Sex meant nothing to him. All he wanted was meat.
June 22, 2010 8:04 AM   Subscribe

 
From the "had not gone unnoticed" link: Now I am not a homophobe in any way shape or form. In fact, there was a gay kid in my high school who I even contemplated being friends with at one point...

Least convincing "some of my best friends are $X" ever.
posted by 256 at 8:07 AM on June 22, 2010 [38 favorites]


I once took a science fiction film class where we went over the enormous (heh) amount of phallic imagery in 1950s science fiction films (especially the 3D ones.) One of the students tried to make the argument that as the imagery was unintentional, we shouldn't be discussing it. This wasn't from any sort of philosophic stance -- the kid had just never taken any sort of comprehending-the-unintentional-subtext courses and thought we were beanplating what was a simply romp in the desert with giant bugs. Okay, we may have been, but hey, film class.

Anyway, I really wish I remembered who that was because this would've blown his mind.
posted by griphus at 8:09 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Gawd, couldn't even get through that "fans" link. Just fucking slathered in stupid. But now I kinda want to see NoES2 again, because I totally missed that subtext the last time I saw it.
posted by klangklangston at 8:19 AM on June 22, 2010


Wow, this is something I always just took as a given.
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


Strangely I hadn't noticed it either; not as blatantly as my own daughter who pronounced the movie "Gayer than Elton" in not so many words after watching it. I had to admit she was correct; really Gay.

However, I bet if you pick at them enough, a great deal of movies could look gay with the correct edits and suggestion from talking heads leading into and out of clips.

The Birdcage for example or Cabaret.
posted by NiteMayr at 8:22 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Not nearly as gay as Seed of Chucky.
posted by JoanArkham at 8:28 AM on June 22, 2010


Holy crap - Clu Gulager!
posted by spilon at 8:35 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


My vote usually goes to The Brotherhood, a film with gay subtext so thick that the nominally heterosexual story just kind of slides off it, revealing itself in all its buff glory to all but the most clueless.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:35 AM on June 22, 2010


Sadly, it's not very good, unless a cast entirely made up of high cheekbones, pouty lips, and abs is your primary viewing criteria.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:40 AM on June 22, 2010


And if we're talking about homosexuality in genre things, the opposite of subtext would be this season's True Blood which has apparently decided to be softcore gay porn theater.


not that I'm complaining mind you.


the amount of male nudity on display is enough to give me body image issues. Are the producers working with my gym?
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 AM on June 22, 2010 [8 favorites]


Favorite really, really gay horror movie: Leeches, which focuses on the travails of an always almost fully nude guys swim team to avoid their girlfriends, shower together, and also there are some mutant leeches in the pool. After that, I think it'd be In My Sleep, and indie flick that just came out about a sleepwalker who seems to be resolving his homoerotic tension with his best friend by killing his best friend's girlfriend.
posted by klangklangston at 8:43 AM on June 22, 2010


From GenjiandProust's link "In high school, Christopher 'Chris' Chandler was almost too good to be true: his gorgeous, perfectly trained body earned him a place in the Allstate swim-team and his scholarship for the small US college Drake, yet he never fell for pride or the temptation of parties and groupies, remaining modest and considerate. As a freshman, he takes his nerdy roomy Dan under his wing and even grants his request to go to a frat party -"

This is also how other, slightly different movies start. And then there is a pizza boy, a bossy coach, and insatiable hitchhikers.
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 AM on June 22, 2010 [8 favorites]


That is a fantastic video. One of these days I'm going to have to revisit the series. I didn't see a single Disney movie growing up because all I ever wanted to watch were horror films, but as a result, it's been 20+ years since I've seen most of the really great 80s slasher movies.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:47 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Wow, this is something I always just took as a given.

Same here.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:52 AM on June 22, 2010


klangklangston: "Favorite really, really gay horror movie: Leeches, which focuses on the travails of an always almost fully nude guys swim team to avoid their girlfriends, shower together, and also there are some mutant leeches in the pool."

Ha! I was trying to remember that title. I saw it late at night on cable a while back, and it was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw this thread.
posted by brundlefly at 8:53 AM on June 22, 2010


David Decoteau's "Boyz", a YouTube compilation for the unwary.
posted by griphus at 9:01 AM on June 22, 2010


As franchises go, the Nightmare on Elm Streets were the most poorly-managed of the bunch. The concept is neat, but that's it; Robert Englund held the series together by sheer force of will as the movies ping-ponged from one screenwriter to another and in some very, very weird directions. Not even Skipp & Spector could save it. I never paid much attention to the second one because it was, to be fair, terrible. I don't think it had subtext so much as the collection of essentially random film elements thrown together happened to cluster, by accident, around something which could be read that way. I refuse to grant that film anything as lofty as intention.

