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.
Like 4bbldowndraft said Sin City is a violent, graphic and filled with babes comic book movie. It has a touch of noir to it. I liked it, but some other people I know didn't, even though they like violent big action type movies.
Blazing Saddle Sores
I did not see this movie and don't intend to, but I'm curious about where the saddle horn was located in this movie. Anyone who saw the movie notice?
Always before, homosexuality was a subtext in many movie plots, and was revealed as a ghastly thing that forced the characters to do what they did, as they had no control over their urges and instinctive responses.
Now, the homosexuality is not so ghastly, and in fact is being exalted as the way to becoming a "finer" human being.
Some of these portrayals are becoming so "refined", the actors and the writers who created the scene have almost exited from the human race.
Boy, you sound pretty excited about seeing the sequels....and I thought I knew you, Leatherneck! :P
I don't have any particular distaste for violence and/or sex on the screen, but there has to be something there in terms of people as well. Violence, sex and special effects can't carry a movie...
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid lead the Hole in the Wall Gang.
Oh, man this puts a whole new spin on "Who's on first"?
I cant think of anything that will make them go broke faster.
Lead on McDuff. Jump off that cliff.
Another one? I should have been a butt doctor.
You know, I have to confess, I've never seen it.
Hollywoods been as queer as a six dollar bill since the days of Rock Hudson.
The official start of open Homosexuality in the pop culture were the 1969 Stonewall riots. Inspired by the death of Judy Garland actually. That film came out right after.
DRIVING IT IN MR. DAISY.....
Holy crap! Look how young he looks!
A fist fight breaks out among the crowd of counter-demonstrators during a neo-Nazi rally in Orlando, Fla. on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006. Fist-fights broke out and police made more than a dozen arrests at the rally and march through a predominantly black neighborhood. Most of the arrests came after fights between marchers and angry counter-demonstrators, who were upset with the group's anti-minority message. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
I don't remember when I've laughed any harder or longer at something I read on the computer. Thank you for that.
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