The Celluloid Closet (1995) - full transcript

Tommy, hit it up. Let's have it.

- May I cut in?
- Why, certainly.

Boys will be boys.

Not all girls are raving
bloody lesbians, you know.

That is a misfortune that
I am perfectly well aware of.

She says that I think more of you
than I do of her.

Well, you do, don't you?

Well, we won't go into that.

Go right ahead, boys.
Don't mind me.

But you're not a girl.
You're a guy.

- Why would a guy want to marry a guy?
- Security.



I think that the right woman
could reform you.

You know, I think the right woman
could reform you too.

These aren't my clothes.

Well, why are you
wearing these clothes?

Because I just went gay
all of a sudden!

In a hundred years of movies...

homosexuality has only rarely
been depicted on the screen.

When it did appear, it was there
as something to laugh at...

or something to pity...

or even something to fear.

These were fleeting images,
but they were unforgettable...

and they left a lasting legacy.

Hollywood,
that great maker of myths...

taught straight people
what to think about gay people...



and gay people what to think
about themselves.

No one escaped its influence.

Movies are part of my life...

part of everybody's life.

That's where we learn about life.

Watching Cary Grant taught me
how to behave with a woman...

how to get dressed at night, how to
go to a restaurant and order dinner.

They're our storytelling.
They're the fabric of our lives.

They show us what is glorious...

and tragic and
wonderful and funny...

about the day-to-day experiences
we all share.

When you're gay...

and don't see that reflected
in any way ever in the movies...

you began to feel that
something truly is wrong.

You feel invisible.

You feel like a ghost...

and a ghost that
nobody believes in.

There's this sense of isolation.

Join the club, man.

There's a whole group...

that is not represented.

We are pathetically starved
for images of ourselves...

so much so that a friend will call...

and say, "There's a movie you must see."

This happened to me.

"This movie you've got to see. There's
this incredible lesbian relationship.

There's this great love scene.
All right, they're vampires.

But you got to see it.
It's great."

There are lots of needs for art.

The greatest one is the mirror...

of our own lives and our own existence.

That hunger I felt as a kid
looking for gay images...

was to not be alone.

My mother took me
to the silent movies...

in a spirit of
ostentatious condescension.

she said they were nothing like life...

and I must not believe them.

she was wrong.

Everyone who comes from England
to America and goes back...

says one thing first.

"It's more like the movies
than you'd ever dream."

And it is.

From the very beginning,
movies could rely on homosexuality...

as a surefire source of humor.

Your ideas about who you are
don't just come from inside you.

They come from the culture.

In this culture, they come from movies.

We learn from the movies what
it means to be a man or a woman...

what it means to have sexuality.

The movies did provide us
with some kind of history...

of how society
thought homosexuals were.

A very good example is a Chaplin film...

Behind the screen.

There's a moment where Chaplin
kisses someone who looks like a man.

He knows that it's a woman.

someone else comes along
and sees it...

and immediately starts swishing around
in the most overt effeminate way.

It's fascinating that those stereotypes
were so completely in place...

that a mainstream popular film
could assume...

that the audience would know
what this swishy mime was all about.

- Mr. Ernest!
- Ernest.

Dear Ernest!

Dear Lady Grayston.

Ernest, I'm so happy
you were able to come.

You must excuse my coming
in my town clothes...

but your chauffeur said there wasn't a
moment to lose, so I came just as I am.

Enter the sissy...

Hollywood's first
gay stock character.

The sissy made everyone feel more manly
or more womanly...

by occupying the space in between.

He didn't seem
to have a sexuality...

so Hollywood
allowed him to thrive.

They were sissies. They were
never addressed as homosexual.

It was a convention
that was totally accepted.

They were perceived as homosexuals
just subliminally.

This subject was not discussed...

privately, certainly not publicly.

It wasn't discussed, but you knew.

They were all very prissy...

these little skinny white men with
little mustaches who would go like this.

Stop. Stop. Girls, girls, girls!
Be careful of my hats.

We gotta get down on the stage.

I don't care.
I won't allow you to ruin them.

I told ya they were
too high and too wide.

Well, big woman.

I designed the costumes for the show,
not the doors for the theater.

I know that. If you had,
they'd have been done in lavender.

This is ripped. Who were you with?

strangler Lewis.

Catch as catch can, hmm?

If we could get the runs with this show
these dames get in their stockings...

I'd be able to make
the second payment on my kimono.

Here, Clarence.
Put that in the trunk.

And don't wear it.

Selfish.

They were a clich?.

I don't care whether
they were a gay clich? or what...

I thought they were disgusting...

unfunny, had no business
being in it...

and I never understood
why people laughed.

It's the same thing when they had
the steppin' fetchits for the blacks.

I liked the sissy.

Is it used in negative ways?

Yeah, but...

my view has always been
visibility at any cost.

I'd rather have negative
than nothing.

That's just my particular view,
and also because I am a sissy.

And go dashing up and down the hall

In one movie you could
even find sissies table-hopping...

in Hollywood's first peek
at a gay bar.

If a sailor in pajamas I should see

I know he'll scare
the life out of me

And on a great big battleship
you, d like to be

Working as chambermaids

sissy characters in movies...

were always a joke.

There's no sin like being a woman.

When a man dresses as a woman,
the audience laughs.

When a woman dresses as a man,
nobody laughs.

They just thought
she looked wonderful.

I saw Marlene Deitrich in Morocco
when I was a teenager.

I just was flipping
the channels and saw her...

and decided to settle in
for an old movie.

There's the scene where...

she comes into a nightclub,
and she's just stunning...

in this tuxedo.

- May I have this?
- of course.

The camera lingers. I wasn't catching
this out of the side of the screen.

It's right in the center.

she has a romance with Gary Cooper
in this movie...

but that romance just went
right out the window for me.

I was, "Who was that woman?
What had happened?"

I start writing a whole other script
for what was really going on.

The thing worked for everybody
of every sex.

What's amazing...
I don't think they've done anything...

as delicious sexually
as that since.

They didn't pretend
it was anything but what it was.

she was doing it to turn on
both the woman and the man...

which appealed to everybody,
as it should.

It was so free.

Ebba! Come in!

Now don't dally, Your Majesty.

You have a busy day.

Morning, Ebba.

- What are you doing up so early?
- I couldn't sleep.

The movie Queen Christina was based
on the life of a real Swedish monarch...

and lesbian.

Hollywood changed the story, but
traces of the truth seemed to linger.

There are rumors that Your Majesty
is planning a foreign marriage?

They are baseless.

But, Your Majesty,
you cannot die an old maid!

I have no intention to, Chancellor.

I shall die a bachelor!

We hope that it will not
be necessary...

to close all
the motion picture houses...

because of some undesirable ones.

