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amezriFirst, I thought they were saying Nightcrawler was gay because I can't read apparently. And I thought that can't possibly be, 'cause that, as I said to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iambliss it's the most un-flamey I've seen Alan (to which she replied "And he's pretty darn flamey!")
Then I realized they were saying the whole movie has gay subtext. Oh. Uh. Hm. *shrug* Anyway, here's the article. Typos are likely mine.
----
Pop culture bursts with gay characters
by Susan Wloszczyna (USA Today)
originally printed in the Times Union, Albany, NY. Tuesday, June 3, 2003.
If you recently caught a movie at the multiplex, clicked on the TV remote or saw a Broadway show, you might have noticed the world looks a lot more gay lately.
Suddenly, with little fanfare or fuss, mainstream entertainment has fallen head over heels for gays and lesbians, and the occasional transgender or bisexual counterpart, with an embrace that goes beyond the passing flirtations of the past or special notice during June, gay-pride month.
A subject long explored and exploited by niche venues such as independent fils, pay cable and off-Broadway, the gay infatuation started to grow more serious about a decade ago. Before the box-office novelty wore off, major Hollywood studios milked homosexuality for obvious laughs and mawkish tears in "The Birdcage," "Philadelphia" and "In & Out." The AIDS-themed stage drama "Angels in America" won a Pulitzer and Ellen DeGeneres came out of her sitcom closet.
That was then.
This, however, is now: Barbara Walters experimentally locks lips with Julianne Moore, emulating her Oscar-nominated role as a sexually confused '50s homemaker in "The Hours." "American Idol" host Ryan seacrest and judge Simon Cowell josh each other with blatant gay banter. Willow the witch (Alyson Hannigan) and her female companion didn't settle for the usual peck on the lips on the third-to-last episode of UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
That's just prime-time TV in the past couple of months.
The most slyly subversive gay statement now playing, though, is found in the action movie blockbuster, "X2: X-Men United."
Bobby, the teen known as Iceman, is forced to reveal to his parents that he is, yes, a mutant. His concerned mother;s reply: "Have you tried... not being a mutant?"
Says "X2's" gay director Bryan Singer, "It's sort of a coming-out scene that goes terribly wrong. It was an opportunity to have real fun with the situation. It's (also) a sensitive moment."
Alan Cumming, who plays Nightcrawler, was pleasantly surprised to find such a moment in a commercial enterprise.
"I wouldn't expect a film of this sort of scale to have any message," says the actor, who is frank about his own bisexuality. "They are so afraid of upsetting people that they actually patronize the audiance. But cable should be a lesson that people do seek out things with more adult themes."
Gay entertainment is no longer a ponderous checkoff list of historical landmarks that elicit protests and piety. It also can be pure, simple fun -- like Bravo's new dating show, "Boy Meets Boy," starting in July. The trick: Some of the contestants are straight ringers."
"There's been an enormous change if you compare what's out there with what was out there 15 years ago," observes gay playwright and screenwriter Paul Rudnick ("In & Out," "Jeffrey"). "Back then, we had no visible gay characters or the ones we did have were used only in angsty docudrama situations to illustrate their sad, lonely lives. Now we are in the era of 'Will & Grace,' and that's been a great leap. To be successful, a movie or show has to appeal to general consumers and everyone wants to watch 'Will & Grace.' I mean, Madonna didn't turn up on 'Everybody Loves Raymond.'"
The attitude shift is a natural progression, says Scott Seomin, entertainment watchdog and spokesman for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
"As more and more people come out in this country, the more straight people know a co-worker, a friend or a family member who is gay," Seomin says. "They are going to learn that the gay community is just as human as the straight world. They want to learn more about their lives."
Plus, today's youth -- prime target for advertisers, who are also catering more to well-off and well-educated gay consumers -- tend to be more open-minded if not blase about such matters.
So how "in" is gay? Let us "out" the ways:
At the movies. In "Bend it Like Beckham," the female soccer aces are presumed to be lesbians and a male friend is secretly gay. One of the biggest laughs that blows through "A Mighty Wind" involves a sex change. Females fondle suggestively in "Anger Managment" while Jack Nicholson displays homoerotic tendencies (including intimate knowledge of show tunes). Ewan McGregor and David Hyde Pierce are mistaken for gay blades in "Down With Love," and a male arms smuggler develops a fetish for Albert Brooks' foot doc in "The In-Laws."
Coming soon: Jennifer Lopez, a lesbian assassin who tantalizes real-life flame Ben Affleck in "Gigli" (aug. 1), is the latest straight sex symbol to swing both ways on screen. Famke Janssen and Kelly Preston tangle as a twosome in "Eulogy" (Oct. 17). Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz are caught in a triangle with a man and reportedly smooch in "Head in the Clouds."
