The ntroversial bt-picture wner wh Dt Hoffman and Jon Voight arrived at a ght moment not jt the evolutn of filmmakg, but the stggle for visibily of gay liv. An excerpt of a five new book.
Contents:
- DT HOFFMAN WIFE, CHILDREN, GAY, FAY
- HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
- IS DT HOFFMAN GAY?
- IS DT HOFFMAN GAY
- IS DT HOFFMAN GAY?
DT HOFFMAN WIFE, CHILDREN, GAY, FAY
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” But, somehow, very quickly beme associated wh a new era of ankns about homosexualy, an associatn enhanced by the fact, pletely unrelated, that the Stonewall rts, which nventnally mark the start of the gay-liberatn movement, broke out a month after “Midnight Cowboy” opened.
He se the movie the ntext of “the rise of openly gay wrers and gay liberatn.
” And Mark Harris, the ler not for the Crern DVD, says that “Midnight Cowboy” is, “if not a gay movie, a movie that at least helped to make the notn of a gay movie possible. You n read an element of homoeroticism to buddy pictur like the, which the women are often treated as expendable accsori. But no one imag that such films give dienc a more enlightened way to thk about homosexualy.
HOMOPHOBIC? MAYBE. BUT AT LEAST MIDNIGHT COWBOY SHOWED ME GAY MEN ON SCREEN
Growg up, I hankered after imag of other gay men, however they were treated, wr film cric Ryan Gilbey * is dustin hoffman gay *
Frankel believ ’s important that Schlger was gay.
Schlger did not e out publicly until the neteen-neti, and he said that he did not nsir “Midnight Cowboy” a “gay” picture. His next movie, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (1971), had a sympathetic gay character, played by Peter Fch.
”Joe and Ratso are shown to have ltle sympathy for homosexuals, and they e John Wayne’s F-word often.
IS DT HOFFMAN GAY?
Is Dt Hoffman Gay? Come and learn what has been said lately about this and what is Dt Hoffman sayg about this. * is dustin hoffman gay *
Still, he was fe wh homophobic slurs. Many years later, he claimed that the e of the word by the characters was “a sign of overprottatn, ” but this seems a jtifitn are few gay characters wh speakg rol the movie. The sexualy is clearly meant to be is te to the novel—whose thor, Jam Leo Herlihy, was also gay, but who did not want people to thk of his book, which was published 1965, as gay fictn.
There is no suggtn the book that Joe and Ratso are gay self-niers. Whatever effect “Midnight Cowboy” might have had on attus toward homosexualy, one thg had a negative effect on was attus toward New York Cy.
For s, the Co had effectively banned even the e of the word “homosexual.
IS DT HOFFMAN GAY
As Frankel and Harris suggt, once Hollywood saw the succs of “Midnight Cowboy, ” a movie that treated homosexualy ankly, even if as a sordid pursu, you uld more easily sell a movie that treated homosexualy as another way of beg normal. ” So is wh Midnight Cowboy, one of the classics of the short-lived New Hollywood era and the only X-rated film ever to w an Amy Award for bt long-standg myth is that the Motn Picture Associatn of Ameri’s pdish ratgs board, repelled by Midnight Cowboy’s scen of fellat, sodomy, homosexualy, and sadomasochism, slapped an X on the film before s release May 1969. Fortunately, the tth is a better st of characters clus one of the film dtry’s preement power brokers, who got squeamish over the sex scen and generally rnchy subject matter of the movie; a gay film director who was still the closet even while he sought to make a movie that alt openly and ankly wh sexualy, straight and gay; a polilly nnected former ai to Print Lyndon Johnson who tried to steer the motn picture dtry around the shoals of ntroversy; and a clever psychoanalyst wh a passn for power who provid the phony ratnale that allowed the stud head to do exactly what he wanted to story tak place at a pivotal moment Amerin cultural and polil history, when homosexualy was still wily viewed as a ntag disease and a dire threat to Amerin youth, while filmmakers were stgglg for more eedom to tell adult the storm ro Midnight this is a Hollywood story, let’s start wh the man wh the most money and power.
” Adultery, premaral sex, homosexualy, and abortn for any reason were not allowed, nor was anythg else that might “lower the moral standards of those who see .
IS DT HOFFMAN GAY?
Hollywood was even more squeamish when me to homosexualy. Still, jt as other adult them started to seep to mastream Amerin films, homosexualy took s first baby steps out of the closet, but only films that picted gay people as praved, unhappy, and self-stctive. The films should have rried a surgeon general’s warng: Homosexualy, like cigarette smokg, n be hazardo to one’s first Valenti toyed wh the ia of killg the Productn Co outright and replacg wh a simple utnary label: “For Mature Audienc.
His bs plan turns out to be fatally flawed—the only ctomers who show any tert Joe’s sexual prows are a handful of gay men, while he himself be fair game for a seri of predators who quickly relieve him of his small stash of sh.