Now, The Brotherhood, well, if you had any doubts, just go near the sequels. If you want horror that's out and proud, Hellbent ain't too bad.
posted by adipocere at 9:03 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've only seen it once in a home video triple bill of the first three movies and I just remember it as the worst movie of the three. But back then Freddie Mercury was just a bit flamboyant.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:11 AM on June 22, 2010


""We've always pussy-footed around this," says the screenwriter, David Chaskin, finally admitting that his script was gay from the beginning. "It was supposed to be subtext. ... I thought about guys being unsure of their sexuality, and I thought, 'Well, that's pretty scary.' ... I kind of think it was this subliminal thing going on in [the director] Jack's mind where he didn't realize it, but everything he did amplified it." "

Well that pretty much says yes, it is Nightmare on Homo Street, but who knows.
posted by The Whelk at 9:15 AM on June 22, 2010


It's Fright Night all the way. The gay subtext in that was, and I understand it, intentional and quite interesting.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:16 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


It has been several years since I have seen the film and perhaps was not keen enough to pick up on all the gay-ness back in the day, but there's gotta be a reason why it's my least favorite in the franchise, right?

That blogger is creepier than Freddy Kruger.

On the other hand, the documentary clip reminded me of Mark Kermode saying every horror actor, writer or director he'd ever met turned out to be a very nice person, regardless of how gross or terrifying the movies they made. Those people were just a bunch of sweethearts.

But now that subtext seems to have made its initial advance, are there any good horror films around that manage to treat gay characters as just, y'know, characters, and being gay as normal? Has homosexuality made it from subtext to text?
posted by Kit W at 9:23 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh god, the Vampire King and his boy are totally the couple from Fright Night - someone alert Jacob at Television Without Pity!
posted by The Whelk at 9:25 AM on June 22, 2010


Kit W, well good horror films are usually ALL ABOUT subtext so I think that would kind of miss the point, but off the top of my head - no.
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 AM on June 22, 2010


Astro Zombie: "It's Fright Night all the way. The gay subtext in that was, and I understand it, intentional and quite interesting."

I wonder how much of that will be retained for the remake.
posted by brundlefly at 9:28 AM on June 22, 2010


Blast, they are remaking Fright Night? That just sounds like a really terrible idea.
posted by Mister_A at 9:30 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Any thoughts on the original Karate Kid?
posted by anniecat at 9:30 AM on June 22, 2010


>NiteMayr: The Birdcage for example or Cabaret.

I see what you did there.
posted by chavenet at 9:32 AM on June 22, 2010


Romero has a lesbian soldier in Survival of the Dead.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:33 AM on June 22, 2010


Kit W, well good horror films are usually ALL ABOUT subtext so I think that would kind of miss the point, but off the top of my head - no.

Perhaps, but you can have a horror film in which there are gay people and the subtext is about something else, no? Or have sexuality be in the subtext but have the gay characters be out; after all, there's more to sex than who you wanna do, and it should be perfectly possible to have an out gay character dealing with a sexual subtext, just like you can have an out straight character dealing with a sexual subtext.

The point I was making was that as homosexuality gets less taboo, it's less likely to hang around in the subtextual shadows; taboo is what subtext is made of, and if something goes mainstream you get yourself a new subtext until it goes so mainstream that you can start examining its dark underbelly. I was wondering if horror movies had managed to get their attitude to homosexuality to that point. Based on what I've seen I'd guess that no, homosexuality per se might be less of a monster-under-the-bed, but they don't seem to have progressed to having gay characters be part of a regular cast, or, which might be even more interesting, finding sexual taboos to haunt their gay characters that go beyond the simple fact of being gay.

(To be fair, the movie itself looked like it was workin' those other taboos like rape and sadomasochism pretty hard, so give it some credit. I just think some good stuff might come out of horror where a gay character deals with abnormality in a world where it's normal to be gay.)
posted by Kit W at 9:36 AM on June 22, 2010


Oh, Fright Night, yeah, that was subtext done right. It's ripe for a Top Gun/"Go the Gay Way" treatment. That whole film was just about perfect and it will be high praise for any remake to be half as good as the original. Just take the original film and put it out again. No need to even touch up the special effects.

Also, Jerry Dandridge is a very, very sharp dresser. Damn.
posted by adipocere at 9:45 AM on June 22, 2010


It was the 80's.
Everyone was gay.
Especially gay people.
They were the gayest of all.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 9:58 AM on June 22, 2010 [4 favorites]


A really well done recent horror movie that gets often pegged as 'Gay Interest' is 'Cthulhu'.. I mean, I can see WHY it's labeled as such, since the main character is gay; however, what I liked about the film was the fact that they don't make it ABOUT being gay. It's just accepted as a given that that's what it is, he goes on dates with guys, it's just like a mainstream movie with a male lead and female romance interest... except it's a male romance interest. It's just so... normalized, it was kind of heartening.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:02 AM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


Any thoughts on the original Karate Kid?