But that we will have cleaner...

and better motion pictures
so that they may all stay open.

What happened, of course, in the 20s
and 30s when they got very raunchy...

the Catholic Church and fundamentalist
Protestants came down hard.

It was a lot of pulpit stuff...

preaching about orgiastic aspects...

of what was happening on the screen.

The big change occurred when
the movie moguls got together.

"Let's save Hollywood.
We must get an outsider."

Preferably some politician...

who was above suspicion.

So they looked into the cabinet
of Warren G. Harding.

At that time, there were a number
of unindicted members of his cabinet.

They picked the Postmaster General,
Will Hays of Indiana...

who looked not unlike Mickey Mouse.

The code sets up
high standards of performance...

for motion picture producers.

It states the considerations which
good taste and community value...

make necessary in this universal form
of entertainment.

Will Hays would head the movies, first
voluntary effort at self-censorship.

The early Hays code was a token gesture,
seldom taken seriously.

But by 1934, the Catholic Church
had devised a scheme of its own.

The Legion of Decency...

not only rated movies as to content
but threatened massive boycotts.

Hollywood promised
to play by the rules.

The Hays code just
set up a series of rules...

that were inviolable.

Code director Joe Breen ran
Hollywood's censorship machinery...

for over two decades.

He was authorized to change words,
personalities and plots.

A novel about
a sexually-confused alcoholic...

became a movie about
an alcoholic with writer's block.

A novel about gay bashing and murder...

became a movie about
anti-semitism and murder.

our American people are a homely...

and wholesome crowd.

Cockeyed philosophies of life,
ugly sex situations...

cheap jokes and dirty dialogue
are not wanted.

Decent people don't like
this sort of stuff...

and it is our job to see to it
that they get none of it.

- Have you ever modeled before?
- No, I haven't.

I'm doing a study of
a young girl's head and shoulders.

You won't object to removing
your blouse, will you?

No, I guess not.

You can get ready behind that screen.

For all its efforts, the production code
didn't erase homosexuals from screens.

It just made them harder to find.

Now they had a new identity...
as cold-blooded villains.

I'm ready now.

I suppose you'll want these
pulled down, won't you?

Yes.

Why are you looking at me that way?
Won't I do?

Yes, you'll do very well indeed.

Do you like jewels, Lily?

This is very old
and very beautiful.

I'll show it to you.

I don't think I'll pose tonight.
I think I'll go, if you don't mind.

Please don't come any closer!

I didn't expect to see you,
Mrs. Danvers.

I noticed a window wasn't closed.

I came to see if I could fasten it.

Why did you say that?
I closed it before I left the room.

You opened it yourself, didn't you?

Rebecca is one of the movies
in which the word...

homosexuality or lesbianism
is never uttered...

but there's
this one scene that...

really stands out
for a gay audience.

That is, Rebecca is dead.

she was the beautiful woman...

who is mysteriously
not on the scene any longer.

Her former housekeeper,
Mrs. Danvers...

is obsessed with her,
even after her death.

This is where
I keep all her clothes.

You would like to see them,
wouldn't you?

Feel this.

It was a Christmas present
from Mr. DeWinter.

He was always giving her
expensive gifts, the whole year round.

I keep her underwear on this side.

They were made specially for her
by the nuns in the convent of St. Clair.

she opens the underwear drawer.

It's so sensuous.

Look. You can see
my hand through it.

The guys who ran that code
weren't rocket scientists.

They missed a lot of stuff.

If a director was subtle enough
and clever enough, they got around it.

What'll it cost
to be on the safe side?

Okay, go ahead.

- Gardenia.
- Quick, darling. In with him.

We know Peter Lorre's gay in The Maltese
Falcon even before we see him.

We're told there's a man outside...

wearing perfume... gardenia.

Then we also hear
some kind of funny...

slightly oriental, feminine music.

- You'll sit down, Mr. Cairo?
- Thank you, sir.

The original novel didn't mince words
about Peter Lorre's character.

It read, "This guy is queer."

May I offer condolences for
your partner's unfortunate death?

The movie could only hint...broadly.

See, Mr. Spade,
I'm trying to recover...

an ornament that,
shall we say, has been mislaid?

I thought and hoped
you could assist me.

That ornament is a statuette.
Black figure of a bird.

Leave it to Alfred Hitchcock to create
not one but two gay villains...

murderous lovers
based on real-life psychopaths...

Leopold and Loeb.

We knew that they were gay, yeah, sure.

Nobody said anything about it.

This was 1947.
Let's not forget that.

That was one of the points of the film.

Brandon, how did you feel?

- When?
- During it.

I don't know really.

I don't remember feeling
very much of anything...

until his body went limp...

and I knew it was over.

And then?

Then I felt
tremendously exhilarated.

How did you feel?

I don't think the censors
at that time realized...

that this was about gay people.

They didn't have a clue.

That's how it got by.

sometimes the censors turned a blind eye
to lesbians on the screen...

as long as they were kept
safely behind bars.

- Hi, Anne!
- Hello, Harper.

Since you went fancy working upstairs
for Benton, I kind of missed you.

This is Marie Allen.
Mrs. Benton says to put her in laundry.

Marie's gonna have a baby.

A baby, huh?
Why, you're just a kid yourself.

- So long, Marie.
- Good-bye, Anne. Thank you.

Let's you and me
get acquainted, honey.

You may be a number to the others,
but not to me.

Sit down in this chair.
It's kind of roomy.

There's supposed to be
a social message to all this.

"Isn't it terrible to go to prison,
to lose your femininity?

Isn't it terrible
for a woman to go hard?"

What's your name?
How'd you hurt your hand?

I'm a big girl, and this isn't
my first year away from home.

The name is Marie Allen.

If I said no to Kitty,
I'm sure not gonna say yes to you.

she's a cute trick.

In Young Man With a Horn,
we have one of my favorite...

lesbian glamour symbols.

Jo's interesting, isn't she?
so simple and uncomplicated.

Must be wonderful
to wake up in the morning...

and know which door
you're going to walk through.

She's so terribly normal.

She's a good singer too.

I like Lauren Bacall because
she gets up in the morning...

and she has no idea
what's going to happen to her next.

I'm dying to see
the rest of your sketches.

We'll have dinner out
and then go back to my place.

How nice of you to come
to the party, Richard.

This is my husband.

Miss Carson, I told you about her,
the girl who paints so well.

- How do you do?
- How do you do?

- See you at 9:00 then, Amy.
- Fine.

It's been a wonderful party.

Those movies were a warning to ladies
to just watch it...

and get back to the kitchen
where God meant them to be.

What a swell combination we were.
You said you wanted experiences, Amy.

