http://inourwordsblog.com/2011/12/13/since-brokeback/AFTER “BROKEBACK”: HOW HOLLYWOOD QUIT GAY CHARACTERSDecember 13, 2011
by: Lew Ojeda
It’s been six years since Brokeback Mountain was supposed to change Hollywood’s treatment of gay men. The film won the Oscar for Ang Lee for Best Director, [1] and it became a cultural institution. The phrase “Brokeback Moment” has entered our language, meaning an instance where a guy has a “gay”-tinged observation or experience but is completely accepted. Scores, if not hundreds, of parodies can be found online using the tag “Brokeback” to easily find them, and a flood of rewrites, continuations and porn editions of the Annie Proulx story flows online, prompting this irritated response from her:
There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for “fixing” the story. They certainly don’t get the message that if you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it. Most of these “fix-it” tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men’s children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, “I’m not gay but….”
Proulx’s retort, I think, can also be extended to include the expectations of Hollywood and gay filmgoers. If there are a great number of fans who feel the story is incomplete because it lacks a “happy” ending, what incentive does Hollywood have to release provocative gay-themed films?
For being such a haven for gays, Hollywood is one incredibly closeted place. In the years after Brokeback (2006-2010), not one single film containing a gay main character became a top-twenty hit, and those that made decent box office with promotion—namely, I Now Pronounce You, Chuck & Larry and Bruno—were horrible exercises of either pandering to or insulting gay audiences.
The former, starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James, involves two straight fire fighters pretending to be gay in order to receive health benefits. Given the economic situation today, it’s amazing to think that the central issue of this movie isn’t that these guys can’t get health benefits singly but whether those around them can handle them being gay. It’s as though the plight of fifty million people across the country gets trumped by a few guys in the firehouse who get the willies by big, bad queerdom.
Beyond that implausibility, if there had been any serious consideration to how men actually live, the entire notion that straight men would play gay in movies would be much rarer. In films like Victor/Victoria, The Ritz and A Fish Called Wanda, there were very strong reasons for the game, ranging from abject poverty to the risk of death or incarceration.
In fact, the plot of the Vietnam-era comedy The Gay Deceivers, a movie which can claim to be the original version of Chuck & Larry, was at least based on something that actually was commonplace in real life: pretending to be gay to stay out of the military during a disastrous war. Saving your life or limb is one thing, but ask your straight male pal if he would really pretend to be part of one of most maligned minorities in the world—one that would get you killed by law in many countries- to get the girl or be certain you can visit a doctor.
Bruno tried its best to appeal to open-minded straights with the “edgy” attitude of its lead character, an Austrian fashionista played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Bruno struts, poses, attempts dry humping more than once and generally frightens unsuspecting people with outrageous behavior.
But wouldn’t all the outrageous behavior be startling and humorous enough with a guy who wasn’t such the image of a gay stereotype? Apparently, not to Hollywood studios, who can be counted on to fall back on stereotyping as long as such a character remains the hero of the film, despite Bruno’s obnoxiousness. You want something truly subversive: how about having Bruno be a blue-suited, straight-laced guy who looks like a high-profile stockbroker on Wall Street. Think we’re not there? Think such guys aren’t as kinky? Surprise, surprise.
The major problem I find with these Hollywood releases is this need to have it both ways when dealing with gayness. On the one hand, there is the conscious effort to be respectful, such as when a teenager seeks stability in a crazy household and temporarily finds normalcy within a gay relationship in the movie Running with Scissors. Also, there’s the less than subtle reference that gayness is much closer to an acceptable reality than the cultic business lifestyle portrayed in the underrated (and strange) film The Joneses.
However, in too many instances, Hollywood falls back on the tried-and-true lazy writing that allows for the swishyness of Bruno, the polygamous and anonymous bed hopping of Burlesque and the incredible brownnosing of Gray Matters. The latter film was a mix of an excruciating appeasement to a perceived gay audience (using an elegant dancing opening number and, hey, a wedding with gorgeous gowns!) and gross out comedy when a closely-bonded brother and sister are mistaken for a married couple. Both agree to find separate social lives, but complications ensue when the sister beds the brother’s new bride the night before the wedding. Oh, the silliness!
