The Celluloid Closet (1995) Movie Script

1
[classical music playing]
Tommy, hit it up. Let's have it.
[band playing lively dance music]
- May I cut in?
- Why, certainly.
Boys will be boys. Whoo!
[uplifting music playing]
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.
Oh!
Go right ahead, boys. Don't mind me.
But you're not a girl. You're a guy.
- Why would a guy wanna marry a guy?
- Security.
I think that the right woman
could reform you.
You know, I think the right woman
could reform you too.
Oh!
These aren't my clothes.
Well, why are you wearing these clothes?
Because I just went gay all of a sudden!
[pensive music playing]
[Tomlin] 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
that we all share.
And 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,
you know, 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.
And that hunger that I felt as a kid
looking for gay images
was to not be alone.
[poignant music playing]
[Crisp]
My mother took me to the silent movies
in a spirit of ostentatious condescension.
She told me that they were
nothing like real life
and that I must not believe them.
And she was wrong.
Because 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.
[Tomlin] From the very beginning,
movies could rely on homosexuality
as a surefire source of humor.
[inaudible dialogue]
Your ideas about who you are
don't just come from inside you.
They come from the culture.
And in this culture,
they come from movies.
So we learn from the movies
what it means to be a man or a woman,
what it means to have sexuality.
[pensive music playing]
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 an extraordinary moment
where Chaplin kisses
someone who looks like a man.
He knows that it's a woman.
And 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.
[Grayston] 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.
[Tomlin] Enter the sissy,
Hollywood's first gay stock character.
[lively dance music playing]
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.
[Allen] They were sissies.
They were never addressed as homosexual.
It was a convention
that was totally accepted.
They were perceived as homosexuals
just subliminally.
Uh, this was a subject
that was not discussed privately.
Uh, certainly not publicly.
It wasn't discussed, but you knew.
They were all very prissy,
you know, 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 you 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 last night?
Strangler Lewis.
Oh! Catch as catch can, hm?
I'm telling you,
if we could get the runs with this show
that 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 stepin fetchits for the Blacks.
I liked the sissy.
Um...
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...
[Tomlin] 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 and snark
[Crisp] Well, 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.
[dance music playing]
[audience booing]
[Bright] I saw Marlene Dietrich 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.
And there's the scene
where she comes into a nightclub,
and she's just stunning in this tuxedo.
May I have this?
Of course.
[all laughing]
And the camera lingers.
I mean, it wasn't like I was 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 just like, "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.
And 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.
[audience laughing and cheering]
[Christina] Ebba!
Come in!
[Aage] Now, don't dally, Your Majesty.
You have a busy day.
Morning, Ebba.
- What are you doing up so early?
- I couldn't sleep.
[Tomlin] 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 of the ones
that are not desirable.
But that we will have cleaner
and better motion pictures
so that they may all stay open.
[tranquil music playing]
What happened, of course,
in the '20s and '30s
when they began to get very raunchy,
the Catholic Church and
fundamentalist Protestants came down hard.
It was a lot of pulpit stuff.
A lot of preaching
about orgiastic aspects
of what was happening on the screen.
[Vidal] 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.
And 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.
[ominous music playing]
[Tomlin] 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.
[music crescendos]
[Tomlin] Code director Joe Breen
ran Hollywood's censorship machinery
for over two decades.
He was authorized to change words,
personalities and plots.
[ominous music continues]
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 pretty 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.
[Tomlin] For all its efforts,
the production code
didn't erase homosexuals from the screen.
It just made them harder to find.
And now they had a new identity.
As cold-blooded villains.
I'm ready now.
[dramatic music playing]
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!
- [dramatic sting plays]
- [Lily screams]
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?
[Bright]
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.
And that is, Rebecca is dead.
She was the beautiful woman
who is mysteriously
not on the scene any longer.
And 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?
[suspenseful music playing]
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.
And if a director was subtle enough
and clever enough, they got around it.
[Samuel]
What'll it cost to be on the safe side?
Okay, go ahead.
Gardenia.
Quick, darling. In with him.
[Dyer] 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.
And then we also hear some kind of funny,
slightly Oriental, feminine music.
[ominous pensive music playing]
- You'll sit down, Mr. Cairo?
- Thank you, sir.
[Tomlin] 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?
