Historically, I consider the movie,, a film referencing the Gay Community before AIDS, like "Tales of the City". Yes there has been a change. Example: A vibrant Laguna Beach with book stores and night life where bands could be heard walking around the streets has yielded to a much more conservative "face" of routine restaurants, bland art galleries and tourist traps.
I may stand corrected by any more qualified member.
If y'all have not seen Partners, it is on my recommendation list, as an
enjoyable movie. Nothing deep. There are several movies named, Partners.
I don't believe that happy endings in and of themselves are necessary to make a good Hollywood film about gays or their lives. I do, however, think that a frank and accurate portrayal of characters be they gay or straight is essential.
IMO the real stumbling block is the 10% rule which says that conservatively 10% of the overall population is gay. Conversely 90% is not gay and it's this 90% that spends $$ in movie houses on themes it can relate to. Again, it comes down to money.
When Hollywood begins making films from stories that have main characters who are gay without the stories themselves being gay in theme or focus then we may see a shift. But I think that shift will occur within the population first. It's a wide, wide world out there. Don't look for it your lifetimes. As the main character in my last novel says, to his son, "This is not a world I would have made for you but it's the one we have to live in. We can live in it together or separately, it's your choice."
Homosexuals aren't the only ones that are doomed in the movies. I've seen plenty of dark complected chicano dudes with thick accents run afoul of the law and get doomed in the process while their light complected sister/niece "María" (almost always María) with nearly no discernable accent gets saved. And then there's the black afro-american version of the very same concept that I have noticed too plus some others of different groups of people. Movies make me laugh when there are those obvious characatures since all you have to do is come back at the end of the movie and say, "Mmm hmmm... Yup I knew it".
I've been reading about a new movie to be released soon - Sherlock Holmes - starring Robert Downey, Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson. Industry figures are alarmed at the risks it takes with borderline homoeroticism (see article below). I can't wait, not only because I'm a Downey fan, but to see if it can be a commercial success. Many reviewers may pan the movie dishonestly, citing other flaws, but really being exercised by the "gayness" of it all. If this makes money, the floodgates may open for mainstream homosexual movies. It looks like what I've been waiting for. Of course, another major character in the movie is Irene Adler, who was Holmes's great lost love in the Conan Doyle original, so there will probably be strong heterosexuality to compensate for the flirtation with man to man love. Still, this is real progress. Here's the article - In it, Michael Medved asks "Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out?" Me, for one.
'GAY' SHERLOCK HOLMES COULD BACKFIRE FOR GUY RITCHIE
New York Post
August 4, 2009 --
GUY Ritchie's plan to put a gay spin on the relationship of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in his new movie about the detective and his sidekick could backfire.
Robert Downey Jr, who plays Holmes, has revealed the crimebuster will sleep with and have sweaty grappling scenes with Watson, played by Jude Law, in "Sherlock Holmes," due out Christmas Day.
"We're two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It's bad-ass," Downey told Britain's News of the World. Added much-in-the-news Law: "Guy wanted to make this about the relationship between Watson and Holmes. They're both mean and complicated."
But Michael Medved, a former Post movie critic, says Downey and Law must be joking. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals," Medved told us. "I think they're just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office. Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don't want to see it."
Roger Johnson, editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, observed that in Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, "Watson is something of a ladies' man, but a faithful husband to his wife. And Holmes is essentially asexual, with no erotic interest in women or men."
Still, some fans welcome the jolt. Manhattan thriller writer Jason Starr, whose book "Panic Attack" hits stores this week, said: "This sounds like exactly the type of updating the series needs to attract a new generation. Playing up the homoerotic undercurrents in 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' worked rather well. If Conan Doyle was writing today, he would have been much more provocative with the characters."
Historically, I consider the movie,, a film referencing the Gay Community before AIDS, like "Tales of the City". Yes there has been a change. Example: A vibrant Laguna Beach with book stores and night life where bands could be heard walking around the streets has yielded to a much more conservative "face" of routine restaurants, bland art galleries and tourist traps.
I may stand corrected by any more qualified member.
If y'all have not seen Partners, it is on my recommendation list, as an
enjoyable movie. Nothing deep. There are several movies named, Partners.
This one is Partners (1982).
Moi
Really, Really Trying To Be Good
Has anyone else seen
Partners (1982) ?
BTW Bobby Downey, J R seems to have "lost it", since cleaning up.
Similar to Chevy Chase and Charlie Sheen. Without their substances,
It seems to me that a better "gay" slanted movie would be Batman and Robin. The homo-erotic suggestions in the original comics is unmistakable. Rather than re-work what was always a hetero hero in Holmes the Batman character would be far easier to portray.
Growing up in the 50s, it never even occurred to me or any of my friends that there was anything odd about the relationship between Bruce Wayne and his "ward." It was a naive age. Homosexuality was so far off the cultural table that it was truly "the crime that dare not speak its name." No one thought about, talked about, or wrote about homosexuality. It wasn't even denounced, because it was thought obvious and indisputable that homosexuals were depraved and lived in a shameful underworld. There was no "gay lib," and no organizations speaking for gay rights.
So when we read about Batman and Robin, they just seemed like a perfect father and son - the father admirable, the son worthy of him. This was the sort of relationship all boys wished they had with their fathers, unlike the abusive weak fathers and vulnerable shamed sons so common in real life. Seeing the gay potential in Batman and Robin is a sophisticated modern remake of the original. I don't object; I just don't believe it was there in the original, even covertly.
The Lurker (imported) wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:31 am
The Gay experience is largely an unhappy one, ...
I presume you speak for yourself. Perhaps your life has been an unhappy one, but that does not speak to the reality of the lives of most Gay or Lesbian people.
Repeated and extensive studies reveal that Gays and Lesbians are generally as well-adjusted and generally as happy as is the rest of the population.
Now, if you want to argue that the human condition is universally an unhappy one, you could make a philosophical (but not social) argument for that.
If you want to argue that Gay and Lesbian people suffer from prejudice and discrimination to a greater degree than the population at large, (and that this negatively-impacts their lives) you could make an argument based on that, but so do racial minorities, and I don't see you arguing that, for example, the black
The Lurker (imported) wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:31 am
experience is largely an unhappy one,
or the female experience is de facto an unhappy one.
To paint the gay life as somehow intrinsically unhappy is to perpetuate the myth that gay people are not 'normal' and therefore are doomed to unhappiness. This might be true from certain individuals, but does not project to the entire gay and Lesbian population.
Our lives are measurably filled with the same mixture of happiness and unhappiness as everyone else's.
Abraham Lincoln said (paraphrase) "I think that people are generally as happy as they choose to be."
Moi
Moi