There were, however, two recent Hollywood releases that had surprisingly sound and fresh approaches to handling gay male characters. First was the unfortunately underrated Taking Woodstock, which told the true story of how Elliot Teichberg, the young head of a Chamber of Commerce, inadvertently changed history with his promotion of what he thought would be a relatively modest rock festival in upstate New York.
The music takes a back seat to this story. Instead, it becomes Elliot’s personal awakening to the vast world awaiting him outside the stifling restrictions of his town and the family’s motel business. Two major scenes are important in the film: a handsome visitor to Woodstock dances freely and wildly with Elliot during an evening party and, at one moment, kisses him. It’s met with a mutually genuine compassionate kiss that’s never discussed afterward and never made into an issue.
Later in the film, Elliot visits the concert, but never gets close to the stage. Instead, he joins a hippie couple dropping acid and having a three-way in their van, the event described by Elliot as the best night of his life. Later, he spends the night in bed with his dance partner. In Taking Woodstock, the gay sex simply happens — without explanations, without melodramatic scenes. That’s a concept alien to Hollywood, certainly at that time, but seemingly today.
Promotions for Taking Woodstock didn’t hint at a homosexual subtext, but with I Love You, Phillip Morris, it became a central theme. That film told the true story of an astounding criminal named Steven Russell (played by Jim Carrey) who lands in jail after coming out of the closet as gay to his wife and taking on an extravagant lifestyle supported by repeated counts of fraud.
Once behind bars, Steven meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (wonderfully played by Ewan McGregor), and the two vow never to separate no matter what circumstances lie ahead. This tender, genuine commitment leads to further daring adventures into fraud. Whereas in Brokeback Mountain, Jack and Ennis have to question the possibility of ever meeting again, I Love You Phillip Morris almost treats the reunion of Steven and Phillip as indisputable. The pairing of the two convicts always feels right, and plays to the heart of this great comedy.
Those marketing this film, however, seemed to have had a tough time. The film’s release date was postponed a few times with different trailers popping up on YouTube announcing the movie. One trailer emphasized Steven’s turn from his straight Christian family life to the gay world. Another covered his life as a criminal before divulging his orientation. The third is a more straightforward biographical approach. Despite having top name actors as leads, the film suffered a disorganized, confusing release. Thankfully, Carrey went gung-ho with the promotion, appearing on “Late Night with David Letterman” while jogging on a treadmill in a video that became viral.
With two cable networks (Logo and Here!), several DVD labels catering to gay viewers (Strand, TLA, First Run Features, Wolfe, Ariztical, Picture This!), and scores of LGBT film festivals, you would think that Hollywood understands the power of the gay audience. The studios’ highly-promoted output, however, fails us.
The solution:
Make your own truly independent films. Not the ones you hope will be picked up by a major Hollywood studio, not ones that look like some sort of resume for a cable series screaming, “Please, hire me!” Go the route of filmmakers like Todd Verow or Bruce La Bruce, who created films that challenged even LGBT communities.
Since Hollywood is probably not going to back your films anyway and is already losing traditional distribution methods to file sharing, consider alternate ways such as torrents or live presentations, as Kevin Smith did recently promoting Red State.
Relying on Hollywood to perhaps discover you and take you under its wing keeps your stories and new ideas from your audience. Once it does that, the studios will fall back on the tried and true methods of using stereotypes and clichés to portray us. And I, for one, don’t need a sequel to Bruno.
[1] Although it lost Best Picture to one of the worst movies in recent years.
Lew Ojeda is the co-founder of The Underground Multiplex and has produced features, shorts and live performances in Chicago. He’s previously been responsible for helping create the first gay-themed news & entertainment program in Rochester, NY and wrote reviews for gaysploitation movies when you thought John Waters had the only good shit out there. He can’t coordinate your clothes or style your hair, but he knows plenty about movies that will fuck with your head in the best way possible