[Tomlin]
The movie could only hint, broadly.
See, Mr. Spade, I'm trying to recover
an ornament that, uh,
shall we say, has been mislaid?
- Uh-huh.
- I thought and hoped you could assist me.
That ornament is a statuette.
A black figure of a bird.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tomlin] 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.
I mean, nobody said anything about it.
This was 1947. Let's not forget that.
That was one of the points of the film,
in a way.
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?
[Laurents] I don't think the censors
at that time realized
that this was about gay people.
They didn't have a clue
what was and what wasn't.
That's how it got by.
[Tomlin] Sometimes the censors turned
a blind eye to lesbians on the screen,
as long as they were kept
safely behind bars.
Hi, Anne!
[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.
Goodbye, 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.
[Bright] There's supposed to be
a social message to all this.
"Isn't it terrible to go to prison?
Isn't it terrible 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.
[woman laughs]
She's a cute trick.
I may be wrong but...
[Bright] 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 just which door
you're going to walk through.
She's so terribly normal.
I may be wrong...
She's a good singer too.
I think you're swell
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,
then go back to my place.
How nice of you to come
to the party, Richard.
This is my husband.
Ms. 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.
[Allen] 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
that 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--
A folk singer.
[Tom] The grief
Of love endures...
[Tomlin]
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--
No!
I'm just trying to help you!
Nobody gave a damn
about how I walked till last week!
Okay! Okay! Forget it!
- Al?
- Yeah?
[Dyer] 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?
[Dyer]
We know the Sal Mineo 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.
[dramatic music playing]
You wanna 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?
[Stern] 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.
[Jim] Are you cold?
[Stern]
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 your friend!
- Yeah, we got eyes for him.
[Dyer] The real rebel seems to me
the Sal Mineo character.
He's got something
to be rebellious about,
namely, being gay
and in a homophobic society.
He, of course, has to be killed.
- [Jim] Turn out the lights!
- [Judy] Jim!
[Dyer] That's what happens to real rebels
in our society.
[dramatic music playing]
[gunshot]
Well, you got very good
at projecting subtext
without saying a word
about what you were doing.
The best example I lived through
was writing Ben-Hur.
[crowd yelling]
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.
Well, 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, "Well, look, 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 rather vaguely, looking around.
And Willie finally said, "Well, it's
certainly better than what we've got.
We'll try it."
[dramatic music playing]
After all these years.
Still close.
In every way.
[Vidal] He said,
"You talked to anybody about this?"
And I said no.
He said, "You talk to Boyd. Messala.
Uh...
Don't say anything to Heston.
Because 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.
And Stephen Boyd is acting it to pieces.
There are looks that he gives him
that are just so clear.
[dramatic music playing]
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.
[enchanting music playing]
Once I had a secret love
That lived within
The heart of me
[Tomlin] Hollywood had learned
to write movies between the lines.
And some members of the audience
had learned to watch them that way.
Gosh almighty!
You're the prettiest thing I ever seen.
Never knowed a woman
could look like that.
Say.
- 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.
[Laurents] Gay audiences were desperate
to find something.
I think all minority audiences
watch movies with hope.
They hope they will see
what they wanna see.
That's why nobody
really sees the same movie.
- Let's give them a hand over here.
- Sure.
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,
I think, funny,
because of their delight
in playing the sexuality of the gun.
You know, 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.
And what's interesting about that
is that, of course,
is what it was 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
[men] One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
[Rudnick] There were films
even in the '50s that got away
with an amazing amount
of at least gay subtext.
My God, I think you can't keep
gay life or behavior out of the movies.
It's like keeping it
out of life in general.
So it sort of pops up,
often in somewhat hidden
or somewhat coded ways.
In the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
there's a gym full of bodybuilders
who have absolutely no interest
in Jane Russell.
Don't anyone know about birds and bees
Ain't there anyone here for love?
Sweet love
Ain't there anyone
Here for
Love?
[lively dance music playing]
Doubles? Anyone?
Court's free!
Two out of three?
Anyone?
[whistles]
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.
[groans] Them!
Well, in Hollywood,
for years and 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 they married.
No sex before marriage.
I mean, and that was the law of Hollywood.
[Jan] What a marvelous-looking man.
I wonder if he's single.
