16 Mt-See Classic Gay Movi From Before You Were Born

Contents:

• THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
• 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
• DISNEY'S 8 'FIRST OPENLY GAY' CHARACTERS, RANKED (BY HOW EMBARRASSED DISNEY SHOULD FEEL)

THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’

Cast a few top-shelf gay ins there — your Bette Middlers, your Joan Crawfords, your Faye Dunaways playg Joan Crawford — and pecially have them reparteeg bchy l tearg each other to piec, and have an athetic that’s outre and unironilly mp, and you’ve got the wng-formula starter-pack for somethg licly fabulo and queer, even if not by tentnal sign.

But settg a precent for movi now nonized by gay culture that don’t technilly have any (non-d, anyway) gay characters were some of Hollywood’s most all-time legendary actrs: Bette Davis “All About Eve” ma “’s gog to be a bumpy ri” an idmatic quip, while Elizabeth Taylor then ma Bette Davis’ “what a dump” even more inic aga the openg le of “Who’s Aaid of Virgia Woolf, ” livered while gnawg down on a chicken wg. Ed Bianchi’s 1981 “The Fan, ” meanwhile, livered perhaps the greatt gift to gay film fans of a certa era stg Lren Ball as an agg actrs stgglg to hold onto her legacy while beg stalked by, what else but, a psychotic gay fan. There’s also, of urse, the trend many of the movi of men beg huiated and based — somethg the gay mal the dience love to partake — leavg our inic women wh all the chips the end and whom we n leave the theater rootg for.

From the tfight the powr room to the over-the-top dialogue to the jaw-droppg mil numbers and not one but two montag that serve as md-bogglg time psul of the ’60s, the film is so outrageo that spired generatns of gay viewers to scream, “Sparkle, Neely, sparkle! Why ’s gay: A wacky sexploatn film wh high mp productn valu and a killer theme song, Barbarella mt fight the evil Durand Durand (om which inic New Wave band Duran Duran took s name), while scg a shirtls Aryan angel and outlastg an evil sex mache. What is: Although has been staged wh two men ( 2015 London), the straight uple’s suatn “Brief Enunter” — a drama of two married people (Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard) meetg by chance and their growg mutual affectn — works fe as a metaphor for barriers to gay romance.

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

Why ’s gay: Although “Mommie Deart” was negatively received at the time of s release, attracted a strong gay fanbase pretty much immediately, due to Dunaway’s performance, which was received by many as mp — most famoly, the inic “no wire hangers” scene. Why ’s gay: What’s gayer than a movie wh Lren Ball beg stalked by a closeted mil buff than also that same movie segueg to an out-of-nowhere stage mil medley a la “Sg’ the Ra’s” entr’acte, featurg Ball speak-sgg onstage while beg lifted and twirled around by a pack of male dancers? Why ’s gay: Those who had already read queer cu “Top Gun” three years earlier saw some the story of Dalton (Patrick Swayze, his first major film after “Dirty Dancg”), as a “oler” imported to a Missouri small-town bar om New York to impose orr.

” But what really ph to the gay film non is Ga Gershon’s hammy performance as bisexual star dancer Cristal, and the love/hate chemistry she builds wh Berkley, which arguably sgle-handly lifts the film om so bad ’s good to jt pla good. Spoiler alert: Sebastian ed Cathere to lure attractive young men for him to have sex wh, and a group of them killed Sebastian an pecially barbaric the time, the release of a film pend on whether met the standards of the Productn Co (this was before the Motn Picture Associatn of Ameri's ratg system) and the film was approved to pict Sebastian as gay only "sce the film illtrat the horrors of such a liftyle, n be nsired moral theme even though als wh sexual perversn. Spoiler alert: One of the women is ed gay and love wh her worker, and thgs don't end well for a box office flop, the movie opened to cril acclaim, and received five Amy Award nomatns and three Goln Globe nods, cludg one for MacLae for Bt (1962)This Brish film, wrten by a woman (Ja Green wh John McCormick), was a repudiatn of that natn's harsh antigay laws.

DISNEY'S 8 'FIRST OPENLY GAY' CHARACTERS, RANKED (BY HOW EMBARRASSED DISNEY SHOULD FEEL)

You n cred gay director John Schlger for that; y, the same John Schlger who directed the ld Midnight Cowboy and the absolutely rid Madonna vehicle The Next Bt Daniel Day-Lewis, then a teenager, has a small, uncreded role. Wrten by mored lovers Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perks (that would be the famo poser and the star of Psycho), The Last of Sheila lifted a mpy veil on the gay athetic that remas so tegral to Trouble (1974)For any lennial unfaiar wh out wrer-director John Waters: Shame on you!

The movie attacked every Amerin nventn (for example, an obe nt played by Edh Massey repeatedly tri to nvce her straight nephew to go gay bee "If they're smart they're queer, if they're stupid they're straight") Cage x Foll (1978)This French-Italian film about a middle-aged gay uple, Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Alb (Michel Serrlt), who try to pose as straight to w over their son's fiancee and her nservative parents, walked the tightrope between homage and stereotype -- the gay characters were over-the-top but still lovable (pare that to The Boys the Band). Even though Jack McFarland’s character has received a mixed receptn for perpetuatg gay stereotyp, he’s one of the longt nng and most inic queer characters on televisn, appearg ten seasons and 188 episos of Will & Grace to date. That and the fact took three trailers for him to get a le of dialogue, but Whehall’s McGregor at least gettg a scene that humanized his relatnship wh his sister bee of the fact she didn’t abandon him for beg queer like the rt of his fay—even if the scene did dance around sayg the word “gay”—was actually pretty solid, if fleetg.

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.