Rampantly hetero Colin Farrell co-stars in the gay-themed "A Home at the End of the World" and goes bisexual in Oliver Stone's epic bio of conqueror Alexander the Great. Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan hopes to add snap to his sagging career by playing a straight man who feigns gayness for tax-cut purposes in the Aussie comedy "Strange Bedfellows." Nia Vardalos follows up "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" by posing as a dinner-theater drag queen opposite Toni Collette in "Connie and Carla."
Even Bruiser, the Chihuahua fashonista, comes out of the soggy closet in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde" (July 2).
On TV. The popularity of 'Will & Grace," about a straight woman and a gay man who are best friends, is long established. Next season, though, ABC goes a step beyond with its new culture-clash sitcom, tentatively titled "It's All Relative." The setup: A woman raised by two liberal gay men is engaged to the son of Irish Catholic conseratives who run a bar.
Executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan say it was network executiveswho felt the times was right for a sitcom with gay parents.
"This is the first time we've seen gay parenting on network TV with a committed couple," says Zadan of the series written by to "Frasier" alums. "If you look at other shows, the men are barely dating. These two guys have spent a long time raising a child." The final shot in the pilot says it all: A split screen with both sets of parents snuggling in their shared beds.
There are still milestones to be met, but they're noted with toned-down hoopla. A possibility for mid-season on ABC is "Mr. and Mr. Nash," It would be the first time on TV where gay people would be in a show and it wouldn't be about them being gay."
On Broadway. Consider the two front-runners in the race for best musical and play when the Tonys are announced on Sunday. "Take Me Out" concerns the repercussions when a major-league player announces he is gay -- including a long, lingering nude shower-room scene.
The there's "Hairspray," which first came to life in 1988 as a no-star comedy by the guru of garbage cinema, John Waters, who always has been out -- way, way out. Now the stage musical about a chubby '60s teen who yearns to integrate a TV dance show and her equally big mamma (Harvey Fierstein in drag), is positively populist as it tops the Tony nomination list with 13.
But even with tuneful bios based on gay music men Peter Allen ("The Boy From Oz" with Hugh Jackman) and Boy George ("Taboo") in the wings, Fierstein is less potimistic about the state of the gay entertainment nation.
"We openly gay writers write our own stories and openly gay directors direct. But when it comes to portraying ourselves, we still seek heterosexuals to do it," says Fierstein. The real acceptance test, Seomin suggests, "will be when Vin Diesel comes out of the closet after making a huge film that opens at No. 1. Let's see how that career does."
Inset 1: Willow & Kennedy: On "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Willow the witch (Alyson Hannigan, left) and Iyari Limon were more than just close friends.
Inset 2: Nightcrawler: Alan Cumming, an openly bisexual actor, plays Nightcrawler in "X2: X-Men United," which has a gay subtext. He also is the co-star of "Mr. and Mr. Nash," a show about gay interior decorators who solve murders that's vying for a time slot on ABC.
Inset 3: Daniel Sunjata: "Take Me Out," a Broadway play about a gay baseball player (Daniel Sujata), is a favorite at this weekend's Tony Awards.
----------
Things about this article that annoy me:
"Willow the witch." Why do you have to refer to her as "Willow the witch"? I think Willow is more than sufficient. The fact that she is a witch has nothing at all to do with her being gay. It has nothing to do with anything. That's like if I went around calling people "Sam the Christian," or "Jon the Jew." Stop it. It sounds dumb.
"X2" with the gay subtext. I'm one of the first few people to spot gay subtext, really I am. I see the whole Eric/Charles thing. I'll buy Bobby/John (in X-Men anyway, not so much X2). But to say the entire film is gay subtext? I dunno. I always saw it as a metaphore for people who are different in any way. Being the only Chinese kid in both my elementary school and high school, that was what spoke out to me. Okay, so I don't look like everyone else. Big deal. Also, you point out "gay director" Bryan Singer and flamey Alan Cumming, but where's the Ian love, huh? If it were up to him, everyone in "X2" would probably have been flouncing all over the place. Now that would be something to see.
The puns. "Let us 'out' the ways," "blows through "A Mighty Wind..." Please. Stop. They hurt my brain.
I'm thinking about writing a letter, but I may not care enough.
iambliss it's the most un-flamey I've seen Alan (to which she replied "And he's pretty darn flamey!")Then I realized they were saying the whole movie has gay subtext. Oh. Uh. Hm. *shrug* Anyway, here's the article. Typos are likely mine.
----
Pop culture bursts with gay characters
by Susan Wloszczyna (USA Today)
originally printed in the Times Union, Albany, NY. Tuesday, June 3, 2003.
If you recently caught a movie at the multiplex, clicked on the TV remote or saw a Broadway show, you might have noticed the world looks a lot more gay lately.