[Brad] I don't know how long
I can get away with this act,
but she's sure worth a try.
[Maupin]
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 really liked
to see the old Doris Day films.
I think one of the reasons
we laughed at them so hard
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 that Rock Hudson played
posed as gay
in order to get a woman into bed.
Tell me about your job.
Must be very exciting working with
all them colors and fabrics and all.
[piano playing light jazz music]
[Maupin] It was tremendously ironic
because here was a gay man
impersonating a straight man
impersonating a gay man.
Mmm-mmm!
Ain't these tasty?
Wonder if I could get the recipe?
Sure would like to surprise my ma
when I go back home.
[lively jazz music playing]
[Curtis]
Listen, we're all half man, half woman.
I mean, 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,
a little bit of Eve Arden.
My name is Josephine.
- I'm Daphne.
- Hm?
I thought my top lip was a little thin,
so every time I stopped talking I would:
Men!
Oh, 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, you know?
Osgood, I'm gonna level with you.
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 now,
I've been living with a saxophone player.
I forgive you.
I can never have children.
We can adopt some.
But you don't understand, Osgood.
Oh!
I'm a man!
Well, nobody's perfect.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tomlin] 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?
Hm?
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?
Uh-oh.
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 gonna be asked
to do something
that 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.
[Curtis] And they cut that scene out.
I have never seen such a time
in my life with censorship.
You started drinking with your friend
Skipper's death. That's the truth, huh?
[thunder crashing]
[Vidal]
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?
- Nothing but--
- But what?
Come on. Say what's on your mind.
Say it!
- Why are you so excited?
- Go ahead! Say it!
- What are you shouting for?
- Skipper and I were friends.
- Can you understand that?
- Gooper and Mae said that Skipper was--
Skipper is the only thing
that I've got left to believe in!
- You are dragging it through the gutter!
- Now, just--
You are making it
shameful and filthy, you--
[Vidal] It was clear to anybody on
the right wavelength what you were doing.
You just couldn't use the word.
And 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.
[Vidal] The Legion of Decency,
headed by this sort of
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,
you know.
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 something.
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.
[Tomlin] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[Elizabeth] 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--
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 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] A taut tense drama of the most
un-talked-about subject of our time.
[Tomlin]
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!
[Tomlin] Back in Hollywood,
the production code
had gradually been whittled away.
Moviemakers, fed up with restrictions,
set out to smash the last taboo.
[dramatic music playing]
Homosexuality was finally
being talked about on the screen,
but only as something
that nice people didn't talk about.
And 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.
[MacLaine]
At the time we made the picture,
there were not real discussions
about homosexuality.
Do you know what you're saying?
[MacLaine]
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 mindset...
of, um...
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! [sobs]
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,
"Oh, my God. What's wrong with me?
I'm so polluted. I've ruined you."
She would fight.
She would fight
for her budding preference.
And 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, uh, 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!
I feel so damn sick and dirty!
I can't stand it anymore!
[MacLaine] 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.
People do feel that way today still.
And there's part of me,
despite all my little signs, you know,
like, "Happy, proud, well-adjusted,
bisexual, queer, kinky,"
you know, 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 Leffingwell matter,
you ought to remember
what happened in Hawaii.
Then he hung up.
[tense pensive music playing]
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.
Well, I've been on the front pages
the past few days.
Bound to get some crackpot calls.
Just hang up if you get any more.
[Maupin] 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.
[light jazz music playing]
[man] Let me hear a voice
A secret voice
A voice that will say...
[Maupin] Senator Brigham Anderson,
who's being blackmailed,
goes to check out
this former lover at a bar.
[man] Be what I need you to be...
[Maupin] 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.
Gee, don't run off.
Hearts, I've found
Are tightly bound...
Ray!
Ray! You're with me!
Brig?
- Wait a moment, Brig.
- Taxi!
- Let me explain. Brig, wait a moment.
- Taxi!
[Ray] I needed money, Brig!
Well, you wouldn't see me.
I kept calling. I was drunk.
Drive to the airport.
Drive, will you? 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.
And 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, Hallie...
Oh, well, perhaps,
maturity will change all that.
What do you think I'll mature into? You?
Now, 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.
- Ah!
It's gone quite far already, hasn't it?
You'd like to make him happy.
- Make all his dreams come true.
- And mine too.
