Marriage and Beyond: 26 Relatnship Possibili for Gay Men

Contents:

• BETIFUL THG IS A MASTERPIECE OF GAY STORYTELLG
• A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
• 100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE
• ‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

BETIFUL THG IS A MASTERPIECE OF GAY STORYTELLG

Betiful Thg Is a Masterpiece of Gay StorytellgThe 1996 Brish film portrayed s workg-class LGBT characters wh remarkable sensivy and Pictur ClassicsWhen Jonathan Harvey’s love story Betiful Thg buted 1993 as a play, he had no ia would eventually be herald as a crown jewel of gay storytellg. “But wasn’t tend to be a gay play, jt a play that happened to have gay characters.

Remend ReadgDpe Betiful Thg’s tle, gay life the early 1990s was anythg but pretty. AIDS, then a terrifyg new disease, had started killg thoands of gay men the prev . In 1987, Bra’s Prime Mister, Margaret Thatcher, gave a speech plag that, rather than learng to rpect “tradnal” valu, children were beg tght that they “have an alienable right to be gay.

A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE

” It was hardly a cince that Sectn 28—an amendment that prohibed lol thori om “promotg homosexualy” or teachg schools the “acceptabily of homosexualy as a pretend fay relatnship”—was enacted by Thatcher’s ernment the followg year.

The film was genuely subversive for s time and place: Depictg gay kids who don’t succumb to the “plague” or ultimately bow to prsure om their bigoted peers was no small thg at a moment stricken by an pecially vilent, anti-LGBT mood. Inially, neher boy has fully accepted his sexualy, and Betiful Thg is a lite exploratn of the often-paful procs of g out that evolv to a gay film is filled wh charmg and poignant moments that uld be found any romantic dramedy.

100 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY MEN LOVE

At another pot, a cur Jamie steals a gay magaze and, rrectly, tells Ste what “ottage” is (“It’s yogurt. Later, the two go to a gay jot—the first place they thk to go to where they n be public about their relatnship sans judgment— a scene that gently pots to the historil signifince of gay bars as safe spac. Wh the relatable and humane moments, the film telegraphed to s mid-1990s dienc somethg they hadn’t heard much before: Gay people are jt Betiful Thg div even eper.

Through the film’s two other central characters, viewers also get an illumatg glimpse of gay love crosshatched wh other forms of opprsn rooted inty—primarily class—as well as a broar, arguably fuller pictn of longg for, well, belongg. ” Jamie asks Ste at one pot)—when they’re also stuck another—on a uncil tate wh fay members who might be unaware of their own anti-gay prejudic or who might react vlently to learng about their sexualy. The primary characters are two gay teenagers, a mother doublg as the breadwner, and a young black woman, all plucked om the workg class.

Then, as now, the story criqu a culture that herently valu the stori, if not existenc, of “non-normative” Betiful Thg may not have the mastream clout of other films on BFI’s list, such as Todd Hayn’s electrifyg 2015 perd piece Carol, s prence the pantheon of gay cema ntu to expand what dienc might nsir the genre of “great” films, promptg broar awarens of historilly overlooked perspectiv that are nohels worthy of attentn. After all, Harvey, a gay man of workg-class orig, was the one who brought this cultural touchstone to may not have tend to create a gay story.

‘A FAY LIKE OURS’: PORTRAS OF GAY FATHERHOOD

More than anythg, Harvey allows the film’s gay protagonists to eventually live fully and visibly as themselv.

” Departg om the tired and tirg pictns of gay people as outsts, seedy sexaholics, and victims, Betiful Thg offers plited characters moored a world which any sort of gay nuance or texture is often redacted. Hanya Yanagihara’s novel is an astonishg and amb chronicle of queer life a 2013 say for Salon, the culture wrer Daniel D’Addar lamented the absence of a big, amb novel about gay life Ameri today. ” D’Addar surveyed a number of proment gay wrers about his this, and the next day Tyler Coat summarized their views for Flavorwire a piece tled “The Great Gay Novel is Never Gog to Happen.

” But no verage of the book I’ve seen has discsed as a novel fundamentally about gay liv—as the most amb chronicle of the social and emotnal liv of gay men to have emerged for many book follows a group of four men—Ju, Willem, JB, and Mallm—over three s of iendship, om their years as llege roommat to the heights of profsnal succs. Of the novel’s ma characters, only JB unambiguoly embodi an immediately regnizable and unambivalent gay inty.