Suddenly, with little fanfare or fuss, mainstream entertainment has fallen head over heels for gays and lesbians, and the occasional transgender or bisexual counterpart, with an embrace that goes beyond the passing flirtations of the past or special notice during June, gay-pride month.
A subject long explored and exploited by niche venues such as independent fils, pay cable and off-Broadway, the gay infatuation started to grow more serious about a decade ago. Before the box-office novelty wore off, major Hollywood studios milked homosexuality for obvious laughs and mawkish tears in "The Birdcage," "Philadelphia" and "In & Out." The AIDS-themed stage drama "Angels in America" won a Pulitzer and Ellen DeGeneres came out of her sitcom closet.
That was then.
This, however, is now: Barbara Walters experimentally locks lips with Julianne Moore, emulating her Oscar-nominated role as a sexually confused '50s homemaker in "The Hours." "American Idol" host Ryan seacrest and judge Simon Cowell josh each other with blatant gay banter. Willow the witch (Alyson Hannigan) and her female companion didn't settle for the usual peck on the lips on the third-to-last episode of UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
That's just prime-time TV in the past couple of months.
The most slyly subversive gay statement now playing, though, is found in the action movie blockbuster, "X2: X-Men United."
Bobby, the teen known as Iceman, is forced to reveal to his parents that he is, yes, a mutant. His concerned mother;s reply: "Have you tried... not being a mutant?"
Says "X2's" gay director Bryan Singer, "It's sort of a coming-out scene that goes terribly wrong. It was an opportunity to have real fun with the situation. It's (also) a sensitive moment."
Alan Cumming, who plays Nightcrawler, was pleasantly surprised to find such a moment in a commercial enterprise.
"I wouldn't expect a film of this sort of scale to have any message," says the actor, who is frank about his own bisexuality. "They are so afraid of upsetting people that they actually patronize the audiance. But cable should be a lesson that people do seek out things with more adult themes."
Gay entertainment is no longer a ponderous checkoff list of historical landmarks that elicit protests and piety. It also can be pure, simple fun -- like Bravo's new dating show, "Boy Meets Boy," starting in July. The trick: Some of the contestants are straight ringers."
"There's been an enormous change if you compare what's out there with what was out there 15 years ago," observes gay playwright and screenwriter Paul Rudnick ("In & Out," "Jeffrey"). "Back then, we had no visible gay characters or the ones we did have were used only in angsty docudrama situations to illustrate their sad, lonely lives. Now we are in the era of 'Will & Grace,' and that's been a great leap. To be successful, a movie or show has to appeal to general consumers and everyone wants to watch 'Will & Grace.' I mean, Madonna didn't turn up on 'Everybody Loves Raymond.'"
The attitude shift is a natural progression, says Scott Seomin, entertainment watchdog and spokesman for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
"As more and more people come out in this country, the more straight people know a co-worker, a friend or a family member who is gay," Seomin says. "They are going to learn that the gay community is just as human as the straight world. They want to learn more about their lives."
Plus, today's youth -- prime target for advertisers, who are also catering more to well-off and well-educated gay consumers -- tend to be more open-minded if not blase about such matters.
So how "in" is gay? Let us "out" the ways:
At the movies. In "Bend it Like Beckham," the female soccer aces are presumed to be lesbians and a male friend is secretly gay. One of the biggest laughs that blows through "A Mighty Wind" involves a sex change. Females fondle suggestively in "Anger Managment" while Jack Nicholson displays homoerotic tendencies (including intimate knowledge of show tunes). Ewan McGregor and David Hyde Pierce are mistaken for gay blades in "Down With Love," and a male arms smuggler develops a fetish for Albert Brooks' foot doc in "The In-Laws."
Coming soon: Jennifer Lopez, a lesbian assassin who tantalizes real-life flame Ben Affleck in "Gigli" (aug. 1), is the latest straight sex symbol to swing both ways on screen. Famke Janssen and Kelly Preston tangle as a twosome in "Eulogy" (Oct. 17). Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz are caught in a triangle with a man and reportedly smooch in "Head in the Clouds."
Rampantly hetero Colin Farrell co-stars in the gay-themed "A Home at the End of the World" and goes bisexual in Oliver Stone's epic bio of conqueror Alexander the Great. Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan hopes to add snap to his sagging career by playing a straight man who feigns gayness for tax-cut purposes in the Aussie comedy "Strange Bedfellows." Nia Vardalos follows up "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" by posing as a dinner-theater drag queen opposite Toni Collette in "Connie and Carla."
Even Bruiser, the Chihuahua fashonista, comes out of the soggy closet in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde" (July 2).
On TV. The popularity of 'Will & Grace," about a straight woman and a gay man who are best friends, is long established. Next season, though, ABC goes a step beyond with its new culture-clash sitcom, tentatively titled "It's All Relative." The setup: A woman raised by two liberal gay men is engaged to the son of Irish Catholic conseratives who run a bar.
Executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan say it was network executiveswho felt the times was right for a sitcom with gay parents.
"This is the first time we've seen gay parenting on network TV with a committed couple," says Zadan of the series written by to "Frasier" alums. "If you look at other shows, the men are barely dating. These two guys have spent a long time raising a child." The final shot in the pilot says it all: A split screen with both sets of parents snuggling in their shared beds.
There are still milestones to be met, but they're noted with toned-down hoopla. A possibility for mid-season on ABC is "Mr. and Mr. Nash," It would be the first time on TV where gay people would be in a show and it wouldn't be about them being gay."
On Broadway. Consider the two front-runners in the race for best musical and play when the Tonys are announced on Sunday. "Take Me Out" concerns the repercussions when a major-league player announces he is gay -- including a long, lingering nude shower-room scene.
The there's "Hairspray," which first came to life in 1988 as a no-star comedy by the guru of garbage cinema, John Waters, who always has been out -- way, way out. Now the stage musical about a chubby '60s teen who yearns to integrate a TV dance show and her equally big mamma (Harvey Fierstein in drag), is positively populist as it tops the Tony nomination list with 13.
But even with tuneful bios based on gay music men Peter Allen ("The Boy From Oz" with Hugh Jackman) and Boy George ("Taboo") in the wings, Fierstein is less potimistic about the state of the gay entertainment nation.
"We openly gay writers write our own stories and openly gay directors direct. But when it comes to portraying ourselves, we still seek heterosexuals to do it," says Fierstein. The real acceptance test, Seomin suggests, "will be when Vin Diesel comes out of the closet after making a huge film that opens at No. 1. Let's see how that career does."
Inset 1: Willow & Kennedy: On "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Willow the witch (Alyson Hannigan, left) and Iyari Limon were more than just close friends.
Inset 2: Nightcrawler: Alan Cumming, an openly bisexual actor, plays Nightcrawler in "X2: X-Men United," which has a gay subtext. He also is the co-star of "Mr. and Mr. Nash," a show about gay interior decorators who solve murders that's vying for a time slot on ABC.
Inset 3: Daniel Sunjata: "Take Me Out," a Broadway play about a gay baseball player (Daniel Sujata), is a favorite at this weekend's Tony Awards.
----------
Things about this article that annoy me:
"Willow the witch." Why do you have to refer to her as "Willow the witch"? I think Willow is more than sufficient. The fact that she is a witch has nothing at all to do with her being gay. It has nothing to do with anything. That's like if I went around calling people "Sam the Christian," or "Jon the Jew." Stop it. It sounds dumb.
"X2" with the gay subtext. I'm one of the first few people to spot gay subtext, really I am. I see the whole Eric/Charles thing. I'll buy Bobby/John (in X-Men anyway, not so much X2). But to say the entire film is gay subtext? I dunno. I always saw it as a metaphore for people who are different in any way. Being the only Chinese kid in both my elementary school and high school, that was what spoke out to me. Okay, so I don't look like everyone else. Big deal. Also, you point out "gay director" Bryan Singer and flamey Alan Cumming, but where's the Ian love, huh? If it were up to him, everyone in "X2" would probably have been flouncing all over the place. Now that would be something to see.
The puns. "Let us 'out' the ways," "blows through "A Mighty Wind..." Please. Stop. They hurt my brain.
I'm thinking about writing a letter, but I may not care enough.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-03 10:26 pm (UTC)Will & Grace rox0rs btw :o)
Re:
Date: 2003-06-04 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-04 05:10 pm (UTC)lmao, right on!
no subject
Date: 2003-06-03 10:59 pm (UTC)Since it was written by a USA Today staff writer, I am definately writing a nasty letter in response. The whole thing pissed me off. *growls*
Thanks for posting it though :)
Re:
Date: 2003-06-04 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-04 04:34 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-04 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-04 04:51 am (UTC)I'm glad they have more gays in movies so now maybe -most- (i dont mean all straight people are homophobic) people ( <-- straight people) would stop being assholes and learn that gay people arent "bad" or whatever the hell they think abot us. It seemed to me like the article was saying, "PARENTS! Watch out! Don't let your child view the media or he/she might turn gay!".
:: sigh ::
-_-;;
That's just my opinion.
Re:
Date: 2003-06-04 07:20 am (UTC)I wonder if gay people get pissed off at all the hetero stuff that they have to constantly see. 'Cause I know I'm sick of it...
no subject
Date: 2003-06-04 06:23 am (UTC)Märrie
*snork*
Date: 2003-06-04 07:32 am (UTC)Cause that isn't a stereotype.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-04 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-09 07:36 pm (UTC)Like someone said, there have always been gay people. They're just more open about it now.