- Perhaps even get married.
- Yes, even get married.
All right, Hallie.
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?
Go on and tell him!
Tell him about the days
and nights of Hallie 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.
[Colin] The thought of turning-- [scoffs]
--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, Miss Banford?
[clock ticking]
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 really the same as the fate of
all characters who are sexually free.
Hallie? Hallie!
[siren wailing]
- Get Jo out of here! Get her out.
- No! No!
- Come on.
- Hallie! Hallie!
[Laurents] 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 certainly 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!
- I want to talk--
You bitch!
[dramatic music playing]
[Tomlin] 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-- [screams]
Kill her. Kill her! Kill her!
Kill her! Kill her!
[dramatic music playing]
[gunshot]
[screaming]
Oh, Martha...
I'll tell you something, Hally.
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. Whoo!
- All right.
- Wait a minute.
- One, two, three, four.
It's the geriatrics Rockettes.
[Tomlin] Finally, it happened.
Hollywood made a movie in which gay men
took a long, hard look at their own lives.
[Emory]
It's the Sensational Menstruations!
[Tomlin] And in a refreshing twist,
they all survived.
[Sandler] I remember 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.
Step, baby!
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.
And 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,
and if I smoke a little grass
before I get up the nerve
to show my face to the world,
it's nobody's goddamn business but my own.
And how are you this evening?
[Crowley] 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 that I saw things then.
[Harold] 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.
[laughs]
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.
[unsettling music playing]
You went into a gay bar, you know,
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.
[sobs]
If we could just learn
not to hate ourselves...
quite so very much.
[poignant music playing]
The first film that really
celebrated homosexuality,
as far as I was concerned, was Cabaret.
[cabaret music playing on record player]
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?
It'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, uh...
here.
It's a little early in the day
for this sort of thing, isn't it?
[music stops]
Maybe you just don't sleep with girls.
Oh.
You don't.
Well, 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?
Sally, you don't ask questions like that.
I do.
The boy was homosexual.
And it just seemed rational.
It seemed reasonable.
It seemed--
I mean, that's what the story was.
Nobody-- There was no fuss with anybody.
None at all.
Oh, screw Maximilian!
I do.
So do I.
[Allen] So things changed
more quickly than you might imagine.
- And who are you?
- I'm Bernstein.
You're Jewish?
No, darling, I'm gay.
[dance music playing over speakers]
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 as a homosexual rather
than a white character as a homosexual.
Why? You know? I don't understand that.
But I do understand it,
just like it's more easy for us
to have the sitcoms
and 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 calling sorry-looking?
Can't y'all see that she ain't funny?
She's just another poor example
of how the system is destroying our men.
Honey, I am more man than you'll ever be
and more woman than you'll ever get.
- [scoffs]
- [men laugh]
Yeah! All right! All right!
[Tomlin] But there was a downside
to the new gay visibility.
The threat of retaliation
could be waiting just down the road.
[Hanks] This is the first image
that I remember hamming about
anybody being gay
in a motion picture that I saw.
And it was the hitchhikers
that were picked up in Vanishing Point.
Pardon me, but could you please 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, very tight
and pinched clothes.
He had sort of
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?
Hey.
This is a stickup.
Stickup?
Why are you laughing, Mary?
[Hanks] We all howled, because all you saw
was the car speeding at 60 miles an hour,
and then screeching to a stop,
and the two guys were thrown out.
We all thought that was great.
"Did you see?"
"Remember when the two gay guys
or two homos were thrown out of the car?"
We thought that was amazing.
There it was, almost,
the image of what a homosexual was.
Bitch!
To be a gay man meant that
not only did you wear pinched clothes
and you had this kind of look on your face
but you carried a purse as well.
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 sort of the villain,
the killer or is killed,
and the audience
would burst into applause.
I remember I was with a lot of friends
and we were watching Freebie and the Bean.
And all of a sudden,
there's this killer transvestite
who does sort of a murderous ballet.
Of course, triumphantly,
our hero pulls out a gun,
and blows five million holes
through the murderous transvestite,
and the audience bursts 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.
[Dyer] You know you're watching
a heterosexual movie,
you know that's the deal when you pay
to see a Hollywood movie, but you don't--
Somehow, 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.
Wait. Are you gonna tell me you're a fag?
