‎"gay subtext mak every movie better", a list of films by guilherme • Letterboxd

Contents:

• UNPACKG THE TTH: IS FIGHT CLUB GAY? EXPLORG THE CONTROVERSY, DISPELLG MYTHS, AND PROVIDG INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS [A COMPREHENSIVE GUI FOR FILM ENTHIASTS]
• FIGHT CLUB IS GAY?
• 15 MOVI KNOWN FOR THEIR GAY NTEXT (AND IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, NOW YOU DO)
• "GAY SUBTEXT MAK EVERY MOVIE BETTER"

UNPACKG THE TTH: IS FIGHT CLUB GAY? EXPLORG THE CONTROVERSY, DISPELLG MYTHS, AND PROVIDG INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS [A COMPREHENSIVE GUI FOR FILM ENTHIASTS]

Yterday at Salon, Caleb Cra, thor of the highly praised novel Necsary Errors, talked a b about beg a gay novelist and the effects non-heterosexual subject matter has on the chanc for a novel’s publitn.

In rponse to a qutn about needg a “gay non” of lerature, Cra said, “The straight non is very gay… I don’t read somebody bee they’re a gay wrer. ” It’s te that seems silly and rctive to sist on settg gay wrers apart om their straight hort (although dog so n help raise awarens that they do, fact, exist), pecially sce there’s enough queer subtext popular lerature already. Rowlg waed nveniently until the publitn of her most recent book to reveal, perhaps too enthiastilly, that Alb Dumbledore was gay.

Hton’s classic about rough-and-tumble teenage lquents 1960s Tulsa, and while the book is equently banned nsirg all the vlence, bad language, and unrage smokg and drkg, the homoerotic unrton of those boys’ bromanc have fely evad plenty of rears.

FIGHT CLUB IS GAY?

Strangers on a Tra by Patricia HighsmhPatricia Highsmh was no stranger to homosexual overton — her antihero Tom Ripley was, sentially, a gay monster, and she even dipped her toe to the lbian bildungsroman genre — but her thriller Strangers on a Tra was a b more subtle s pictn of one man’s murro obssn wh another. Danvers, who is so obssed wh her former employer, the tular Rebec Wter, that one n’t help but read a b to the way she gently strok her perfectly kept nightcloth across her Club by Chuck PalahniAs this say pots out, ’s hard to claim that Fight Club has a gay subtext, as there is nothg particularly subtle about s homoeroticism. The symbolism of Tyler splicg scen om hardre porn is a pretty good metaphor for Chuck Palahni trickg the macho lerary dience to lovg a pretty queer of Grass by Walt WhmanNoted homosexual Walt Whman clud several turns of phrase his llectn of poetry voted to the love of the male form, and l like, “O how shall I warble myself for the ad one there I loved?

” om “When Lilacs Last the Dooryard Bloom’d” — his o to the Civil War’s ad, particularly Abraham Lln — is jt the tip of the fey Budd by Herman Melville Let’s jt take a look at this passage om Melville’s novella, via Dana Sliva’s paper “Explorg Homoeroticism Herman Melville’s Novella Billy Budd, Sailor, ” which explas all:Claggart, the master-at-arms, official rattan hand, happened to be passg along…Steppg over [the soup], he was proceedg on his way whout ment, sce the matter was nothg to take notice of unr the circumstanc, when he happened to observe who was that had done the spillg…Psg, he was about to ejaculate somethg hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and potg down to the streamg soup, playfully tapped him om behd wh his rattan, sayg a low mil voice peculiar to him at tim, ‘Handsomely done, my lad! LawrenceSure, the women of the tle — the unfortunately named Ursula and Gudn Brangwen — are ed love wh the typilly broodg Englishmen, but one nnot possibly ny the homosexual overton the nu wrtlg which Rupert Birk and Gerald Crich gleefully take Great Gatsby by F. In Rantasmo’s vio, he mentns the parallels between Jack’s story of adoptg a hypermascule persona orr to avoid some aspect of himself, and that of a closeted gay man pretendg to be heterosexual orr to avoid his closeted gayns.

Wh the gay subtext, you n see why Jack would want to eventually reject the thgs – so that he n accept himself as a gay man, and be ee om those prsur by rejectg them.

15 MOVI KNOWN FOR THEIR GAY NTEXT (AND IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, NOW YOU DO)

And this is important bee that is actually a subtext of the film – that Jack is a closeted gay man. Given the gay subtext of the film, to be a gay man would be abnormal, and so Jack’s attempts to live a heterosexual, physilly and sexually domant liftyle would be an attempt to mata his normalcy.

This is a major ponent where the gay subtext – if Jack really is a closeted gay man, him wantg to be heterosexual (and sexually domant by extensn) wh a sire to not be gay or submissive. Maybe after we look si ourselv and thk about the msag we’re told about what means to exprs our genr and sexualy, we n shirk off those expectatns, embrace our te selv, and watch a film like Fight Club wh open ey… as gay transgenr space femists.

This ultra-manls lends self well to stealthy gay them, characters, or even whole narrativ that drive and strengthen the story. Some crics have looked at nnibalism as a metaphor for homosexualy bee Raveno is about two men who have urg that are nmned by society. In addn to stg a bunch of mcular men and makg them wear very ltle, there are many other homoerotic allns, such as lots of thstg and plungg.

"GAY SUBTEXT MAK EVERY MOVIE BETTER"

In the movie Sleep wh Me, Quent Taranto (who plays himself) argu that Top Gun is a metaphor for a man’s stggle wh homosexualy. He says that Iceman and the other fighter pilots reprent homosexualy, while the stctor reprents heterosexualy.

In a specific scene early on, Jse accintly wanrs to a gay S&M bar, and he bumps to his gym teacher.

When asked if the film was about a gay man’s stggle, the screenwrer said that he thought stgglg wh your own sexualy would be a terrifyg experience, so he worked to the script as subtext. When adapted for the big screen, the foc shifted to gay rights as opposed to the civil rights movement as the ics.