Posted on 03/01/2006 3:15:51 PM PST by SirLinksalot
Mar 01 5:27 AM US/Eastern
The awards success of a posse of Oscar hopefuls led by frontrunner "Brokeback Mountain" has made gay okay in Hollywood, where once-skittish filmmakers are embracing same-sex love.
In what has been billed Oscar's "year of the queer," the romancing cowboys of "Brokeback" are joined by "Capote," the story of gay US author Truman Capote, and "Transamerica," the moving tale of a transsexual in the process of becoming a woman, starring Felicity Huffman.
And as this year's pink contenders for Sunday's Academy Awards have been warmly embraced by both awards show juries and audiences, at least two more gay-related films are already in the works.
"Infamous," also about Capote, stars Gwyneth Paltrow and James Bond star Daniel Craig and is due for release this year, while a top producer last month bought the rights to Peter Lefcourt's novel "The Dreyfus Affair," about a major league baseball player who falls in love with his second baseman.
"Before 'Brokeback,' Hollywood wouldn't touch gay love stories, no-one wanted to spend the money or weather the criticism," said author Patricia Nell Warren who published "The Front Runner," a novel about two gay track athletes, in 1974, and followed it with a story about gay cowboys two years later.
"A number of projects have been out there for some time but everyone was too scared to touch them. Now Hollywood is seeing that you can make money with a film about gay people, and it's opening the door to other projects," she told AFP.
In addition to the rash of gay-themed films, country legend Willie Nelson has issued a single about gay cowboys called "Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)."
And more than 30 years after "Frontrunner" shocked US readers unwilling to believe that athletes could be gay, Warren says she is seeing renewed interest in her book, as well as speculation of a movie version with Paul Newman.
"My book was back on the Amazon best-seller list shortly after 'Brokeback,'" she said.
"Brokeback's" popularity is so widespread that the catchphrase uttered by cowboy Jack Twist to his secret lover of 20 years, "I wish I knew how to quit you!," is being bandied about in offices and bar-rooms across America.
The film leads the Oscars posse with eight nods including best picture, best director for Ang Lee and best actor for Heath Ledger, while Capote has five, including best picture and best actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
"Transamerica" scored two nods including best actress for Huffman, while all three low-budget movies, while not in blockbuster-style release, have been generally well received by audiences.
But only 24 years ago, director Arthur Hiller's drama "Making Love," about a married doctor who discovers he is bisexual, caused movie-goers to leave theatres when the lead character kissed another man in 1982.
And while films such as the 1993 AIDS tale "Philadelphia" with Tom Hanks and 1999's "Boys Don't Cry" touched on gay issues, they never tackled the love stories and were never nominated for a best picture Oscar.
Now that Hollywood has finally opened its arms to gay stories it will continue pursuing them, awards expert Tom O'Neil predicted.
"Gay people still suffer discrimination because of who they are and Hollywood now feels its important to keep fighting that battle, especially with a conservative administration in power in Washington," he told AFP.
Gay groups applauded the recognition that the crop of gay-related movies has given the homosexual community on screen, saying Hollywood is finally catching up with reality.
But Larry Gross, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications, said that a few films with gay characters did not mean Hollywood was ready to come out of the closet.
He pointed out that all the actors playing the gay or transgender characters in "Brokeback," "Capote" and "Transamerica" were avowedly straight, while there are few, if any, A-list Hollywood stars who are openly homosexual.
He pointed out that the explosion of quality black roles in Hollywood that many industry observers predicted when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the best actress and actor Oscars in 2002 has not materialised.
"Gay stories are making money this year, but I'm not sure Hollywood's really ready for widespread gay content in films yet," he said.
I thought it was pretty tedious.
The fates of Sodom and Gemorrah will eventually be repeated. LA and SF will go down.
Oh, now, that is just plain wrong! LOL
Hollywood has announced that due to the success of "Brokeback Mountain", they would re-issue and re-name several oldies. They are:
HIGH NOONER
JEREMIAH'S JOHNSON
THE PLEASURE OF THE SIERRA, PADRE
THE MAN WHO SHOT ALL OVER LIBERTY VALANCE
HOW THE WEST WAS HUNG
THE WILD BRUNCH
HE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON
THE LEGEND OF THE LONG RANGER
DOC'S HOLIDAY WITH BILLY THE KID
LONESOME DOUG
DESTRY RIDES AGAIN... AND AGAIN
A FISTFUL OF NED
HI, PLAINS DRIFTER!
QUICKLY DOWN UNDER
MOUNTIN' RANGE
BAREBACK MOUNTING
BONE-NANZA
HOMO ON THE RANGE
OKLAHOMO
LITTLE BATHHOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE
PRANCES WITH WOLVES
Poor little Oscar is gonna be in for a big surprise when he finds out it ain't the mantle where he's about to be firmly placed.
Jack Twist? That's his name?!? Oh my....
in other words nothing has changed.
Thanks. I suspected I wasn't missing much. A lot of fancy computer generated images...
Done.
A union made in heaven--- "Brokefast At Tiffany's"?
"bummer"
Let Hollywood keep making "gay" movies. They will quit after they lose enough millions of dollars.
B.S., I grew up in North Hollywood. Folks would act as if they were fags so as to get work in hollywierd.
Or else they'd have sex with anyone or anything to get work
in movies or t.v. land.
....LA and SF will go down.
Uh, you might want to think about re-phrasing that....
LOL--Brokeback threads are always funny.
I think that the sequel is going to be called "The Canyon Ranchers" but currently there are some copyright issues with that name.
You always know they get it in the end.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.