Well, here's one for you.
I'm leaving you.

I'd like to kill you.

You almost did.

You're a sick girl, Amy.

You'd better see a doctor.

I look back on the '50s now
and think that it was halcyon.

People were still being educated.

There wasn't a race war on.
The drug thing wasn't...

It seems like
a kind of paradise now.

But at the time
we were living through it...

we thought that
we were in a decade...

of such towering
dullness and stupidity.

I want to be proud of him.

That's why I had him
in the first place.

But he makes it so difficult for me.

My associates ask what he wants to be,
and I have to tell them that...

he hasn't made up his mind...

because I just won't tell them
he wants to be a folksinger.

The grief

of love endures

In '50s America masculinity ruled.

seeming gay was almost
as bad as being gay...

so a man had to watch
his every step.

Look, Tom, the way you walk...
I'm just trying to help you!

Nobody gave a damn about how
I walked till last week!

Forget it!

- Al?
- Yeah?

Tea and sympathy
is definitely about being homosexual.

I'm sorry. Tell me how I walk.

It's a film that's
about curing homosexuality...

and the signs of homosexuality
are effeminacy.

Well, then, you walk,
and let me watch you.

- I never noticed how you walk.
- okay.

Do it again.

- If you tell the guys about this...
- You think I would?

We know the Sal Mimeo
character is gay...

party because he has a picture
of Alan Ladd in his locker...

but also from his adoration
of the James Dean character.

You want to come home with me?
There's nobody home at my house.

Heck, I'm not tired. Are you?

See, I don't have
too many people I can talk to.

Who has?

People talk about whether
that was a homosexual relationship.

The intention wasn't that.

But any film is at the same time...

an expression of a writer...

and it's an offering to an audience
to create their own film.

Are you cold?

Rebel was about
tenderness, intimacy.

It was an attempt to widen
the permission to love...

when men were supposed
to be one way with each other.

- Can I keep it?
- Well, what do you think?

Here.

I think if I were writing
that script again today...

that I would be much more
specific about Plato.

I would let him be
an outcast because...

the gang thought
he was a faggot...

and let his isolation
come from that opinion.

- What do you guys want?
- You know what we want!

- We want your friend!
- Yeah, we got eyes for him.

The real rebel seems to me
the Sal Mineo character.

He's got something
to be rebellious about...

namely, being gay
in a homophobic society.

He, of course, has to be killed.

- Turn out the lights!
- Jim!

That's what happens to real rebels
in our society.

You got very good at
projecting subtext...

without saying a word about it.

The best example I lived through
was writing Ben-Hur.

Ben-Hur and Messala,
one Jewish, one Roman...

had known each other from youth.

They disagree over politics and hate
each other for the next three hours.

That isn?t much to put
a whole three-hour movie on...

even something
as gorgeously junky as Ben-Hur.

The director of the movie,
William Wyler, said "What do you do?"

I said, "Let me try something."

Let's say these two guys were 15, 16
when they last saw each other.

They had been lovers,
and they're meeting again...

and the Roman wants to start it up.

Messala, played by Stephen Boyd,
wants to start it up again...

with Ben-Hur,
played by Charlton Heston.

Heaven knows why, but he does.
Anyway, he's Roman.

so Willie stared at me,
face gray.

I said' "Well'
I'll never use the word.

There will be nothing overt.

But it'll be perfectly clear
that Messala is in love with Ben-Hur...

Willie said, Gore, this is Ben-Hur.

A Tale of the Christ, I think
is the subtitle, he said vaguely.

Willie finally said, "Well, it's
certainly better than what we've got.

We'll try it...

After all these years.

Still close.

In every way.

He said, "You talked to anybody
about this?" And I said' "No."

He said, "You talk to Boyd..."
Messala.

"Don't say anything to Heston.

Chuck will fall apart.
I'll take care of him."

So Heston thinks he's doing
Francis X. Bushman in a silent version.

His head is constantly on high
like this and like this.

Stephen Boyd is
acting it to pieces.

There are looks that he gives him
that are just so clear.

I said I'd come back.

I never thought you would.

I'm so glad.

- Look at you.
- Look at you.

You've come back a tribune.

When I heard that news,
I drank a toast to you.

We'll drink another now.

Once I had a secret love

That lived within

The heart of me

Hollywood had learned to write
movies between the lines.

some members of the audience
had learned to watch them that way.

Gosh a-mighty!

You're the prettiest thing
I ever seen.

Never knowed a woman
could look like that.

- How do you hold that dress up there?
- Please!

It's amazing how
if you're a gay audience...

and you're accustomed
to crumbs...

how you will watch an entire movie
just to see somebody wear an outfit...

that you think means
that they're a homosexual.

The whole movie can be a dud...

but you're just sitting there...

waiting for Joan Crawford
to put on her black cowboy shirt again.

I'm going to kill you.

I know...

if I don't kill you first.

Gay audiences were desperate
to find something.

I think all minority audiences
watch movies with hope.

They hope they will see
what they want to see.

That's why nobody
really sees the same movie.

Let's give 'em a hand over here.

That's a good-looking gun you were
about to use back there. Can I see it?

Maybe you'd like to see mine.

Nice. Awful nice.

Monty Clift and John Ireland
knew what they were doing.

I think that's why
the scene is funny...

'cause of their delight
in playing the sexuality of the gun.

There are only two things
more beautiful than a good gun.

A Swiss watch
or a woman from anywhere.

You ever had a good Swiss watch?

Go ahead. Try it.

Hey, that's very good.

Hey, that's good too.

Go on. Keep it going.

Most expressions of homosexuality
in most of movies are indirect.

What's interesting is that
that, of course...

is what it what like to express
homosexuality in life.

That we could only express
ourselves indirectly...

just as people on the screen could
only express themselves indirectly.

There's a sense in which
the characters are in the closet...

the movie's in the closet,
and we're in the closet.

Now I shout it

From the highest hills

Even told the golden daffodils

At last

My heart's

An open door

And my secret love's

No secret

Anymore

one, two, three, four

There were films
even in the '50s that got away...

with an amazing amount
of at least gay subtext.

You can't keep...

gay life or behavior out of the movies.

It's like keeping it out of life
in general.

It pops up often in somewhat hidden
or somewhat coded ways.

In the film
of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes...

there's a gym full of bodybuilders
who have no interest in Jane Russell.

He don't have to be Hercules
Don't anyone know about birds and bees

Ain't there anyone here for love

sweet love

Ain't there anyone

Here for

Love

Doubles? Anyone?

Court's free!

Two out of three?

Anyone?

Doesn't anyone want to play?

In the '50s and '60s,
especially in sex comedies...

there were often characters
who could be read as gay...

whether they were
the Tony Randall roles...

or the boss of
the decorating establishment.