Funny you ask.

My girlfriend and I were 80s kids and we watched that a few months ago for the first time in years. We both remarked about how it could pretty easily be read as a non-tragic Boys Dont Cry (without the 3rd act and the murder and all that) story of triumph with a tomboy lesbian due to Ralph Macchio's performance/look/persona.

The Kobra Kai's insulting him as "Danielle" made it even more real.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:06 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ha! I know Mark Patton from my NY days. He never spoke of this movie and I never asked.
Seriously, a sweet, sweet person but we sort of fell out of each other's orbit and I hadn't seen or heard from him since 1987. Thanks for posting this.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:17 AM on June 22, 2010


Mister_A: "Blast, they are remaking Fright Night? That just sounds like a really terrible idea."

With David Tennant in the Roddy McDowall role.
posted by brundlefly at 10:59 AM on June 22, 2010




Mister_A: "Blast, they are remaking Fright Night? That just sounds like a really terrible idea."

With David Tennant in the Roddy McDowall role.




From IMDB - Fright Night 2011.

Colin Farrell ... Jerry Dandrige

Christopher Mintz-Plasse ... Evil Ed

Anton Yelchin ... Charley Brewster

David Tennant ... Peter Vincent

Toni Collette ... Judy Brewster

Asim Ahmad ... Detective Sabian

Make of that ...what you will.
posted by The Whelk at 11:03 AM on June 22, 2010


A really well done recent horror movie that gets often pegged as 'Gay Interest' is 'Cthulhu' ... posted by FatherDagon

eponyblasphemous!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:12 AM on June 22, 2010


The youtube clip got deleted. Does anyone know of another place to watch it?
posted by ts;dr at 11:15 AM on June 22, 2010


I don't think anyone can match Evil Ed from Fright Night for enthusiastically repressed homoeroticism.

"He got me, Charley! He bit me! You know what you're gonna have to do now, don't you? Kill me. Kill me, Charley... before I turn into a vampire, and... GIVE YOU A HICKEY!"

Of course, Stephen Geoffreys went on to do gay porn, thereby turning subtext retroactively into text.

I think.
posted by MrVisible at 11:21 AM on June 22, 2010


Oh christ I just read that the Fright Night remake is going to be in 3D.

I'll get the matches and gasoline, who's driving to hollywood?
posted by cloax at 11:25 AM on June 22, 2010


Of course it's going to be in 3D. It's only newsworthy when a modern genre film isn't in 3D.
posted by brundlefly at 11:41 AM on June 22, 2010


someone alert Jacob at Television Without Pity!

Holy Christ, no. There's only so much masturbatory "Look how NICE I'm writing!" pretentious drivel about Gnosticism and grace I can take in one decade, and he exceeded that threshold ages ago.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:59 AM on June 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


This actually makes me want to see this movie.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:03 PM on June 22, 2010


The youtube clip got deleted. Does anyone know of another place to watch it?

It's from a documentary on the Nightmare series that just came out called Never Sleep Again. I haven't seen it yet, but it's been getting good reviews.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:07 PM on June 22, 2010


I like Colin Farrell, but is he gay enough?
posted by Mister_A at 2:01 PM on June 22, 2010


If he can be gay with that Irish accent he had In Bruges then he's gay enough for me.
posted by The Whelk at 2:11 PM on June 22, 2010


I like Colin Farrell, but is he gay enough?

A Home At The End Of The World is worth watching.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:27 PM on June 22, 2010


Sadly, the video seems to have been taken down from YouTube, usual copyright issues -- is it from the insane four-hour (!) documentary about the original Elm Street series, I wonder?

I saw Nightmare on Elm Street 2 for the first time a year or so ago (the original and the ridiculously fucking awesome Dream Warriors I'd seen already, but never the middle episode, as I'd heard for years it was awful beyond belief), and the only thing that shocked me more than Our Hero's family's reaction to the parakeet that explodes at breakfast* was just how blatantly this was the story of a gay teenager. Seriously, all I could think was that Gregg Araki must have watched this movie a million times in high school. It's also a terrible movie, but that almost doesn't matter. It's a fascinating cultural artifact, and if nothing else, it's a sign that no one at New Line Cinema was paying even a tiny little bit of attention to what these guys were making. I doubt I could make myself watch it again, but I have gotta see the interview clip.

*Which sounds like it should have been the title of a Douglas Adams novel
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:29 PM on June 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


(Missed DecemberBoy's post, up above -- yep, that's going in the Netflix queue.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:30 PM on June 22, 2010


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