boys (1964)The Brish ‘kchen sk’ dramas, foced around workg-class liv, that prevailed the late 50s and early 60s ocsnally ntaed sympathetic gay characters, such as Murray Melv’s stunt  A Taste of Honey (1961) and Cicely Courtneidge’s ageg actor  The L-shaped Room (1962). That clip appears The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary based on Vo Rso’s study of homosexualy the movi, along wh untls exampl of how gay characters showed up, per narrator Lily Toml, as “somethg to lgh at, or somethg to py, or even somethg to fear. The performanc are staggerg: Al Paco as the ignom Roy Cohn; Jefey Wright is the sharp-wted gay nurse who tends to him; Mary-Louise Parker as a pill-poppg hoewife wed to a closeted Mormon; Emma Thompson as an imper (and sometim sassy) angel; and Meryl Streep four rol, cludg the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.

10 GREAT BRISH GAY FILMS

A page-to-screen take on Vo Rso’s semal book regardg LGBTQ reprentatn (and misreprentatn) the movi, Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman’s documentary prents the perfect show-and-tell plement to the late scholar’s work — you n lerally see the evolutn of cematic homosexualy as progrs om punchle to social pundry, sikick-and-stock-villa fodr to queers beg the hero of their own stori. To say that William Friedk’s thriller about a serial killer targetg gay men New York was ntroversial would be puttg dly: Village Voice lumnist Arthur Bell (whose verage of murrs the Wt Village bar scene was a partial spiratn) lled the script “the worst possible nightmare of the most uptight straight”; tablishments that had agreed to operate sudnly whdrew their support; activists dispted filmg at every turn; theaters were picketed; and one massive prott led to a traffic-stoppg s- and arrts.

) But 40 years after Al Paco’s unrver p first stepped to the Mhaft, this lurid exploatn movie has been reclaimed by gay film crics such as Nathan Lee and Melissa Anrson, noticeably for the way prents the late ’70s leather-bar scene wh an almost véré-like sense of observatn. Mixg herage-drama aspects wh outré postmorn flourish and a heightened sense of homoeroticism, the movie prents the relatnship between the two men as a polil act as much as a romantic one; Edward’s army is refashned as ACT UP-style activists, and the behd-the-scene machatns of Edward’s wife, Isabella (longtime Jarman llaborator Tilda Swton), double as a crique of Bra’s opprsive, historilly strict anti-homosexual laws.

IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?

Blendg readgs of his work wh sequenc of geo men tuxedos dancg and cisg each other (or posg naked), the movie specifilly plac Hugh’ verse a homoerotic ntext; the work of fellow gay wrers Jam Baldw, Essex Hemphill, and Robert Bce Nugent also acpany black-and-whe scen of gay clubs, gay celebri (keep an eye out for Bronski Beat sger Jimmy Sommerville as an angel), gay inography, and gay love. Terence McNally, who died March om plitns related to COVID-19, adapted his own Tony-wng play for director Joe Mantello, and the film is the perfect remr that McNally was one of the great chroniclers of gay love, gay relatnships, and what meant to fd a chosen fay who would support you through good tim and bad. An experimental doc om the legendary filmmaker Barbara Hammer, this llage of personal ttimoni, gay and lbian ephemera, and a profilette of thor Willa Cather is a roundabout mediatn on, per s creator, “a reprsed and margalized history” of queer life the 20th century.

And a ltle over an hour, she acplish all that and more — scen of timacy among elrly and biracial same-sex upl will sudnly give way to exploratns of homosexual persecutn Nazi Germany, or one woman’s oral history of tryg to mask her sexual preferenc durg her time the army durg World War II. Pedro Almodóvar’s filmography is filled wh gay characters, gay love, gay sex, and gay sensibili — you n see his punkish late-Seventi shorts, his mpy farc (Women on the Verge of a Nervo Breakdown), his Hchckian thrillers (Matador, Law of Dire), and his melodramas (Bad Edutn, All About My Mother).

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

The key movie of what would bee known as the “New Queer Cema” (see also Tom Kal’s Swoon and Gregg Araki’s The Livg End), Todd Hayn’ triptych giv the story of a child who murrs an aber and mysterly disappears (“Hero”), a Fifti-style monster movie about a scientist who turns to a hio creature after drkg a “sexualy” potn (“Horror”), and a bold adaptatn of Jean Ge’s love-among-nvicts tale The Miracle of the Rose (“Homo”). And like his fellow gay filmmakers who’d artistilly e of age a world of AIDS-related afflictn and activism, Hayn’ style of storytellg was nontatnal, somewhat nfsnal, and unabashedly queer, whether he was flirtg wh genre parodi, borrowg TV tabloid sensatnalism, or phg the envelope regardg pictns of same-sex eroticism.

SCHOOL BOARD TERMAT TEACHER OVER DOLLY PARTON, MILEY CYS 'RABOWLAND' SONG, FOLKS STILL GAY

Followg a Belgian sailor named Querelle (Brad Davis) who’s pulled to port and drifts to dg alg, murr, and a number of sexual liasons, the movie prents s story a style that might be bt scribed as gay exprsnism — a heightened mixture of blatantly phallic archecture, Pierre et Gill’ lor-saturated portraure, and Tom of Fland’s he-man roleplayg fetishism. A massive, Osr-nomated crossover h, Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío’s film prented a softer, more tolerant treatment of homosexualy by the Cuban ernment (Diego and David share a platonic hug at the end) that was seen as progrs by some and a savvy public-relatns move by others.

KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND

Long before G Van Sant’s bpic would share Milk’s story wh the general public, there was Rob Epste’s Osr-wng documentary on the man who beme known as the Mayor of Castro Street, which retrac Milk’s story as he moved om New York to the Bay Area, beme volved neighborhood polics and the gay-rights movement, and eventually found himself a posn to affect policymakg on a granr sle.

Riggs keeps thgs personal but purposefully wins his lens on the subject as well, brgg other queer black voic, highlightg gay dancers and poets of lor, submtg evince that pop culture has tradnally emasculated black men, and openg up about homophobia among the larger Ain Amerin muny. Wrer-director Andrew Haigh’s timate drama has been lled “the gay Before Sunrise, ” a parison that’s both a pliment — like Lklater’s movie, revolv around the power of nversatn and enjoyg the extend pleasure of someone’s pany — and an oversight that don’t que do jtice to the movie’s strengths.

16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN

Documentarians Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, and Rob Epste’s oral history of gay life giv close to two dozen men and women a chance to tell their stori — and lets the participants share their personal perspectiv on everythg om g of age to g out, om love to heartbreak, om -parentg wh their partners to fg their own paths.