And here.

This isn't bad either.
What color?s that floor?

Lilac.

Lilac? Leonard, who has
a lilac floor in their kitchen?

I have.

Oh, well, Leonard, everyone
isn't as artistic as you are.

We have to sell this wax to
average, ordinary, everyday people.

Them!

In Hollywood for years and years...

there was what was called the DF movie.

All the Doris Day movies
were DF movies.

It was delayed fuck because they
couldn't sleep together until married.

No sex before marriage.

That was the law of Hollywood.

What a marvelous-looking man.
I wonder if he's single.

I don't know how long
I can get away with this act...

but she's sure worth a try.

Rock had a screening room in his house.

He liked to assemble his houseguests
and show his old movies.

Most of the guys I knew liked
to see the old Doris Day films.

one of the reasons we laughed at them...

was that there was
a real gay in-joke occurring...

in almost all
of those light comedies...

because at some point or another
the character Rock Hudson played...

posed as gay in order
to get a woman into bed.

Tell me about your job.

It must be very excitin' workin' with
all them colors and fabrics and all.

It was tremendously ironic.

Here was a gay man
impersonating a straight man...

impersonating a gay man.

Ain't these tasty?
Wonder if I could get the recipe?

sure would like to surprise my ma
when I go back home.

We're all half man, half woman.

We come from those two cells,
you know?

so when I put together Josephine
in some Like It Hot...

I thought of Grace Kelly...

thought of my mother...

and a little bit of Eve Arden.

- My name is Josephine.
- I'm Daphne.

I thought my top lip was a little thin'
so every time I stopped talking I'd...

- Men!
- You don't have to worry about that.

We wouldn't be caught dead with men.

Rough, hairy beasts with eight hands!

That kind of sexuality of ours
which overlaps...

some like it hard.
some like it soft.

That kind of waving in there
is in that movie, just delicately.

Osgood, I'm gonna level with ya.
We can't get married at all!

Why not?

Well, in the first place,
I'm not a natural blond.

Doesn't matter.

I smoke. I smoke all the time.

I don't care.

I have a terrible past. For three years
I've lived with a saxophone player.

I forgive you.

I can never have children.

We can adopt some.

You don't understand, Osgood.

I'm a man!

Well, nobody's perfect.

When the subject turned serious
and actual sex was suggested...

out came the blue pencil,
the scissors and the scene.

"Antoninus, Sicilian, age 26...

singer of songs."

For whom did you practice
this wondrous talent?

For the children of my master,
whom I also taught the classics.

Classics, indeed.

What position have we, I wonder,
for a boy of such varied gifts?

You shall be my body servant.
Instruct him.

All of you, come with me.

The first time you see Antoninus
is there in the lineup...

when he says,
"I want him for my body servant."

That's the only indication.
Body servant. What does that mean?

He says body servant. The next thing you
know we're in the tub. I'm washing him.

In here with it.

There's some chat between us,
and then finally he says to me...

''Antoninus, do you like snails?"

I said, "Yeah, I do."

"What about oysters?"
I said, "Well, I don't think so."

Do you consider the eating
of oysters to be moral...

and the eating of snails
to be immoral?

No, Master.

of course not.

It is all a matter of taste,
isn't it?

Yes, Master.

And taste is not
the same as appetite...

and, therefore,
not a question of morals, is it?

You can see even
in that long shot I've...

I'm kind of getting an idea
what he's trying to say to me.

I said, "Yes, Master."

He says, "Well,
I like both oysters and snails."

He realizes that
he's going to be asked...

to do something
he's not prepared to do.

I liked Antoninus
for that, you know?

Take me out to dinner first.
Give me a little good time.

Don't throw me in the tub
and drop the soap.

My taste includes
both snails and oysters.

They cut that scene out.

I have never seen such a time
in my life with censorship.

You started drinkin' with your friend
skipper's death. That's the truth.

They cut and cut Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

There was no way Brick could have had
any kind of sexual desire for his buddy.

What are you suggesting?

- Nothin' but...
- But what? Say what's on your mind.

say it!

- Why are you so excited?
- Go ahead! say it!

- What are you shouting like that for?
- skipper and I were friends.

- Can you understand that?
- Gooper and Mae said that skipper was...

skipper is the only thing
I got left to believe in!

- You are dragging it through the gutter!
- Now, just a minute...

You are making it
shameful and filthy, you...

It was clear to anybody on the
right wavelength what you were doing.

You just couldn't use the word.

I met this head-on in a movie
called suddenly, Last summer...

from a Tennessee Williams play.

You know why I was doing it.

I told you.
I was procuring for him.

Sebastian was lonely, Doctor.

The Legion of Decency...

headed by this
shark-like Jesuit priest...

I must have had
five meetings with him.

"You can't say this.
You can't say that."

By the time we started to cut it,
it was making no sense at all.

Sebastian only needed you
while you were still useful.

- Useful?
- I mean, young, able to attract.

she's babbling again,
babbling and lying.

He left her home
because she had lost her...

- Because you stole him!
- Lost her attraction.

What would attraction have
to do with a son and a mother?

- I'll tell you...
- Is there no way to stop these lies?

Yes! Have my brain cut!

It was like working under the Kremlin,
like writing for Pravda.

You did learn how to write between the
lines or photograph between the lines.

You do it with a look, or
there'd be a take on Hepburn's face...

as Elizabeth Taylor
would be telling her...

getting closer and
closer to the truth...

which the Legion of Decency
wouldn't dare let us say.

- We were decoys.
- Decoys?

For Sebastian.
He used us as bait.

When she was no longer able to lure the
better fish into the net, he let her go.

Bait for what?
What were the better fish?

We procured for him.

Did Sebastian like boys or not?

Well, the fact that he's eaten up
at the end by...

Admittedly, Tennessee occasionally went
over the top with his dramatic effects.

When he tried to escape
from those streets...

down those little side streets
between the buildings...

they came from everywhere...

so the only way was up.

Sebastian Venable was
the perfect homosexual for his times...

one without a face or a voice.

since he lives as a monster,
he must die as one...

in a scene reminiscent
of an early horror classic.

I don't know how he still ran.
He never ran.

But he ran and he ran
and he ran!

He never reached the end!

Never!

They overtook him.

He screamed just once.

I... I... Then I... Then I...

Help!

Help!

So Suddenly, Last summer opens, and the
New York Times is going to destroy...

this degenerate film,
the work of degenerates.

so you've got a review from
Bosley Crowther that said...

"If you like incest, rape,
sodomy, cannibalism, degeneracy...

this is the movie for you,
this sickening picture."

Everybody in the country went to see it.
That review made the movie.

