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| The 80's |
By 1980, the urban gay scene was a visible part of the cultural landscape. The few movies that acknowledged that fact portrayed the gay subculture as a sinister world of kinky danger. When one such film, William Friedkin's "Cruising," was released,
"Cruising," "The Fan" and "Windows" all offer glimpses of gay and lesbian characters who are no longer victims but victimizers -- psychopaths, who murder the objects of their affection.
But it was "Cruising" that roused gay activists into the streets -- for the first time protesting Hollywood's treatment of gay characters. As the film was being shot in New York's West Village, protesters disrupted the filming and created a cause celebre.
In an attempt to balance the overwhelmingly negative stereotypes of the previous decades, Barry Sandler wrote a script about a married man who finds himself attracted to another man, and comes to realize he's gay. The twist this time was that the gay characters would be comfortably masculine, squeaky clean, and played by very attractive young actors.
Sherry Lansing green lighted "Making Love" at Fox, but according to the film's producer, Daniel Melnick, "the men were hard to cast, because every one of their advisors, both Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean, told them not to possibly play someone who is gay, that it would destroy their career."
Harry Hamlin concurs, "Hollywood was pretty much of a cowboy town, and a straight cowboy town." By the time the film was finished, the studio had changed hands, and according to Melnick, when he screened the film for the new owner, he was outraged, calling it a "goddam faggot movie."
Barry Sandler recalls seeing the finished film on its opening night in Miami. "When they [Hamlin and Ontkean] had the first kiss... people panicked, I mean it was pandemonium, people started storming up the aisles."
...for example, in "Wings," the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, a handsome young soldier says good-bye to his dying buddy by kissing his lips... ...but as the world grew more aware of homosexuality, male-to-male affection would be seen as an incriminating act. A kiss would become an assault ... ..as in "The Sergeant," when the repressed homosexual sergeant (Rod Steiger) loses control and forces his mouth onto that of the horrified, disgusted, handsome young private he's obsessed with (John Phillip Law)... ... or an ugly accusation |
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