Special Report: The Gay 90's |

Contents:

• SPECIAL REPORT: THE GAY 90'S
• GAY AWAKENG
• MM BI GAY AWAKENG BOOKS
• TWILIGHT’S ASHLEY GREENE ON ALICE CULLEN BEG MANY FANS’ ‘GAY AWAKENG’
• THE GREAT GAY AWAKENG OF 2020
• JOJO SIWA TELLS DEMI LOVATO THEIR 'COOL FOR THE SUMMER' VIO WAS A 'GAY AWAKENG' FOR HER

SPECIAL REPORT: THE GAY 90'S

Or maybe was Tom Hanks, acceptg an Amy Award for his portrayal of a gay lawyer Philalphia, and tearfully thankg his high school drama teacher and a classmate — "two of the ft gay Amerins that I had the good fortune to be associated wh" — before a billn movie fans around the world. But however all began, look at where 's led: Jt as Elvis and his ilk plumbed Ain-Amerin mil tradns and turned them to mastream rock & roll the 1950s, moviemakers, TV producers, media people, and rock stars have turned entertament on s head by eely mg the gay culture for s sarsm and style, s glter and gr, s secrets and celebratns.

Comedy's most popular styl now utilize the gay sensibily — a reliance on irony that's omni prent products as varied as Letterman (not him, jt his raised eyebrow) and The Ln Kg ( which Timon and Pumbaa are … well, whatever you want them to be).

On Broadway, gay-themed works are the most domant genre, and for three seasons, gay-themed plays by gay playwrights (Tony Khner's two-part Angels Ameri and, most recently, Terrence McNally's Love!

GAY AWAKENG

Now straight men are expected to be jt as mosed and buffed as their gay unterparts; and they are subtly prsured to emulate the exhibnistic sex appeal of mols like Marky Mark and Michael Berg, who have posed sctively ads tend to sell shorts not jt to gay men, but to all men. " Gradually, the entertament dtry me to realize that gay n sell a niche-market art film (such as the mor summer h The Incredibly Te Adventure of Two Girls Love), as well as help to sell a film wh crossover appeal (Four Weddgs and a Funeral).

Explas David Lee, the gay creator of Frasier and director of last season's accintal date episo, "There was humor the suatn [the characters] found themselv , but you weren't lghg at anyone bee he was gay.

MM BI GAY AWAKENG BOOKS

The ntroversial "Men on Film" segment of Fox's In Livg Color (1990-94), which two flamg black queens offered a gay perspective on movi, sharply divid even the gay muny.

TWILIGHT’S ASHLEY GREENE ON ALICE CULLEN BEG MANY FANS’ ‘GAY AWAKENG’

The revolutn has been slower to take hold at movie studs, which all but banned gay characters after the dismal failure of Makg Love, the oh-so-ser 1982 drama which Michael Ontkean left Kate Jackson for Harry Haml (actually, dienc shied away om the film bee stank). Still, by the early 1990s, seemed almost every movie hero or heroe had a lovable gay neighbor–a lovelorn iend Frankie & Johnny, a flower-totg sissy The Prce of Tis.

But not until 1993 did a major stud, TriStar, release a film hgg on gay characters — Philalphia, which was cricized wh the gay muny for playg safe and never even givg Hanks and his lover Anton Banras an on-screen kiss. ) Even many recent pictns of gay characters — the psyt-strokg upstairs neighbor 1992's Sgle Whe Female, for stance — seem posively Cro-Magnon today, so rapidly are perceptns evolvg.

Or so said gay groups earlier this year when the actor-turned-director (who has received flak for publicly exprsg his disda for homosexuals the past) picted Braveheart's Prce Edward as a rouged-up, mcg queen (a pictn, should be noted, that might have a basis historil fact). It's drawg long l s limed release, and 's st wh an imprsive lot of stars playg a balanced array of gay characters, om Patrick Stewart as a likable (and stereotypilly flamboyant) terr rator to Steven Weber (Wgs' womanizg Brian) as a stralaced young gay Manhattane who swears off sex for fear of AIDS.

THE GREAT GAY AWAKENG OF 2020

And as g out beme more mon, there was a ccial shift the perceptn of those veterate culture nsumers, the baby boomers: Acrdg to an Entertament Weekly/Gallup poll, 71% of 30- to 49-year-olds say they unt a gay person among their relativ, workers, or iends. " And jt as 's impossible to fe what is funny (or even polilly rrect) when rporatg a gay reference to a punchle, has bee impossible to fe pop material as gay or straight.

Both Frasier (about a straight man who tak his retired father) and Roseanne (about a uple tryg hard to raise a fay while balancg on the poverty le) are among the Nielsen fay edi wh substantial crossover appeal to gay dienc — and not jt bee they have rporated gay characters. " The gay sensibily was born om the plight of the disenanchised — gay people are aware, as much as anyone, that life acrdg to The Brady Bunch exists nowhere outsi a Hollywood soundstage. Last sprg's send-up The Brady Bunch Movie ( which a gay teen had a csh on an obliv Marcia) was a triumph of the new mp, a shy subversn of mastream Amerina that proved a h wh mastream Amerins.

JOJO SIWA TELLS DEMI LOVATO THEIR 'COOL FOR THE SUMMER' VIO WAS A 'GAY AWAKENG' FOR HER

Gay dienc have always had a soft spot for certa performers — Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Jam Dean — but the attractn was an -joke among the stars' gay fans, who turned the cur hero and hero to almost mythic begs based on their mascule/feme personas or operatilly tragic liv.

But the current crop of heterosexual performers htg big wh gay dienc may not spawn the next generatn of dragsters; if they've got dual appeal, they get the joke and 's fe wh them. Based on the rults of Entertament Weekly's survey of attus toward gay characters and openly gay performers, one thg is clear: The majory of Amerins are not nmng this revolutn — most don't even thk about at all. " And even outspoken gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile, an early proponent of outg public figur — and long a voice favor of Kle's homoerotic imagery — tends toward agreement.

The Hollywood axm that there are no good rol for women, for example, extends to the relatively small number of lbian films the gay niche-cema market, and lbian TV rol are also few number.

A disproportnately high number of gay men films are picted as sufferg om AIDS, whereas the issue of g out to one's iends and fay — a ccial aspect of every gay person's life — has never been satisfactorily alt wh movi or on TV. And the sexual si of gay life is still an area that Hollywood tends to treat awkwardly at bt; although portrayals of gay men as sexual predators (as 1980's Cisg) tend to be a thg of the past, more often than not, ntemporary gay characters tend to be ntered, limed to longg looks and chaste kiss.

) But jt as negative pop stereotyp of black characters old Hollywood (Gone Wh the Wd) gave way to dull black plaster sats the 1960s (Gus Who's Comg to Dner), and then, fally, more realistic treatment, so will gay characters and them and punchl evolve. Entertament Weekly's poll shows that 63 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, perhaps the most avid purchasers of entertament, don't object to seeg a same-sex kiss on screen when they go to the movi, and nearly 18 percent would like to see more gay characters and suatns. The mercializatn of gay culture is probably more than a passg fad — after all, the closer you cut to the heart of nsumerism, the more acceptance, if not outright enthiasm, reveals self.

Believe or not, ’s a sgle gay guy behd this time psule: a thirty-somethg magaze llector who go through each page, relievg the zegeist that was and digizg for nostalgic baklas near and far.