A taut...

tense drama of the most...

of the most untalked-about subject.

While Hollywood
remained reticent...

British films began
to tackle homosexuality head-on...

with a major star like Dirk Bogarde
as the screen's first gay hero.

I want to know the truth.

I want to know why he hanged himself.

He was being blackmailed.

- That's why he stole?
- Yes.

someone found out he was a homosexual
and blackmailed him?

That's it.

It takes two to make
a reason for blackmail.

Were you the other man?
Were you?

There is a scene in the film in which...

he is quite explicit about...

wanting to have sex
with another man.

That's an extraordinary statement
for a star of that magnitude...

in a popular entertainment movie
to make in 1961.

All right, you want to know.
I shall tell you.

You won't be content
until you know, will you?

Till you've ripped it out of me!

I stopped seeing him
because I wanted him.

Do you understand?
Because I wanted him!

Back in Hollywood, the production code
had gradually been whittled away.

Moviemakers, fed up with restrictions,
set out to smash the last taboo.

Homosexuality was finally
being talked about on the screen...

but only as something
that nice people didn?t talk about.

We've seen things too.

- What things?
- Bad things. I can't tell you.

You're annoying me very much.
If you have anything to say, say it.

I mean, I can't say it out loud.
I've got to whisper it.

- Why must you whisper it?
- I don't know. I've just got to.

At the time we made the picture...

there were not real discussions
about homosexuality.

Do you know what you're saying?

It was about a child, s accusations.
It could have been about anything.

stop the car, John!
stop the car, John!

so none of us
were really aware.

We might have been the forerunners,
but we weren't really...

because we didn't do
the picture right.

We were in the mind-set...

of not understanding...

what we were basically doing.

You've got to know!
I've got to tell you!

I can't keep it
to myself any longer.

I'm guilty!

You're guilty of nothing!

These days there would be a tremendous
outcry, as well there should be.

Why would Martha break down and say,
"What's wrong with me?

I'm so polluted.
I've ruined you."

she would fight.

she would fight for
her budding preference.

When you look at it,
to have Martha play that scene...

and no one questioned
what that meant...

or what the alternatives could
have been underneath the dialogue...

It's mind boggling.

We were unaware.

Don't you see?
I can't stand to have you touch me.

I can't stand
to have you look at me.

It's all my fault!

I've ruined your life,
and I've ruined my own.

I swear I didn't know it!

I didn't mean it!

oh, I feel so damn sick and dirty!
I can't stand it anymore!

The profundity of this subject...

was not in the lexicon
of our rehearsal period even.

Audrey and I
never talked about this.

Isn?t that amazing?

Truly amazing.

The loathing she feels...
How sick she is with herself...

It still makes me cry when I see that.

I think, why am I crying?
Why does this still get to me?

This is just an old silly movie.
People don't feel this way anymore.

But I don't think that's true. I think
people do feel that way today still.

There's part of me,
despite all my little signs...

"Happy. Proud. Well-adjusted.
Bisexual. Queer. Kinky."

No matter how many posters
I hold up saying...

"I'm a big pervert,
and I'm so happy about it..."

there's this part of me that's,
like, how could I be this way?

He said to tell you before
you go on with the Lefflngwell matter...

you ought to remember
what happened in Hawaii.

Then he hung up.

What happened in Hawaii, Brig?

What was the voice like?

It was crawly. He made it sound like
he knew some kind of nasty secret.

I've been on the front pages
the past few days.

Bound to get some crackpot calls.
Just hang up if you get anymore.

I saw Advise and Consent when
I was in my senior year in high school.

Very much a virgin. I didn't
actually have sex with anybody...

until I was 25 years old...

so everything was theoretical
at that point.

All I saw was a life that
might lie down the road for me.

Let me hear a voice

A secret voice

A voice that will say

senator Brigham Anderson,
who's being blackmailed...

goes to check out
this former lover at a bar.

It was my first glimpse
into what I imagined...

organized gay life to be,
and it was very, very scary...

because it suggested people who have
to remain hidden in the shadows.

Well, come on in.
Don't just stand there.

Don't run off.

Ray! You're with me!

Brig?

- Wait a moment, Brig.
- Taxi!

- Let me explain. Brig, wait a moment.
- Taxi!

I needed money, Brig!

Well, you wouldn't see me.
I kept calling. I was drunk.

Drive, will ya? Drive!

I felt that something dreadful
was going to happen to me...

something that I wouldn't
be able to turn back...

once I'd actually had sex
with another man...

and that the end of that road
would be suicide.

I got that impression
from the movies.

Is that Brig?

What's the matter?

He's dead.

Brig?

In his office.
He cut his throat.

Oliver saw you.
You were with Dove all afternoon.

You know, lying to me, Haley...

oh, well, perhaps maturity
will change all that.

What do you think
I'll mature into?

You?

I want to know what's going on
between you and that boy.

Are you in love with
that Texas dirt farmer?

He's more than that.

It's gone quite far already, hasn't it?
You'd like to make him happy.

Make all his dreams come true.

- Perhaps even get married.
- Yes, even get married.

All right,
I'll be sorry to lose you.

But if you think the world
is your oyster, go ahead and take it.

How do you think the boy is going to
feel when he finds out what you are...

what you've been?

- He'll forgive me.
- All right, go to him.

After all, a girl like you
has so much to offer a man.

A knife to cut his heart out.

- I'll change!
- Of course you'll change!

But haven't you said that so many times
before? But go on and tell him.

Tell him about the days and nights
of Haley Gerard.

Tell him about the mud
you've rolled in for years!

Well, tell him!

Growing up in that period in the '60s...

all we had were images of unhappy...

suicidal, desperate gay people.

The thought of turning...

of turning involuntarily...

into one of them...

frightened me and
made me sick with anger.

I went down there.

I had heard about the waterfront.

People giggle
and make jokes about it.

I had had only
two experiences before...

once in college,
once in the army.

I thought I'd gotten it
out of my life, but I hadn't.

I looked at them.

Was this what I was like?

Oh, my God.

Twisted faces, outcasts...

lives lived in shadows,
always prey to a million dangers.

People don't realize
what we go through.

I was raised in a family
that would not even admit...

that there was such a thing
as a homosexual in this world...

and here I was...

and I couldn't do
anything about it.

I couldn't stop!

These images magnify...

the sadness...

the hatred of us...

the prediction that
we will not find love.

How come you never got married?

You're not bad-looking.

Features are good.

Nice legs...

ankles.

But you never had a man?

I think that's really your problem.

I think the fate of gay characters...

in American literature, plays, films...

is the same as the fate of all
characters who are sexually free.

Haley?

Get Jo out of here!

You must pay.

You must suffer.

