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.