This documentary about two of the ep south’s most celebrated gay wrers fails to illumate their sometim troubled iendship
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TENNSEE WILLIAMS’ PATGS EXPLORED BEG GAY AMERI
Qutn about Sudnly Last Summer: “Was Tennsee Wiliams gay?” * was tennesee williams gay *
What you may not know is that the playwright was homosexual durg a time Ameri’s history that was practilly crimal to be such. It was durg the late 1930s when Williams me to terms wh his homosexualy. The Uned Stat was fairly nservative durg this time, and life was harsh for homosexuals.
WAS TENNSEE WILIAMS GAY?
Many laws were passed outlawg gay relatnships. Beg openly gay durg his lifetime was an timidatg proposn, but Williams ran hard and fast wh , experiencg public, temptuo relatnships that would have ma him verifiable Instagram fire if he'd jt stuck out for a few more s. Throughout his life, his homosexualy was an open secret, and publicly nfirmed the post-Stonewall era.
Many of his short stori and plays al wh gay them directly, though rarely a posive light, which reflected Williams’ own dissatisfactn wh beg gay. At The New York Tim, Michael Adno exam the patgs of Amerin playwright Tennsee Williams, who ed the visual medium to explore what meant to be gay Ameri durg the ’70s.
The novelist Edmund Whe, whose name has bee synonymo wh gay lerature, believed that Williams’s plays “Cat on a Hot T Roof” and “A Streetr Named Dire” were — a veiled way — exprsns of gay sire. Whe said a telephone terview, addg that this work ma gay life more visible to him — and to Ameri — when he was growg up the 1950s. “Certaly, as a young gay kid, I turned on to that work tremendoly.