If you're a woman who commits adultery,
you're only put out in the storm.

If you're a woman who has another woman,
you'd better go hang yourself.

It's a question of degree, and if you're
gay you have to do real penance... die.

I knew you were gay
the moment you walked into the bar.

How could you know?

We know each other.

something about the way you walked.

something about the eyes.

What's the matter with you?

Let go of me!

I'll call the police!
Let go!

- Don't.
- Operator?

Don't do that!

You bitch!

By now,
the pattern was clear...

characters
of questionable sexuality...

would meet with a nasty end
in the last reel.

Feed your faces and keep your traps shut
if you don't want to...

Kill her. Kill her! Kill her!

Oh, Martha.

When the time comes,
you won't have the guts.

It's not always like
it happens in plays.

Not all faggots bump themselves off
at the end of the story.

- One, two. one, two.
- Oh, Christ.

Single, single, dip.

- Wait a minute!
- One, two, three.

It's the geriatrics Rockettes.

Finally, it happened.

Hollywood made a movie in which gay men
took a hard look at their own lives.

It's the sensational Menstruations!

And, in a refreshing twist...

they all survived.

The great thing about seeing
The Boys in the Band...

I hadn't come out yet...

and what it did for me
was present gay men...

as having this incredible sense
of camaraderie...

this sense of belonging to a group
which I, d never really felt before.

Forget your troubles
Come on, get happy

You better chase
all your cares away

What's more boring than a queen
doing a Judy Garland imitation?

A queen doing
a Bette Davis imitation.

I knew a lot of people...

like those people.

I would say that probably
all nine of them...

are split-off pieces of myself.

What I am, Michael, is a 32-year-old,
ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy...

and if it takes me a while
to pull myself together...

if I smoke some grass before I get up
the nerve to show myself to the world...

it's nobody's goddamn business
but my own.

And how are you this evening?

They were miserable and bitchy.

If I was wrong...

it was definitely
a reflection of what was...

wrong in my head.

But that's the way
I saw things then.

You're a sad and pathetic man.

You're a homosexual,
and you don't want to be.

But there's nothing you can do
to change it.

Not all your prayers
to your God.

Not all the analysis you can buy in
all the years you've got left to live.

You may very well one day
be able to know a heterosexual life...

if you want it
desperately enough...

if you pursue it with the fervor
with which you annihilate.

But you'll always be
homosexual as well.

Always, Michael.

Always...

until the day you die.

Friends...

thanks for the nifty party.

I think that
the self-deprecating humor...

was borne out of a...

low self-esteem, if you will...

from a sense of what the times
told you about yourself.

Homosexuality was still classified
as a mental illness.

You went into a gay bar,
you were liable to be arrested...

or the place be raided.

I've been in those situations.

There were still
not just attitudes...

there were laws against...

one's being...

the core of one's being.

If we could just not
hate ourselves so much.

That's it, you know.

If we could just learn
not to hate ourselves...

quite so very much.

The first film...

that really celebrated homosexuality,
as far as I was concerned, was Cabaret.

For me, it embodied the very life I was
beginning to live in San Francisco...

one in which there was no real onus
placed on homosexuality.

Doesn't my body
drive you wild with desire?

Well, doesn't it?

Lt's a very nice body.

Do you really think so,
darling?

It does have
a certain kind of style.

I mean, look,
it's very flat here...

not much hips...

and...

here.

It's a little early in the day
for this sort of thing.

Maybe you just don't
sleep with girls.

oh.

You don't.

Listen, we're practically
living together...

so if you only like boys
I wouldn't dream of pestering you.

Do you sleep with girls,
or don't you?

You don't ask questions
like that.

I do.

The boy was homosexual...

and it seemed rational, reasonable.

I mean, that's what the story was.

There was no fuss with anybody.

None at all.

Oh, screw Maximillian!

I do.

so do I.

So, things changed...

more quickly
than you might imagine.

- And who are you?
- I'm Bernstein.

- You're Jewish?
- No, darling, I'm gay.

I don't care how you feel.
You're a great dancer.

You're not bad yourself.

I think it was easier...

for the powers that be...

to show a black rather than
a white character as a homosexual.

Why? I don't understand that.

But I do understand it...

just like it's more easy
for us to have...

the sitcoms, situation comedies,
on television...

and not the serious dramas
about our lives.

But a lot of things
can be said through comedy.

Would you please get out of my face...

you sorry-looking faggot?

Who you callin' sorry-lookin'?

Can't y'all see
that she ain't funny?

She's just another poor example...

of how the system
destroys our men.

Honey, I am more man than you'll ever be
and more woman than you'll ever get.

shit!

But there was a downside
to the new gay visibility.

The threat of retaliation
could be waiting just down the road.

This is the first image I remember...

having of gays in a movie I saw.

It was the hitchhikers
that were picked up in vanishing Point.

Pardon me. Could you tell us
which direction you're headed?

I'm going to Frisco.

Oh, well, that's perfect.
Thank you.

one of the guys was carrying a purse.
They wore very tight, pinched clothes.

He had a lascivious look
on his face.

Why are you laughing?

I'm not laughing.

Yes, you are.

It's because you think
we're queers, isn't it?

This is a stickup.

stickup?

Why are you laughing, Mary?

We all howled, because all you saw was
the car speeding at 60 miles per hour...

then screeching to a stop
and the two guys were thrown out.

We thought that was great..." Remember
when the two homos got thrown out?"

We thought that was amazing.

There it was, almost the image
of what a homosexual was.

Bitch.

To be gay not only meant wearing pinched
clothes with this look on your face...

but you also carried a purse.

I've had the experience
of being in a theater...

and really enjoying a movie...

and then suddenly, out of nowhere...

comes some kind of
pseudo-homosexual character...

who is the villain, the killer,
or is killed...

and the audience
bursts into applause.

I was with friends and we were
watching Freebie and the Bean.

There's this killer transvestite...

who does sort of
a murderous ballet.

And of course, triumphantly,
our hero pulls out a gun...

and blows five million holes
through the murderous transvestite...

and the audience
burst into applause.

There were two things
happening there.

People were applauding
the death of the villain...

but they were also applauding
the death of a homosexual.

You know you're watching a heterosexual
movie when you see a Hollywood movie...

but you don't... you're still not
quite ready for being insulted.

Do you know, at this moment...

I have sunk as low as I can go.

I was wrong.

Are you gonna tell me you're a fag?

I don't think I can handle it.

I'm not a fag.

I'm a werewolf.

I never hear the word "nigger" used...

unless it's by two black people...

as a form of affection...

or by a...

totally bigoted southern sheriff.

You know,
the blubbering stereotype.

To point out his ignorance,
he would use that term. You see?