If you'll 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 either 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...
uh...
just anyone talking to anyone else.
Hey, Ram. Doesn't this cafeteria
have a "No Fags Allowed" rule?
Hey, killer. Why are you on your knees?
You queer or something?
I know what you've been after,
you goddamn faggot.
You must be creaming
all over your little 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 going faggot?
Dude, you turning fag on me or what?
You're a tough country faggot, ain't you?
What do you faggots want?
You hear me, you fucking 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.
It becomes the prevailing attitude.
It becomes the way people
perceive gay people.
[rock music playing over speakers]
[Tomlin] 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?
[Nyswaner] 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.
As I was sort of escaping from
the hands of one of them, he said to me:
"If you saw the movie Cruising,
you know what you deserve."
[killer] Who's here?
I'm here.
You're here.
Now I'm afraid.
[Tomlin] Homosexuals in movies
had changed from victims to victimizers.
[tense music playing]
Show it.
Lift up the sweater.
Please, please, please.
Please, please--
You made me do that.
[dramatic music playing]
Stop the movie Cruising!
Stop the movie Cruising!
Stop the movie Cruising!
Gays, fight back! Gays, fight back!
[Tomlin] One movie was so bold
as to depict homosexuality
as an act of love, not violence.
So Hollywood had to warn the public.
[Sandler] This was 1982.
There hadn't been
any gay characters in leading roles.
And it was a big jump.
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.
Bart?
Zach?
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 possibly,
possibly play someone who was gay,
that it would destroy their career.
There was the general perception,
at least in the early '80s,
I don't know what it's like now,
but that Hollywood
was pretty much a cowboy town,
and 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?"
And why I do that, I don't know.
But then I'll stop myself and say,
"That's really ridiculous.
You've been there, you've done that."
The question is, why do we care?
I mean, who cares?
I'll do that.
The studio-- 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...
uh, the rough cut of the film.
Now none of my colleagues would be there.
They were all afraid.
So I was there by myself,
sitting 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 he said:
"You made a goddamn faggot movie!"
And stalked out.
[tender music playing]
[Sandler] 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 on the screen.
It kept escalating.
And when they had the first kiss,
uh, you thought that there was
an explosion in the theater.
People panicked.
I mean, it was pandemonium.
People started, like,
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 like them,
because if I liked them,
I would eat them, and I hate them."
[dramatic music playing]
[inaudible dialogue]
[Tomlin] 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.
What you are!
I'll kill you for that!
[Schlesinger] 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 very both self-righteous
and tries to bury it
as if it didn't exist, which is silly.
- Are you all right?
- Mm-hm.
[Schlesinger]
We had quite an argument about the kiss.
The screenwriter felt the whole thing
should be in long shot and silhouetted.
I said, "No way.
It should just happen."
And that's what we did.
[classical music playing]
[Bright] There's a world of difference
between how an audience looks at
two men getting it on
and two women getting it on.
There's a comfort with female nudity,
and female girlishness
and kind of 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.
[Goldberg] I think straight men
are more uncomfortable
with two men making love,
because somehow that means
you're weak, you know.
And people equate weakness
with male sensuality towards other men,
not realizing that
that's a ridiculous theory.
But that's why people say,
"Oh, 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 going.
What do you mean?
[Sarandon]
Oh, I think it's much easier for audiences
to accept two women
being affectionate than two men.
That's a big, big taboo.
You sure?
Yeah.
Hit it.
[dramatic music playing]
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.
My feeling was that they were
beyond sexuality. It was love.
If you're about to go off a cliff,
I don't think you're making
a pass at somebody.
To me, it was a declaration of...
they were at a point where they
were finishing each other's sentences,
and they were really there for each other
in the tradition of Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid,
except that they didn't go down
in a rain of bullets.
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.
Um...
But they did what guys do in movies.
Instead, they got their guns out,
'cause they couldn't get their dicks out.
They got their guns out,
and they went down with their guns.
That's what boys do.
[playing classical music]
Are you making a pass at me,
Mrs. Blaylock?
Miriam.
Miriam.
Not that I'm aware of, Sarah.
[Sarandon] Originally, in the script,
it was kind of a Playboy version
of them getting together.
In other words, it had a lot to do
with lingerie and posing,
and there was no real scene.