"Faggot" is not used in that way.

"Faggot" is used by just anyone
talking to anyone else.

Hey, doesn't this cafeteria
have a "no fags allowed" rule?

Hey, killer.
Why are you on your knees?

You queer or somethin'?

I know what you've been after,
you goddamn faggot.

You must be creamin'
all over your faggot self.

After all this, you won't have to hang
out with that faggot Caesar anymore.

Unhappy, faggot?

You're a faggot,
a dirty queer.

- You a queer?
- Hell no, sir!

What's the matter?
You goin' faggot?

You turnin' fag on me?

- Oh, you're a tough faggot, ain't you?
- What do you faggots want?

You hear me,
you fuckin' faggots?

- Fuck you, faggot.
- Fuck you, queer.

- Who is this faggot?
- You bald-headed, flatfoot faggot.

You become either inured to it
or conditioned to accept it...

and it becomes the attitude...

the prevailing attitude.

It becomes the way people
perceive gay people.

When Hollywood finally acknowledged
the burgeoning gay scene...

it came up with a grisly thriller...

set in the world of leather bars.

- How big are you?
- Party size.

- What are you into?
- I go anywhere.

- I don't do anything.
- That's cool.

Hips or lips?

I did have an experience
with the movie Cruising.

Not about seeing the movie,
but being the victim of someone who had.

My lover and I were gay-bashed by
young men who worked in a movie theater.

They threatened us...

they chased us out of the theater,
into the street...

and as I was escaping from one of them,
he said to me...

"If you saw the movie Cruising,
you know what you deserve."

Who's here?

I'm here.

You're here.

Now I'm afraid.

Homosexuals in movies
had changed...

from victims to victimizers.

show it.

Lift up the sweater.

Please. Please. Please.

You made me do that.

stop the movie Cruising!
stop the movie Cruising!

Gays fight back!

one movie boldly showed homosexuality...

as an act of love, not violence.

so Hollywood had to warn the public.

This was 1982.

There hadn't been any gay characters...

in leading roles.

okay, the truth is, I have gotten
into a lot of different scenes.

I'm a writer.

I have to open myself up
to new things...

expand my horizons.

Why don't you just say it?

I'm gay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

It was very hard to cast.

The men were hard to cast...

because every one of their advisors...

both Harry Hamlin
and Michael Ontkean...

told them not to play
someone who was gay...

that it would destroy
their careers.

There was the general perception...

at least in the early '80s...

I don't know what it's like now...
that Hollywood was a cowboy town.

A straight cowboy town.

I am sure that inside of me there is
the same homophobia that we all share.

If I see a guy
who's playing a gay role...

I'll question it and say,
"Wow, is he gay?"

Why I do that, I don't know.

Then I'll stop and say, "That's silly.
You've been there, you've done that."

The question is,
why do we care?

I mean, who cares?

I'll do that.

The ownership of the studio
changed hands...

and a new person came in
who was not from the film world...

nor the intellectual world...

nor the world
of letters and arts...

and I had the unpleasant task...

of running in the screening room
for this man...

and his lovely wife
and daughters...

the rough cut of the film.

None of my colleagues would be there.
They were all afraid.

I was there by myself,
in the back.

He was sitting up front
in the small screening room.

He was squirming all during the movie.
He just couldn't sit still.

And at the part in the movie...

where the two men
embrace and kiss...

he jumped up and said...

"You made a goddamn faggot movie"...

and stalked out.

The day it opened,
I happened to be in Miami.

We sat down, the movie started...

and as the movie progressed...

you sensed the audience
growing more and more uncomfortable...

with what was going on the screen.

It kept escalating.

When they had the first kiss, it seemed
there was an explosion in the theater.

People panicked.
There was pandemonium.

People started storming up the aisles.
At that point, I just left.

Mainstream people...

dislike homosexuality...

because they can't help concentrating...

on what homosexual men do
to one another.

And when you contemplate
what people do...

you think of yourself doing it...

and they don't like that.

That's the famous joke...

"I don't like peas,
and I'm glad I don't...

because if I liked them I'd eat them,
and I hate them."

There was a time when men were free
to express tenderness on the screen.

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...

or an ugly accusation.

I'll show you what you're gonna be.

What you are.

I'll kill you for that!

Americans, perhaps,
are more scared of their sexuality.

They're prepared to show violence
of all kinds...

but when it comes to sexuality...

America is both self-righteous...

and tries to bury it
as if it didn't exist, which is silly.

Are you all right?

We had quite an argument
about the kiss.

The screenwriter felt the whole thing
should be in silhouetted long shot.

I said, "No way.

It should just happen."

And that's what we did.

There's a difference in how audiences
look at two men getting it on...

and two women getting it on.

There's a comfort
with female nudity...

and female girlishness
and girly bonding...

that it can be sexy and it can be
completely palatable, even erotic.

Women don't find it threatening...

and men find it either completely
unthreatening or titillating.

straight men are more uncomfortable
with two men making love...

because somehow
that means you're weak...

and people equate weakness
with male sensuality toward other men...

not realizing that
that's a ridiculous theory.

That's why people say,
"I'm a man"...

like being a man is based on
who you happening to be boning that day.

In The Color Purple,
Celie has fallen in love with Shug.

They're two women
who love each other.

This intimacy...

is not about sex.

I think it's much deeper.

Let's keep goin'.

What do you mean?

It's much easier for audiences to accept
2 women being affectionate than 2 men.

That's a big, big taboo.

You sure?

Hit it.

But when I put the kiss in
at the end of Thelma and Louise...

that gave people pause.

I told Geena.
I didn?t tell anybody else.

They were beyond sexuality. It was love.

If you're about to go off a cliff,
I don't think you're gonna make a pass.

To me, it was a declaration of...

that they were at a point where they
were finishing each other's sentences...

and they were there for each other
in the tradition of Butch Cassidy...

except that they didn?t get shot down.

Go.

Wouldn't that have been great
if Butch and Sundance...

Well, then they would've had
more reason to shoot them, I suppose...

if Butch and the Sundance Kid
had kissed at the end.

But they did what guys do
in movies...

They got their guns out, because
they couldn't get their dicks out.

They got their guns out and went down
with their guns. That's what boys do.

Are you making a pass at me,
Mrs. Blaylock?

Miriam.

Not that I'm aware of, Sarah.

Originally, the script was a Playboy
version of them getting together.

It had a lot to do...

with lingerie and posing.

There was no real scene.

And so I said that
I really thought that what was sexy...

would be the first moment
the people touch.

so I came up with the little scene
where she spills something on herself...

she gives her something,
they touch that way, they have a kiss...

and then you go into all of the curtains
blowing over their bodies stuff.

The other thing was,
they felt I should be really drunk.

That was their way of taking away
her choice, in a sense.

I insisted that
that not be that way...

that certainly you wouldn't have to
get drunk to bed Catherine Deneuve...

I don't care what your sexual history
to that point had been.

It was much more interesting
if she went voluntarily.

I don't think,
for better or worse...

that women are taken
very seriously in this area.

I think the feeling is,
if two women are together...

then it's probably experimental
or some kind of phase...

and if the right guy came along
that would all change.

so it's something that straight men
can watch and not be threatened by.

And straight men are the ones that are
propelling the industry forward...

so I don't think
it's taken that seriously.

I suppose when you go to the movies
and you see men being affectionate...

besides the sex, the affection itself...

is just too much.

Guys are supposed to be
strong and unfeeling.

I get so angry...

about what Hollywood will do
with an original story or script...

to get rid of
the lesbian element...

that I feel like standing up
in the theater and just shouting.

These characters are dykes,
and this movie isn?t saying so.

What's your mother gonna say
when she sees us both drunk?

stop worrying about what people think.

I mean, you've always
done the right thing.

You took care of your daddy,
the preacher, when he took sick.

You take care of all the kids
over at the church school.

You're gonna take care of your mama.

I know, and I'm gonna marry
the man I'm supposed to.

You're gettin' married?

As soon as the summer's over.

The passion that these two women
feel for each other...

was not presented in an open way
in the movie.

I'm gonna miss you.

It's like somebody's
just powdered me with fleas.

The entire time I'm being irritated
that they're not telling the truth.

Everybody in the business...

we all get paid more than we should,
more than our fathers ever made.

There's always the fear that...

they're gonna take it away,
so we'd better be...

And that's why most people
in those roles are conservative.

Most people who run big businesses
in America are conservative.

Most newspaper chains are run
by people who are conservative.

The public is always ahead of us
about what they're ready for.

I think.

And if you do it well,
if you pierce the heart truth...

of what the public is feeling
and thinking, you have a hit.

There is this constant desire
on the part of the studios...

to make characters likable.

My screen persona
is pretty much non threatening.

I have never been one to strike fear
into anybody's heart...

when I enter a room
or first appear on screen.

Because of it, then, this idea
of a gay man with AlDS is not scary.

It's something else,
but it doesn't have to be scary.

You don't have to be threatened
by this man's presence in it...

part of it because little Tommy Hanks
is playing the role.

- What about my blood work?
- We're waiting.

I wanna prep you for a colonoscopy.
We want to take a look inside.

sounds delightful.

Wait a minute.
Why do you need to do this?

Who are you?

Who are you, Doctor...

- This is my partner.
- Yeah?

He keeps records of all my hospital
visits. It's nothing personal.

I'm Dr. Klenstein.

Listen, you're right. A colonoscopy
is not a pleasant procedure.

But if the Ks is causing the diarrhea,
we've got to know about that right away.

But it could be parasites,
an infection.

A reaction to the AZT.

All of these are possibilities, but
we've got to perform the colonoscopy.

He's not going through
some painful procedure...

until we cancel out
everything else.

I'm trying to help your partner.

- You're not in his immediate family.
- I'm not?

I could have you
removed from the ER.

Look, he's upset.
He's sorry.

Don't apologize for me, okay?

Okay, he's not sorry.

The idea that there had to be
an audience that wanted to see...

stories about
being gay in America...

who wanted to see stories about
a guy who has Al Ds in America...

is this almost backward understanding
of how it works...

when you're standing in front of the
box office in your local dodecaplex...

and you have a choice between...
"What movie should we see?

We can see the movie about super spies
from outer space, a cow who talks...

the lawyer who has Al Ds
or the big puppet show.

Well, I guess the lawyer with AlDS.
That's the one that's most different."

Philadelphia was terrific,
but I don't think it proves anything.

It's about a gay hero who dies...

and who is a tragic figure.

It remains to be seen whether
Hollywood and the general public...

will embrace a film
with a gay hero who lives.

We felt that we would fail...

if our movie played to people...

who already think that discrimination
against people with Al Ds is wrong...

or people who already believe...

that people shouldn't discriminate
against homosexuals.

If our movie only played to people
who thought just like we do...

we would have done nothing
very significant.

We all end up choosing who we're gonna
be in love with the rest of our lives.

It seems that's what
we're all searching for.

Andy found Miguel,
Miguel found Andy.

That's a love that is born
out of everything that goes into...

two people deciding to be
with each other.

It's forged through time.
It's a constant... the speed of light.

That's what the movie is saying.

It is all the same. Love is spelled
with the same four letters.

Readings in school were heterosexual.

Every movie I saw was heterosexual...

and I had to do this translation.

I had to translate it to my life,
rather than seeing my life.

Happy two-week anniversary.

Oh, Ed, you remembered.

Which is why,
when people say to me...

"Your work is not really gay work,
it's universal"...

I say, "Up yours. It's gay.

That you can take it and translate it
for your own life is very nice...

but at last I don't have to
do the translating... you do."

The long silence
is finally ending.

New voices have emerged.

open and unapologetic.

They tell stories
that have never been told...

about people who have always been there.

We're victims of the sexual revolution.

The previous generation had all the fun,
and we get to pick up the fucking tab.

Movies are important
and they're dangerous...

because it's, you know,
we're the keeper of the dreams.

You go into a little, dark room...

and become incredibly vulnerable.

All your perspectives can be challenged.

You feel things you normally couldn?t.

It can encourage you...

to be the protagonist in your own life.

on the other hand,
it can completely misshape you.

There's been an incredible era
of censorship...

of, I wouldn't say positive images
of gays and lesbians.

I would say real images
of gays and lesbians.

Think of all the heroic
stories that are real.

Here gay and lesbian people
have lived...

braving ostracism, loving, surviving.

There are so many real heroic stories.

- Your parents know you're gay?
- Sure.

Told 'em when I was 16.

sixteen?

I had a boyfriend in high school.
They freaked.

You know, the usual bullshit.

"How could you choose
this kind of lifestyle, Peter?"

I said, "Hey, it chose me."

I want you to get dressed and leave.

- No, you don't.
- Yes, I do.

No, you don't.

I wouldn't know what to do.

You can start by putting
the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door.

Hollywood still runs scared
from people...

who feel that the very mention
of homosexuality...

the very display of it,
in some form, on the screen...

legitimizes the subject.

Well, of course it does. It shows
that homosexuals are human beings.

The movies could be making us
laugh a lot more and cry a lot more...

if they would actually acknowledge
the true diversity of humanity.

- Not fair. You've been in love a bunch.
- Just once, really.

Now he's gone, right?

He's right here.

I love you.

I love you too.