And so I said that I really thought
that what was sexy
would be the first moment
that people touch.
So I came up with the little scene
where she spills something on herself,
and she gives her something,
and they touch that way,
and they have a kiss,
and then you go into all of the kind of
"curtains blowing over their bodies"
stuff that's happening.
[dramatic classical music playing]
The other thing was,
they felt I should be really drunk.
So that was their way of getting--
Taking away her choice, in a sense.
And I insisted that that not be that way.
That certainly, you know,
you wouldn't have to get drunk
to bed Catherine Deneuve.
I don't care what your sexual history
to that point had been.
And that 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.
And so it's actually
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,
just the affection itself, is too much.
Guys are supposed to be
strong and unfeeling.
[tender music playing]
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?
You gotta 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 getting married?
As soon as the summer's over.
[Bright] 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,
we all get paid more
than our fathers ever made.
And there's always the fear that
they're gonna take it away from us,
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.
[poignant music playing]
[Hanks] 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 hearts
when I enter the room
or first appear on screen.
And because of it, then,
this idea of a gay man
with AIDS 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.
Shame. It's just--
Oh, uh... What about my blood work?
We're waiting. Meanwhile,
I wanna prep you for a colonoscopy.
We wanna take a look inside.
Sounds delightful.
Wait a minute. Why do you need to do this?
Who are you?
[Miguel] Who are you, doctor...?
- [Andrew] This is my partner.
- Yeah?
Uh...
He keeps records of my hospital visits.
It's nothing personal.
Oh, uh, 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? I mean...
A reaction to the AZT?
[Klenstein]
All of these are possibilities,
but we've got to perform the colonoscopy.
[Miguel] Listen, he's not going through
some painful procedure
until we cancel out everything else.
You know what I mean?
- I'm trying to help your partner. Okay?
- Okay.
- You're not in his immediate family.
- I'm not?
- I could have you removed from the ER.
- Really?
Look, he's upset. He's sorry.
No. Don't apologize for me, okay?
Okay, he's not sorry.
The idea that there had to be
an audience out there that wanted to see
stories about, uh, being gay in America,
who wanted to see stories
about a guy who has AIDS 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
at your supermarket,
and you have a choice between:
"Jeez, what movie
should we go see? Let's see.
We can go see the movie
about super spies from outer space,
a cow who talks, the lawyer who has AIDS,
or the big puppet show."
They're like, "Let's-- I guess the lawyer
with AIDS. Wanna go see?
The lawyer with AIDS,
that's the one that's most different."
Philadelphia was terrific,
but I don't think it proves anything,
in the sense that it's a story
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 AIDS 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.
[slow dance music playing]
[Hanks]
We all end up sort of making our choice
of who we're gonna be in love with
for the rest of our lives.
It seems that's what
we're all searching for.
And Andy found Miguel,
and 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. It's the speed of light.
I think that's what the movie is saying,
is that it is all the same.
Love is spelled
with the same four letters.
And go on
All the reading I was given to do
in school was always 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.
[Fierstein]
Which is why, when people say to me:
"Your work is not really gay work.
It's universal,"
and I say, "Up yours. It's gay.
And 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."
[hopeful music playing]
[Tomlin]
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 generation before us had all the fun,
and we get to pick up the fucking tab.
Oh, movies are important,
and they're dangerous, because it's, um...
We're the keeper of the dreams.
You go into a little dark room
and become incredibly vulnerable,
and on one hand,
all your perspectives can be challenged.
You can feel something
you couldn't feel normally.
It can encourage you
to be the protagonist in your own life.
And on the other hand,
it can completely misshape you.
[Oxenberg] 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.
Because think of all
the heroic stories that are real.
Here, gay and lesbian people have lived,
braving the ostracism of society,
loving each other, surviving.
There are so many heroic stories
that are just real.
- Your parents know you're gay?
- Sure.
- Told them when I was 16.
- Sixteen?
Yeah. 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, guys, it chose me."
I want you to put on
your clothes and leave.
- [Cay] 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.
You.
- I love you.
- I love you too.
["Secret Love" playing]
Once I had a secret love
That lived within the heart of me
All too soon my secret love
Became impatient to be free
So I told a friendly star
The way that dreamers often do
Just how wonderful you are
And why I'm so in love with you
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
[lilting classical music playing]